They probably have a 4,000 sq ft house in Real America
I was kind of joking, but also kind of not. I’m not too concerned with our finances, but that’s largely because of my job - it’s secure and pays decently and I’m pretty sure I won’t mind doing it even if I’m 60-65. So if my financial planning goes wrong, the consequence is likely to be that I stumble around work for another year rather than we can’t do the things we had wanted to do.
In terms of what we currently have, it’s a big jumble of:
- 403b at current employer
- 457b at current employer that I just strated contributing like $500/month to
- My rollover IRA
- Wife’s rollover IRA
- Wife’s trivial Roth IRA
- 529 plans
- Taxable account earmarked for college
I have no idea what the right weighting of these should be, but I think that’s kind of an unanswerable question - if I posted at bogleheads for that, I’d be looking for more of an affirmation that I’m doing ok than advice like “You have overweighted your 529 funds.”
I think the only actually answerable questions for me involve:
- IRAs: I have never looked into the back door or mega back door or whatever IRA.
- Trust: We set up a living trust about 10 years ago and have never updated it or even put much thought into it since then. No idea if I should be thinking about any updates to it.
You should check out mega-back door Roth, since those are a great deal from a tax perspective. I don’t think educational institutions tend to offer those, but it doesn’t hurt to check.
Normal back door Roths are also a good deal, but with much smaller annual limits. If you already have a sizable traditional IRA balance, there will be tax consequences for doing a normal back door Roth. You may be able to avoid those, though, by rolling your IRA balance into an employer plan.
No HSA? That’s another good vehicle with crazy “triple tax advantaged” status.
Spidercrab, IIRC, has already posted about why he decided against an HSA. It’s a completely reasonable consideration, imo.
I don’t get the 529 plans + Taxable account earmarked for college unless you are maxing out your 529s. If you are, then that would make sense.
If you’re not maxing out 529s, then I’m confused. Unless the “earmarking” isn’t really set in stone.
Does your university provide for free/reduced tuition for your kids (totally cool if you don’t want to answer)? Is this factoring into how much you’re saving for this?
I’ll put the “look into back door Roths” on my list of to-dos. Don’t have a traditional IRA. As far as an HSA goes, I’m pretty sure my health insurance plan doesn’t satisfy those requirements. And I’m much better suited mentally for a low deductible plan than a high deductible plan.
There’s not actually a max contribution on the 529, so I just contribute to the extent of the state tax deduction. In OH, that was recently bumped up from $2k per kid per year to $4k per kid per year. The taxable account is just mentally earmarked for college, but no actual constraints that prevent me from using it for whatever I want.
Kind of, but it’s only a 50% reduction and it’s only applicable to my school. So that doesn’t really factor in to my plans. There are some schools that offer outrageous assistance, like “you can get tuition credit equal to this school’s tuition, and apply that credit to wherever your kid attends”. That would definitely affect my plans.
The rollover IRAs that you mention could effect your ability to do backdoor Roth’s. I ended up doing a Roth conversion on my wife’s rollover IRA so we could start doing backdoors, but I cannot remember the specifics. You can find details with minimal searching or by asking on Bogleheads.
There is a max, in a way. It’s upto the gift exclusion (15K) per parent. So you and Mrs. Spidercrab could put 30K in in each kid’s 529 every year. You are also allowed to make 1 time contribution of 5 years worth at once (i.e. you could give 150K x 1 and then not contribute again for 5 yrs).
You can exceed these limits, but then gift tax considerations come into play. So when I refer to maxing out your 529, I mean putting in as much as you can every year without gift tax issues.
Anyone* who has to do a back door to do a Roth, should be doing a back door. It’s free money.
*If you’re super wealthy, then it’s arguably a waste of time, so maybe not literally “anyone”.
That’s what I do for everything (including vacations). Seems to work fine. If anything I could probably stand to loosen up a bit.
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14 posts were merged into an existing topic: The Supreme Court: Playing Calvinball with people’s lives since 1789
My company announced today that they are expanding medical coverage for travel expense for any medical procedure that is not available in your state. This was within the hour of the announcment. Still we are deciding our plans. IUD for her and/or Vasectomy for me are on the table. While we reside in a legal state we are ENM and have multiple partners and the less risk of stray baby is preferred.
This thread reminds me of what a loser I am.
A couple years ago age 26, I hit $1 million in investments. Got up to about $1.2m before the market correction.
Now here I am and I am around $1.1m after all this time, despite investing each month. So many people in their 30s have 3-5x what I have and I realize I’ll never get there. I am such a loser. Does anyone else feel the same way?
Does it seem like I am on track financially?
https://bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6748338#p6748338
bogleheads really could use a BBV forum.
I actually tried to time the market this weekend and decided to max my Roth for the rest of the year instead of DCA $500/month. GL us!
https://twitter.com/hvogell/status/1541559860185243648
This is a good thread about single family homes getting bought by corporations and raising rents and fees. They are going after black neighborhoods, where nobody will care. They’ll get to everybody eventually.
I just got a mail flyer advertisement from a realtor:
I just sold your neighbors home. Offer in only 2 days! $20k over asking price!
And surely all of that occurred because of their expertise in home selling. They really know the market or something. What they are really saying is that we just charged tens of thousands worth of fees for literally hours worth of work. There wasn’t even an open house.
One of the dumber Realtors I’m friends with posted a meme that said, “Marry the house, date the rate.”
Just another shining example of @Riverman ’s favorite professional service (after title insurance obv)
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Pretty brilliant, tbh. Sure, he/she is the dumb one?
It’s more how annoying she is that she’s always blasting that RIGHT NOW is the perfect time to buy or sell any home with her, at ALL times, regardless of market conditions
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This sounds like a smart realtor to me.
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