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So, my 401k plan does not allow any contributions other than pre-tax payroll deductions. No Mega Roth tricks for me then, right? I'd need to be able to sweep money from my checking account into my 401k?
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Oct 21, 2014 17:45
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:I can jack my 401k contribution up to something silly like 15% for the rest of the year if I need to. If contributing 15%+ of my paycheck to my 401k is silly, I don't want to be serious. I do 17% on my ~100k salary. If you're making enough to be within spitting distance of the Roth IRA phase-out, I think it's silly that you're not contributing more to max out the annual contribution (in addition to an IRA/HSA). Even with only mediocre fund choices, the tax advantage is significant especially in the 25%+ brackets. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 18:33
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I'm trying to help my girlfriend decide if she should invest in her company's employee stock purchasing plan. Right now my thoughts are no. She can contribute 1-10% of her paycheck to purchase stock. The stock is purchased using the accrued money on the last day of the quarter at a 5% discount. The brokerage firm she uses has a trading cost of 10 cents a share sold but requires $40 minimum plus a $4 charge to mail you a check for the proceeds. Transferring the money to another brokerage firm costs $30. My rough calculation is that she would have to buy $880 worth of stock a quarter just to cover the trading costs of the stock before she even sees any of the profit. I'm not even factoring in the short term gain tax bill. I figure at this point it's much better for her just to open a Roth IRA and throw the money in index funds. Am I missing anything here? I guess the alternative is to not immediately sell the stock right away and collect the measly 2% dividend but I am not a huge fan of holding stock for your place of employment.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:42
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Christ Pseudoscientist posted:I'm trying to help my girlfriend decide if she should invest in her company's employee stock purchasing plan. Right now my thoughts are no. She can contribute 1-10% of her paycheck to purchase stock. The stock is purchased using the accrued money on the last day of the quarter at a 5% discount. The brokerage firm she uses has a trading cost of 10 cents a share sold but requires $40 minimum plus a $4 charge to mail you a check for the proceeds. Transferring the money to another brokerage firm costs $30. This reads like giving your company or its brokerage a ~3 month loan in exchange for a paltry discount and high fees. I wouldn't do it.
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Oct 21, 2014 19:32
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I have a Roth 401K through my employer, and I want to cash out the account to help with my side-business (been dabbling as a hobby for a few years, but want to take the plunge and put some real work and money into it, as it is a profitable business). I am not leaving my current employer, I simply want to cash out my current 401K account. I'm 26 and have around $8K in the account right now. I will continue contributing, but need the lump-sum of money right now to move forward with my business. I do not want to take a loan, because I feel like I have more than enough time to re-build my 401K, and this money would help me tremendously right now. My questions are: How exactly do I go about cashing out my 401K? Is it as simple as filling out some paperwork and they mail me a check, or direct-deposit? I realize there will likely be some penalties, but since I went with the Roth from the get-go, I shouldn't have to pay taxes on it when I take the money out, correct? I'm not terribly knowledgable on the matter beyond "saving for retirement = good", and Google'ing provides an incredible range of answers, none of which seem to be perfectly clear. Is there anything else I should be aware of? Our 401K account is with Great West Financial.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:25
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You probably just can't, but you could ask your HR about it.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:37
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slap me silly posted:You probably just can't, but you could ask your HR about it. What do you mean? What would prevent me from taking the money out? It's "my" money, right? I realize I may lose the amount contributed via employer matching, but I should be able to pull the money that I direct-deposited whenever I want if I pay the fees/penalties, correct? Surely they can't just hold my money forever.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:51
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Of course not. There are standard rules for withdrawals, most of which revolve around being old. At my employer, for instance, I can't withdraw from the Roth 401k except by leaving the job, or under the IRS's hardship withdrawal rules. It's probably the same where you are.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:57
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Gotcha! So, to be clear, leaving the job would render the funds immediately available for withdrawal (generally speaking--using your own job as an example)? Is there any sort of time period that must pass (24 hours, 1 month, 6 months, etc.) before I can do so?
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Oct 21, 2014 21:03
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UGAmazing posted:What do you mean? What would prevent me from taking the money out? It's "my" money, right? I realize I may lose the amount contributed via employer matching, but I should be able to pull the money that I direct-deposited whenever I want if I pay the fees/penalties, correct? Surely they can't just hold my money forever. As far as I know if you withdraw early there is a 10% penalty plus taxes due, but I'm no money expert guy.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:11
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Ulf posted:It's "your" money that's being exempted from certain taxes under the condition that you do not withdraw from it until retirement age. Thanks! I knew there would be taxes/fees (albeit less with a Roth, as that's kind of the point, right?), but for a minute I thought I had absolutely no outlet of withdrawing the money (say what?). I'm fine with a 10% fee, so long as I can actually withdraw the money. If I were 35 or 40, I probably would not even consider emptying my 401K. At 26, I feel it's (arguably) not as detrimental, especially since I'm using it to fund my small business and not to buy a new car or something (I own my car and bought a house about 18 months ago).
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Oct 21, 2014 21:21
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It'll be dependent on the capabilities set up by your HR. Many companies don't allow you to withdraw until you leave the company, but some do. You'll have to contact your HR people to see if it's possible.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:27
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Saint Fu posted:It'll be dependent on the capabilities set up by your HR. Many companies don't allow you to withdraw until you leave the company, but some do. You'll have to contact your HR people to see if it's possible. I've set up an appointment--thanks, guys!
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Oct 21, 2014 21:27
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Ulf is describing the IRA rules. The 401k rules are more restrictive and vary from plan to plan. Seriously, talk to your HR. But most likely you aren't going to be able to use that money except by taking a loan against it or quitting your job. Ha, beaten like a novice day trader
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Oct 21, 2014 21:33
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MickeyFinn posted:This reads like giving your company or its brokerage a ~3 month loan in exchange for a paltry discount and high fees. I wouldn't do it. Yeah ESPP becomes much more attractive if you get the 15% discount along with how some plans give the lowest share price in a 6 month window.
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Oct 22, 2014 00:31
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UGAmazing posted:Thanks! etalian posted:Yeah ESPP becomes much more attractive if you get the 15% discount along with how some plans give the lowest share price in a 6 month window.
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Oct 22, 2014 15:20
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I'm just getting started with all this so excuse the probably dumb question or if it's been asked before. This thread's been super helpful to read. I'm a musician full time -- my income fluctuates a ton but it has generally been around 40k give or take. Is a solo 401k kind of a no brainer over any IRA? I'm 25, for whatever it's worth. edit: Oh also, if I'm dying for the funds at some point, could I roll a solo 401k into a Roth IRA to withdraw the principal? Or does that vary provider to provider? nyquil fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 20:35
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nyquil posted:I'm just getting started with all this so excuse the probably dumb question or if it's been asked before. This thread's been super helpful to read. Here's a article comparing them both SEP-IRA vs a solo-401k: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2013/06/06/sep-ira-vs-self-employed-401k/ It recommends the SEP-IRA option, main advantage with a SEP-IRA you don't need to make constant payments to the plan while with the 401k you can get extra penalties from the IRS for not making contributions on a regular basis. SEP-IRAs also tend to have lower expense ratios and other misc costs than solo 401ks.
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Oct 22, 2014 23:17
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etalian posted:Here's a article comparing them both SEP-IRA vs a solo-401k: "Both plans allow you to contribute 25 percent of your earnings (for sole proprietors, the contribution is 20 percent). But the 401(k) allows an additional $17,500 in salary deferrals. So, depending on your salary and how much you want to contribute, the 401(k) might be a better option, because you can save more money in it."
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Oct 23, 2014 04:03
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etalian posted:Here's a article comparing them both SEP-IRA vs a solo-401k: I don't think the rules for the solo-401k contributions are quite that strict. The wording is very vague, but several sources can be found at various reputable places that even annual contributions are not even necessarily required. The rules are probably written that way to give them leverage to crack down on the ability to start a dummy company for no other reason than to tax shelter a bunch of money in a lump sum. One page on IRS.gov seems to imply that a couple of significant contributions within a 5 year period would be significant enough to be deemed "recurring". In any case this wouldn't by itself set you up for any kind of penalty, it just might flag you for further investigation if you aren't putting money in your plan. If there is a valid reason for it (you haven't made a profit, for example) then I doubt you would be penalized for it.
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Oct 23, 2014 20:48
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I added my 401k and roth IRA to personal capital (The free monitoring service, not the paid manage your accounts service) and was really impressed with it for investments. I haven't added my credit cards or bank accounts because I already use Mint, does Personal Capital do anything interesting or useful with that information that Mint doesn't? Here are some screenshots, I've really only just opened these retirement accounts so I don't mind sharing.      
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Oct 23, 2014 21:01
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Woah that's pretty neat! I just signed up myself. I want to see pretty colors and graphics that describe my money.
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Oct 23, 2014 21:30
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I think it's worth adding in your various accounts so you can track your net worth accurately, but the transaction-level and budget tools in Personal Capital are pretty much useless. It doesn't replace what mint does well, but does everything mint does poorly (investments).
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Oct 23, 2014 21:32
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SlightlyMadman posted:I think it's worth adding in your various accounts so you can track your net worth accurately, but the transaction-level and budget tools in Personal Capital are pretty much useless. It doesn't replace what mint does well, but does everything mint does poorly (investments). so mint's the most polished site out there right now? etalian fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 02:45
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So my fiance had the dog and pony show at her work for their 401k. Some guy from GWRS showed up and handed out the packets with their prospectus, and the funds were terrible. The best things I saw on there were small and mid cap index mutual funds with .6% ERs and were underperforming the index they were benchmarking. She maxes a Roth IRA with Wealthfront, and I was hoping she could take advantage of pre-tax savings as well as post-tax. She's mostly W2 income but has a few thousand of 1099 income annually, does this make her eligible for a SEP IRA or Solo 401k through somewhere like Vanguard or maybe Wealthfront? If that's not the case, would it make sense to do the payroll deduction pre-tax to the GWRS 401k index funds and do periodic rollovers every few months into the accounts with non-lovely fees? Could we even just dump the 1099 income into the SEP or Solo accounts? Bastard Tetris fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 06:18
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With the SEP she can only contribute 20% of her earnings into it. Depending on what she is making and plans to make in self employment income, would a SIMPLE IRA work?
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Oct 24, 2014 12:00
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etalian posted:so mint's the most polished site out there right now? Mint does budgeting and tracking of expenses and income the best, but it is completely useless for investments. Here is how Mint categorizes the same data as the personal capital screenshots above.  I can't even manually set it because each of my investment accounts are a mix of bonds and stocks.
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Oct 24, 2014 14:07
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What Mint is concerned about is you needing to invest in "Motif"... Put money in ideas!
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Oct 24, 2014 14:20
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THF13 posted:Mint does budgeting and tracking of expenses and income the best, but it is completely useless for investments. Here is how Mint categorizes the same data as the personal capital screenshots above. Wow, I'm rather surprised; I figured the goal of Mint was to compete with Quicken. I will try to remember to post a screencap from Quicken'13 tonight/tomorrow. It shows my breakdown, growth, etc... That said, I use Excel to track allocation, as it is much easier to rebalance using simple formulas.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:28
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Why would intuit's products compete with one another?
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Oct 24, 2014 16:33
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SiGmA_X posted:Wow, I'm rather surprised; I figured the goal of Mint was to compete with Quicken. I will try to remember to post a screencap from Quicken'13 tonight/tomorrow. It shows my breakdown, growth, etc... That said, I use Excel to track allocation, as it is much easier to rebalance using simple formulas. He's not being entirely fair. There are a number of graphs and things that show investment growth over time in mint, that could in theory be useful. My biggest problem with them though, is that they constantly forget old information, double-count accounts, or just mysteriously stop syncing for a month. The bottom line though, is that mint's focus is on the budget tools (which are really really good), and the investment tracking is a tacked-on afterthought. Personal Capital is exactly the other way around, so they complement each other perfectly.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:55
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Missing Donut posted:With the SEP she can only contribute 20% of her earnings into it. We will look into it, my concern is that she can't if her employer offers a plan already, I'm just trying to find the best tax-advantaged way for her to save since the 401k fees are terrible and she already maxed a Roth. She saves about 20% of her income already so I'm trying to ensure she's getting the best bang for the buck.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:41
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SlightlyMadman posted:He's not being entirely fair. There are a number of graphs and things that show investment growth over time in mint, that could in theory be useful. My biggest problem with them though, is that they constantly forget old information, double-count accounts, or just mysteriously stop syncing for a month. Yeah I starting using Mint the last few days and the investment side tracking leaves much to be desired. Still really handy for things such as tracking your monthly budget.
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Oct 25, 2014 01:53
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This is Quicken 2013. It doesn't show sector and such, but that isn't something I am too concerned with. And yes, I know I'm out of balance, I really should consider re-balancing my IRA (The only affordable fund in my 401k is VINIX). It also offers some projections, based on salary, savings rate, expense rate, and a fixed rate of return. It does not appear to be attached to your investments averaged rate of return - you have to input it yourself. With realistic numbers for what I'm saving and spending, I am in good shape. I need to be in better shape thought, in both income and savings! SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 04:56
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Is there another app like Personal Capital that I can use to track all of my investment data? Personal Capital can't seem to import my work's 401k and I've been spending the better part of 3 hours trying to get it to work.
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Oct 25, 2014 06:39
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Well, why not post on a comedy forum asking for financial advice? What could possibly go wrong? I just found my old employer's 401k in my couch cushions or something, and I want to roll it over. I was considering opening a Vanguard account but it's just shy of 3k which their rollover tool suggests is not quite enough for "most" of their accounts. This has sort of caused me to re-evaluate my entire savings situation. First, I have a bunch of accounts all over the place and I want to know if that's a good idea at all. If I were going to consolidate, where would I want to do it? I have accounts with USAA, Fidelity and TradeKing. TK is where most of my money is, Fidelity is where my current employer 401k is. I got a TK account originally because of the low fees, but at this point they seem like pennies compared to the value of the account. I have a Roth IRA and an individual account at TK. I can't contribute to an IRA anymore since my annual income is too high (which seems like a reason for celebration, but I'm just disappointed because my investment strategy is no longer autopilot). I have a 401k and individual account at Fidelity that's about half the value of what I have at TK. USAA is just my bank, but they do investments too, so just shoving everything in there would simplify my life. I've heard good things about Vanguard (from the OP of this thread, for example). I have a >100k net worth (discounting my 401k) so if I wanted to, I could get an account going with them. My investment accounts are horrifically out of balance, as in half of my IRA is in AAPL right now. (This has turned out swimmingly so far, but...) I know moving to index funds is the way to go so I'm working on getting a decent Vanguard ETF allocation. I'm putting the max into my 401k that my employer matches, and right now I'm throwing a bit more money at it every year because that seems like the easiest "default" option that everyone recommends. Should I just max out my contributions to that now? I hear Roth is a terrible idea, should I switch over to traditional contributions? The 401k I discovered in my couch, should I roll that over into my existing Roth IRA or find somewhere else for it? Where? Are those "high" min-balance (25k+) managed funds worth it, or can I do just as well picking some decent index funds? At what point should I stop posting on an internet comedy forum for financial advice and actually pay a professional to do it?
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Oct 28, 2014 02:20
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Holy poo poo Personal Capital is awful. I signed up for it on like Thursday or Friday last week. Since then, I've gotten 8 emails about setting up a personal consultation and they've actually called me twice. This is after I clicked the "No Thanks Seriously I Don't Want to Talk to you on the Phone" button on the huge thing that pops up when you log in for the first time asking if you want someone to call you for a consultation. Cool site, but gently caress off if you start calling me after I tell you not to. I just deleted my account. VV: Ha! I wish. Henrik Zetterberg fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 02:26
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Holy poo poo Personal Capital is awful. I signed up for it on like Thursday or Friday last week. Since then, I've gotten 8 emails about setting up a personal consultation and they've actually called me twice. This is after I clicked the No Thanks on the huge thing that pops up when you log in for the first time asking if you want someone to call you for a consultation. I'm surprised, I've never gotten that treatment. Are you loaded or something? 
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Oct 28, 2014 02:27
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Guinness posted:If contributing 15%+ of my paycheck to my 401k is silly, I don't want to be serious. Well it was "silly" considering it's been at 6%. I spreadsheeted all my numbers and had to jack my 401k contribution up to 22% for the rest of the year. After Jan 1, I'll probably bring it down to 8% then put half my yearly raises into 401k contributions from here on out.
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Oct 28, 2014 02:31
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Holy poo poo Personal Capital is awful. I signed up for it on like Thursday or Friday last week. Since then, I've gotten 8 emails about setting up a personal consultation and they've actually called me twice. This is after I clicked the "No Thanks Seriously I Don't Want to Talk to you on the Phone" button on the huge thing that pops up when you log in for the first time asking if you want someone to call you for a consultation. My experience was that I actually had to answer the phone and tell them verbally that I wasn't interested, then the calls stopped. I'd personally rather deal with a couple phone calls than constant ads and "recommendations" for what to do with my money.
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Oct 28, 2014 02:40
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