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Personal Finance Advice and Education! (3 Viewers)

These things always blow me away - the percentage of folks who are paycheck to paycheck is insane. Not for the poor folk, but for the folks that earn 150k-200k (47%) and above 200k (28%). The PYMENTS report that this links to is even more eye opening. I can't imagine earning 200k+ and having every penny go out that's coming in.

Rule 1 of the Personal Finance thread - don't bloody spend all your money like it's a Tik Tok challenge.


I don't disagree with your overall take, but the answer depends a lot on where you live. $200K means different things if you live in San Diego vs. Raleigh, NC, two places I have lived for many years. There are significant deltas in cost of housing, taxes, and other cost of living components.

My BIL and his wife live in San Diego area. They have a high mortgage (not interest rate, monthly payment), two car leases, private school payments for their two kids, high taxes, and assorted other high costs of living. I'm not sure they live "paycheck to paycheck" but they probably aren't too far from that, and I would guess they combine to earn $200K per year or so. Obviously, they made life choices that put them in their current situation, but they are happy, at least right now.
Car leases. Ughh. Private school payments. Double Ughh. Especially when in San Diego they have some of the top public school districts in the country (Poway, etc)
 
Where is it going?! Jeez. I mean I understand my wife and I are lucky with zero debt (other than house with ridiculously low interest rate), no student loan or car payments, no alimony or child support - but still. What are folks spending all their money on?!
Car payments, outrageous mortgage payments, student loan debt, medical debt, private schooling/daycare....
Don’t forget vacations. We share a beach house with 3 other families every 4th of July. It finally got expensive enough that we went with a slightly smaller house and that’s with 4 families splitting it.

My youngest turns 16 in the spring and will need a car next year. Middle son will be at college and I think I've decided that we’ll share my car. Wife and I have worked from home for years, pre-pandemic and I don’t really feel like buying a new (mine was slightly used) car yet. Maybe a few years when he’s in college. I like that we have 1 payment (bought late 2020 before the spike, thank goodness) and that will be just about done when he graduates. He can take my current car and I’ll get something. It does have memory seats and mirrors so it’ll be easy to share.

Credit card debt will kill people as those rates ratchet up. I guess HELOCs could too. If people need to refinance or take money out, they’ll either get killed on refinance or home equity loans compared to a year ago.
 
not sure if it was posted here, but the 401k 2023 max limit was increased to $22.5k and the over age 50 catch-up moved up to $7.5k.

i think this is a $3k increase from 2022. not too ****ty.
Yeah but they didn't adjust the IRA limit.
It went from 6k to 6.5k.
That's right, just disappointed how little it went up, would rather do IRA than 401k.

I like the match in my 401k. Max out contributions + 50% match? Thanks. ~31k to ~34k... ill take it.

Nice match. Mine barely adds $4k for the year. So that’s about $27k total in the TSP, $13k in two IRAs, then everything else is taxable. But then with a bathroom remodel and two kids in college we’ll be adding to Sand’s least favorite stat, living “paycheck to paycheck” 🤷
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
That sounds like a great plan, I even aim to eliminate all liabilities which is hard in real estate but I’m getting there. No vehicles unless I can pay cash.
 
These things always blow me away - the percentage of folks who are paycheck to paycheck is insane. Not for the poor folk, but for the folks that earn 150k-200k (47%) and above 200k (28%). The PYMENTS report that this links to is even more eye opening. I can't imagine earning 200k+ and having every penny go out that's coming in.

Rule 1 of the Personal Finance thread - don't bloody spend all your money like it's a Tik Tok challenge.


I don't disagree with your overall take, but the answer depends a lot on where you live. $200K means different things if you live in San Diego vs. Raleigh, NC, two places I have lived for many years. There are significant deltas in cost of housing, taxes, and other cost of living components.

My BIL and his wife live in San Diego area. They have a high mortgage (not interest rate, monthly payment), two car leases, private school payments for their two kids, high taxes, and assorted other high costs of living. I'm not sure they live "paycheck to paycheck" but they probably aren't too far from that, and I would guess they combine to earn $200K per year or so. Obviously, they made life choices that put them in their current situation, but they are happy, at least right now.
Car leases. Ughh. Private school payments. Double Ughh. Especially when in San Diego they have some of the top public school districts in the country (Poway, etc)
So those folks that are getting student loan relief? Looks like they plan to spend the windfall on travel and restaurants. Nice to know I'm funding Gen Z's European vacation. Sigh.

 
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These things always blow me away - the percentage of folks who are paycheck to paycheck is insane. Not for the poor folk, but for the folks that earn 150k-200k (47%) and above 200k (28%). The PYMENTS report that this links to is even more eye opening. I can't imagine earning 200k+ and having every penny go out that's coming in.

Rule 1 of the Personal Finance thread - don't bloody spend all your money like it's a Tik Tok challenge.


I don't disagree with your overall take, but the answer depends a lot on where you live. $200K means different things if you live in San Diego vs. Raleigh, NC, two places I have lived for many years. There are significant deltas in cost of housing, taxes, and other cost of living components.

My BIL and his wife live in San Diego area. They have a high mortgage (not interest rate, monthly payment), two car leases, private school payments for their two kids, high taxes, and assorted other high costs of living. I'm not sure they live "paycheck to paycheck" but they probably aren't too far from that, and I would guess they combine to earn $200K per year or so. Obviously, they made life choices that put them in their current situation, but they are happy, at least right now.
Car leases. Ughh. Private school payments. Double Ughh. Especially when in San Diego they have some of the top public school districts in the country (Poway, etc)
So those folks that are getting student loan relief? Looks like they plan to spend the windfall on travel and restaurants. Nice to know I'm funding Gen Z's European vacation. Sigh.

:shock: shocked I say!
People who have more money in hand spend more?
Anyone thinking this was really about helping students was fooling themselves. It’s a gift to stimulate the economy through a politically tenable program.
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
How does that account for home and mortgage? If my only debt is mortgage at $300k, is the suggestion that I have $1.5M to $3M during my peak years in assets? (Fwiw, I’m nowhere near the $3M)
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
How does that account for home and mortgage? If my only debt is mortgage at $300k, is the suggestion that I have $1.5M to $3M during my peak years in assets? (Fwiw, I’m nowhere near the $3M)
FWiW I’m no where near the $1.5m
 
These things always blow me away - the percentage of folks who are paycheck to paycheck is insane. Not for the poor folk, but for the folks that earn 150k-200k (47%) and above 200k (28%). The PYMENTS report that this links to is even more eye opening. I can't imagine earning 200k+ and having every penny go out that's coming in.

Rule 1 of the Personal Finance thread - don't bloody spend all your money like it's a Tik Tok challenge.


I don't disagree with your overall take, but the answer depends a lot on where you live. $200K means different things if you live in San Diego vs. Raleigh, NC, two places I have lived for many years. There are significant deltas in cost of housing, taxes, and other cost of living components.

My BIL and his wife live in San Diego area. They have a high mortgage (not interest rate, monthly payment), two car leases, private school payments for their two kids, high taxes, and assorted other high costs of living. I'm not sure they live "paycheck to paycheck" but they probably aren't too far from that, and I would guess they combine to earn $200K per year or so. Obviously, they made life choices that put them in their current situation, but they are happy, at least right now.
Car leases. Ughh. Private school payments. Double Ughh. Especially when in San Diego they have some of the top public school districts in the country (Poway, etc)
So those folks that are getting student loan relief? Looks like they plan to spend the windfall on travel and restaurants. Nice to know I'm funding Gen Z's European vacation. Sigh.

Should've bought a mountain bike instead
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
How does that account for home and mortgage? If my only debt is mortgage at $300k, is the suggestion that I have $1.5M to $3M during my peak years in assets? (Fwiw, I’m nowhere near the $3M)
Yes, although remember to account for your home value as an asset.
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
How does that account for home and mortgage? If my only debt is mortgage at $300k, is the suggestion that I have $1.5M to $3M during my peak years in assets? (Fwiw, I’m nowhere near the $3M)
FWiW I’m no where near the $1.5m
I just have found that it's a good guide to try to meet. Adding up my assets and liabilities may show whether I really should buy that new house with only 5% down. Is it worth the mortgage for the value of the house? We decided against a new house recently and just used some money to upgrade our current house.
 
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
How does that account for home and mortgage? If my only debt is mortgage at $300k, is the suggestion that I have $1.5M to $3M during my peak years in assets? (Fwiw, I’m nowhere near the $3M)
Yes, although remember to account for your home value as an asset.
Sure. We’re fortunate that our home is worth almost double the remaining mortgage, although we just bought it 6 years ago with zero down. (30 year mortgage, no intention of paying down faster)
Best advice I got was to try to have at least 5 times more Assets than Liabilities. And to try to get closer to 10 times more as you get into your peak earning years.
How does that account for home and mortgage? If my only debt is mortgage at $300k, is the suggestion that I have $1.5M to $3M during my peak years in assets? (Fwiw, I’m nowhere near the $3M)
FWiW I’m no where near the $1.5m
I just have found that it's a good guide to try to meet. Adding up my assets and liabilities may show whether I really should buy that new house with only 5% down. Is it worth the mortgage for the value of the house? We decided against a new house recently and just used some money to upgrade our current house.

That’s fair, and the ratio makes a lot of sense if you’re considering buying more real estate or taking on more debt.
 
These things always blow me away - the percentage of folks who are paycheck to paycheck is insane. Not for the poor folk, but for the folks that earn 150k-200k (47%) and above 200k (28%). The PYMENTS report that this links to is even more eye opening. I can't imagine earning 200k+ and having every penny go out that's coming in.

Rule 1 of the Personal Finance thread - don't bloody spend all your money like it's a Tik Tok challenge.


I don't disagree with your overall take, but the answer depends a lot on where you live. $200K means different things if you live in San Diego vs. Raleigh, NC, two places I have lived for many years. There are significant deltas in cost of housing, taxes, and other cost of living components.

My BIL and his wife live in San Diego area. They have a high mortgage (not interest rate, monthly payment), two car leases, private school payments for their two kids, high taxes, and assorted other high costs of living. I'm not sure they live "paycheck to paycheck" but they probably aren't too far from that, and I would guess they combine to earn $200K per year or so. Obviously, they made life choices that put them in their current situation, but they are happy, at least right now.
Car leases. Ughh. Private school payments. Double Ughh. Especially when in San Diego they have some of the top public school districts in the country (Poway, etc)
So those folks that are getting student loan relief? Looks like they plan to spend the windfall on travel and restaurants. Nice to know I'm funding Gen Z's European vacation. Sigh.

Yup.
 
OK guys, we have money in about 15 different accounts and I'm tired of tracking in excel. Is there an app or a site that you can link all of your accounts to?
 
OK guys, we have money in about 15 different accounts and I'm tired of tracking in excel. Is there an app or a site that you can link all of your accounts to?

Mint (good for budgeting and spend tracking) and Personal Capital (more investment focused, with some decent tools to analyze your portfolio) are two I've used. With Personal Capital you will get calls from their advisors trying to set up meetings, as they have a paid asset management business.
 
OK guys, we have money in about 15 different accounts and I'm tired of tracking in excel. Is there an app or a site that you can link all of your accounts to?

Mint (good for budgeting and spend tracking) and Personal Capital (more investment focused, with some decent tools to analyze your portfolio) are two I've used. With Personal Capital you will get calls from their advisors trying to set up meetings, as they have a paid asset management business.
I use PC and just ignore the calls. It works well.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
To be clear, I'm not worried about it being hacked. I'm worried about the company itself using the information to make my life worse. Any little bit I can do (I don't use TurboTax either for example) is worth it.
 
I'm not worried about it being hacked. I'm worried about the company itself using the information to make my life worse. Any little bit I can do (I don't use TurboTax either for example) is worth it.
TurboTax didn't properly account for the underpayment penalty that my MIL owed on her state (MD) taxes. She got hit with a small interest penalty for that underpayment penalty (like $2.00).
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.
Second to last...
Last would be Rocket or in this context, Rocket Money. Which, at one point, was owned by Intuit funny enough.

I often say that Rocket is a great marketing company that happens to do mortgages badly at a high cost but that is turning into a great marketing company that is great at gaining data to do more financial services (likely badly and at a high cost).
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
I love your faith in Government but every Americans data is already compromised. There have been so many data hacks... many that don't even make the news... that unless you have lived off grid for the past 20 years, you are compromised. If they got hacked, maybe there would be some hearings on cap hill and then they would hand out free credit monitoring for a year or something like that and everyone would continue as business as usual.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
I envy your faith in our government.
Sincerely, a government employee.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
I love your faith in Government but every Americans data is already compromised. There have been so many data hacks... many that don't even make the news... that unless you have lived off grid for the past 20 years, you are compromised. If they got hacked, maybe there would be some hearings on cap hill and then they would hand out free credit monitoring for a year or something like that and everyone would continue as business as usual.


Oh sure, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm just thinking that if, like, social security numbers were compromised so much it threatened the entire system... at least I'm in the same boat as 80% of the other people. If that happens, it is too big to ignore. If I had my data with another company that only screws over 5% of the population, the government would leave us to fend for ourselves.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
I love your faith in Government but every Americans data is already compromised. There have been so many data hacks... many that don't even make the news... that unless you have lived off grid for the past 20 years, you are compromised. If they got hacked, maybe there would be some hearings on cap hill and then they would hand out free credit monitoring for a year or something like that and everyone would continue as business as usual.


Oh sure, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm just thinking that if, like, social security numbers were compromised so much it threatened the entire system... at least I'm in the same boat as 80% of the other people. If that happens, it is too big to ignore. If I had my data with another company that only screws over 5% of the population, the government would leave us to fend for ourselves.
Credit bureaus have been hacked, that is pretty close to everyone.... nothing.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
I love your faith in Government but every Americans data is already compromised. There have been so many data hacks... many that don't even make the news... that unless you have lived off grid for the past 20 years, you are compromised. If they got hacked, maybe there would be some hearings on cap hill and then they would hand out free credit monitoring for a year or something like that and everyone would continue as business as usual.


Oh sure, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm just thinking that if, like, social security numbers were compromised so much it threatened the entire system... at least I'm in the same boat as 80% of the other people. If that happens, it is too big to ignore. If I had my data with another company that only screws over 5% of the population, the government would leave us to fend for ourselves.
Credit bureaus have been hacked, that is pretty close to everyone.... nothing.
They did mandate that freezing of your credit would be free which I sure hope everyone is taking advantage of.
 
FWIW, Mint is the last company in the world I'm willing to trust data to. It's an Intuit company. Intuit has, over the last decade, more or less spent the most money of any corporation to actively lobby to make the lives of Americans worse, consistently opposing anything that would simplify the tax code or make things clearer or more easily understood by the average American. I'm not a big "companies are evil" person, but Intuit is the only company I fully boycott. They just do too many shady things for me to believe they aren't doing something shady with Mint data too - even if it is anonymized and aggregated it seems like it will only be used to do things that hurt rather than help us.

Personally, it's weird but I feel the opposite, but for somewhat the same reason. Given how they already own QuickBooks and TurboTax, they have financial data of probably 80% of Americans already. So I reluctantly trust them to keep my personal data relatively safe... that is, I think, if they ever got hacked or compromised, it would be such a massive national cluster**** that the government would be forced to step in and rectify the situation to prevent an economic emergency.
I love your faith in Government but every Americans data is already compromised. There have been so many data hacks... many that don't even make the news... that unless you have lived off grid for the past 20 years, you are compromised. If they got hacked, maybe there would be some hearings on cap hill and then they would hand out free credit monitoring for a year or something like that and everyone would continue as business as usual.


Oh sure, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm just thinking that if, like, social security numbers were compromised so much it threatened the entire system... at least I'm in the same boat as 80% of the other people. If that happens, it is too big to ignore. If I had my data with another company that only screws over 5% of the population, the government would leave us to fend for ourselves.
Credit bureaus have been hacked, that is pretty close to everyone.... nothing.
They did mandate that freezing of your credit would be free which I sure hope everyone is taking advantage of.
False sense of security. Though it is better than not being frozen, it does not protect against all ID theft.
 
My previous company’s stock has a dividend yield which is now over 16%. The quarterly checks are great. I’m fairly certain these dividends will continue for at least a couple years. Any reason I shouldn’t just load up and get more with available cash?
 
My previous company’s stock has a dividend yield which is now over 16%. The quarterly checks are great. I’m fairly certain these dividends will continue for at least a couple years. Any reason I shouldn’t just load up and get more with available cash?
The market is saying your company is a value trap, FWIW.
 
I guess I should start doing some backdoor Roths. I was always of the mind that there is no way my taxes will be higher in retirement than they are now, so just get the deduction now. Not so sure anymore and, of course, the other benefits of a Roth like no RMD make the Roth look really good. I have about 10% in Roths now, I would like to get 25% or more.

When you start doing the conversion from traditional to Roth, the taxes due come out of your pocket as opposed to out of your retirement account, right? Apologies if that was asked/answered already.
 
I guess I should start doing some backdoor Roths. I was always of the mind that there is no way my taxes will be higher in retirement than they are now, so just get the deduction now. Not so sure anymore and, of course, the other benefits of a Roth like no RMD make the Roth look really good. I have about 10% in Roths now, I would like to get 25% or more.

When you start doing the conversion from traditional to Roth, the taxes due come out of your pocket as opposed to out of your retirement account, right? Apologies if that was asked/answered already.
You are correct, the taxes need to be paid with other non-retirement funds. Also, if you have any SEP, SIMPLE or traditional IRA accounts the conversion could be taxable on a pro-rata basis.
 
Always good to have some roth/non-taxable income. I don't think there's a chance in the world my taxes will be higher in retirement. So much of my income now goes towards retirement, college, mortgage and general kids expenses. I expect my entertainment/travel expenses to go up some and healthcare a little (probably just offset by what I'm paying for my kids healthcare now) but no where near enough to match the decrease I'll see from no longer having those other expenses. I'll probably just shift over at some point to avoid the RMD in case I decide to keep working longer b/c its easy and it fills the day.
 
I guess I should start doing some backdoor Roths. I was always of the mind that there is no way my taxes will be higher in retirement than they are now, so just get the deduction now. Not so sure anymore and, of course, the other benefits of a Roth like no RMD make the Roth look really good. I have about 10% in Roths now, I would like to get 25% or more.

When you start doing the conversion from traditional to Roth, the taxes due come out of your pocket as opposed to out of your retirement account, right? Apologies if that was asked/answered already.
You are correct, the taxes need to be paid with other non-retirement funds. Also, if you have any SEP, SIMPLE or traditional IRA accounts the conversion could be taxable on a pro-rata basis.
Can you provide a little insight on the pro-rata rule? I have two traditional IRAs and one 401K. I am considering starting a Roth IRA and moving some of my traditional IRA over to it this year and then continuing each year (staring at RMDs down the road). These are traditional accounts so I would consider everything in them to be pre-tax. My assumption was that everything I move over is going to be considered as ordinary income and taxed accordingly. I have looked over the pro-rata descriptions and I don't understand it. How would any non-Roth IRA type account have a mixture of pre and post tax money?
 
I guess I should start doing some backdoor Roths. I was always of the mind that there is no way my taxes will be higher in retirement than they are now, so just get the deduction now. Not so sure anymore and, of course, the other benefits of a Roth like no RMD make the Roth look really good. I have about 10% in Roths now, I would like to get 25% or more.

When you start doing the conversion from traditional to Roth, the taxes due come out of your pocket as opposed to out of your retirement account, right? Apologies if that was asked/answered already.
You are correct, the taxes need to be paid with other non-retirement funds. Also, if you have any SEP, SIMPLE or traditional IRA accounts the conversion could be taxable on a pro-rata basis.
Can you provide a little insight on the pro-rata rule? I have two traditional IRAs and one 401K. I am considering starting a Roth IRA and moving some of my traditional IRA over to it this year and then continuing each year (staring at RMDs down the road). These are traditional accounts so I would consider everything in them to be pre-tax. My assumption was that everything I move over is going to be considered as ordinary income and taxed accordingly. I have looked over the pro-rata descriptions and I don't understand it. How would any non-Roth IRA type account have a mixture of pre and post tax money?
The backdoor Roth is why a traditional IRA might have post tax money.

Each year, my wife and I each put $6k (or whatever the limit is) into a traditional IRA, but do not claim any tax deduction ( we put in post-tax money). Then, we convert the traditional IRA funds to our Roth IRAs. Since the money is post-tax, no tax consequence.

If either of us had a traditional IRA with pre-tax money in it, we'd have pro rata challenges.

For example, if I had $6k in a traditional already, then I did my $6k post-tax, then I converted $6k to an Roth IRA...I would be converting $3k of the pre tax money and $3k of the post-tax money, and would therefore have $3k with tax consequences.
 
I guess I should start doing some backdoor Roths. I was always of the mind that there is no way my taxes will be higher in retirement than they are now, so just get the deduction now. Not so sure anymore and, of course, the other benefits of a Roth like no RMD make the Roth look really good. I have about 10% in Roths now, I would like to get 25% or more.

When you start doing the conversion from traditional to Roth, the taxes due come out of your pocket as opposed to out of your retirement account, right? Apologies if that was asked/answered already.
You are correct, the taxes need to be paid with other non-retirement funds. Also, if you have any SEP, SIMPLE or traditional IRA accounts the conversion could be taxable on a pro-rata basis.
Can you provide a little insight on the pro-rata rule? I have two traditional IRAs and one 401K. I am considering starting a Roth IRA and moving some of my traditional IRA over to it this year and then continuing each year (staring at RMDs down the road). These are traditional accounts so I would consider everything in them to be pre-tax. My assumption was that everything I move over is going to be considered as ordinary income and taxed accordingly. I have looked over the pro-rata descriptions and I don't understand it. How would any non-Roth IRA type account have a mixture of pre and post tax money?
The backdoor Roth is why a traditional IRA might have post tax money.

Each year, my wife and I each put $6k (or whatever the limit is) into a traditional IRA, but do not claim any tax deduction ( we put in post-tax money). Then, we convert the traditional IRA funds to our Roth IRAs. Since the money is post-tax, no tax consequence.

If either of us had a traditional IRA with pre-tax money in it, we'd have pro rata challenges.

For example, if I had $6k in a traditional already, then I did my $6k post-tax, then I converted $6k to an Roth IRA...I would be converting $3k of the pre tax money and $3k of the post-tax money, and would therefore have $3k with tax consequences.
That makes sense. Thank you for the helpful example. Much appreciated.
 
My previous company’s stock has a dividend yield which is now over 16%. The quarterly checks are great. I’m fairly certain these dividends will continue for at least a couple years. Any reason I shouldn’t just load up and get more with available cash? I mean
My previous company’s stock has a dividend yield which is now over 16%. The quarterly checks are great. I’m fairly certain these dividends will continue for at least a couple years. Any reason I shouldn’t just load up and get more with available cash?
The market is saying your company is a value trap, FWIW.
expand please
 
I guess I should start doing some backdoor Roths. I was always of the mind that there is no way my taxes will be higher in retirement than they are now, so just get the deduction now. Not so sure anymore and, of course, the other benefits of a Roth like no RMD make the Roth look really good. I have about 10% in Roths now, I would like to get 25% or more.

When you start doing the conversion from traditional to Roth, the taxes due come out of your pocket as opposed to out of your retirement account, right? Apologies if that was asked/answered already.
You are correct, the taxes need to be paid with other non-retirement funds. Also, if you have any SEP, SIMPLE or traditional IRA accounts the conversion could be taxable on a pro-rata basis.
Can you provide a little insight on the pro-rata rule? I have two traditional IRAs and one 401K. I am considering starting a Roth IRA and moving some of my traditional IRA over to it this year and then continuing each year (staring at RMDs down the road). These are traditional accounts so I would consider everything in them to be pre-tax. My assumption was that everything I move over is going to be considered as ordinary income and taxed accordingly. I have looked over the pro-rata descriptions and I don't understand it. How would any non-Roth IRA type account have a mixture of pre and post tax money?
The backdoor Roth is why a traditional IRA might have post tax money.

Each year, my wife and I each put $6k (or whatever the limit is) into a traditional IRA, but do not claim any tax deduction ( we put in post-tax money). Then, we convert the traditional IRA funds to our Roth IRAs. Since the money is post-tax, no tax consequence.

If either of us had a traditional IRA with pre-tax money in it, we'd have pro rata challenges.

For example, if I had $6k in a traditional already, then I did my $6k post-tax, then I converted $6k to an Roth IRA...I would be converting $3k of the pre tax money and $3k of the post-tax money, and would therefore have $3k with tax consequences.
I’m so glad we don’t have the back door issues. It’s good to make no money.
 
Something I didn't know about ibonds. Thought others might find it edifying.

 
Something I didn't know about ibonds. Thought others might find it edifying.

Interesting, not following how the math works out there where you're better off in just 4 years but i'll take that guys word for it, I'm already in at the 9.6% rate but that leads me to believe I should buy more next year even with the lower rate.
 
So, confirming if over 50 I can contribute 30 k to my 401k and an additional 7500 to my traditional Ira for a total of 37,500, correct?
 
Something I didn't know about ibonds. Thought others might find it edifying.


With the 10k limit, you couldn't plow everything into it anyway, so there's plenty of time in 2023 to get the second rate and have the best of both :thumbup:
 
Something I didn't know about ibonds. Thought others might find it edifying.

Interesting, not following how the math works out there where you're better off in just 4 years but i'll take that guys word for it, I'm already in at the 9.6% rate but that leads me to believe I should buy more next year even with the lower rate.
The 9.62% rate is only 6 months, the 0.4% base rate is for the duration. 4 years X 0.4% = 1.6% (plus a little compounding), equatable to a 3.2% difference for 6 months.
If you’re like us, you’re better off with the higher initial rate as we won’t hold these that long. They’re earmarked for the bathroom remodel and possibly college for our oldest 2. Or an SUV.
 

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