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They question had me wondering if I exceeded the income limit this year even with making out my traditional 401k and that I might have to do something about my Roth IRA contribution from the beginning of the year. But, then I remembered that, thanks to this thread, I already did it as a backdoor just in case in the first place in anticipation of being over the limit and I'm the phaseout range. Thanks, thread. Thead.
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Nov 29, 2022 11:52
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hell yeah, glad you saved some headache Honestly if you're at all close to the limits you should just contribute traditional and then backdoor it to a Roth. It's slightly annoying in that you have to click a few buttons and then make sure you don't claim any tax benefits from traditional contributions but it beats calling your broker.
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Nov 29, 2022 16:06
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Which professional would I see to give me advice on Roth contributions? Would that be an accountant or can I just call whoever Vanguard has assigned to me? I have been auto contributing $500/mo and I think my husband and I are above the income limit for that this year so I need it untangled.
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Nov 29, 2022 18:10
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Accountant probably, someone from Vanguard probably isn't going to give you tax advice. Anyway, pretty sure if your income ends up over the cutoff for the Roth then you just call Vanguard or whoever and ask them to recharacterize it as a Traditional IRA contributions (at which point you won't be able to deduct it any more and will probably have to pay taxes on any gains during the year). You can transfer it back to the Roth account after that happens.
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Nov 29, 2022 19:11
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cheese eats mouse posted:I'm planning to quit and switch jobs early next year. My current employer has a safe harbor match with immediate vesting. I'm thinking of dropping my ESPP contributions and also go very high on my 401k contributions in 2023 to get the most out of their matching. It's an ok match, not great, but also not sure what the future holds for me with retirement benefits as I could (but try not to) join a company with a non-matching 401k again. I forget the full details, I think something like 4% overall. There is a ladder of x% up to x% of salary then .5 of another x%. I'm currently maxing over the full 12 month period. If you tell the new place "I've already contributed $x this year" they should be able to ensure you don't go over in the new place's plan (if the old place had been better). If the new place's plan is better, you should be able to tell the old plan "hey I've over contributed can you undo all my contribs for this year" and they'll send you the money back. Probably.
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Nov 29, 2022 19:59
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I'm thinking about switching to a HDHP for the first time and had some questions about HSAs: 1) Do HSAs all follow the same basic rules or does it vary depending on the provider? Asking because at least initially I'd like to basically treat the HSA like another tax-advantaged space for investing and only dip into it if necessary, and I feel like I've seen someone ITT mention that their HSA makes it hard to invest the funds. 2) This may answer the previous question but I just found an OPM FAQ that says, "your HSA custodian or trustee may only offer some... types of investments" and "you may choose to keep the funds with the health plan's trustee or move to the financial institution of your choice". Is there any downside to doing this, and is there a generally preferred trustee that offers low fees and the flexibility to invest the funds as you like? (The insurance I'm looking at is through GEHA, which appears to use HSA Bank for the trustee.) 3) The HDHP in question contributes $900 to the HSA; does that count towards the $3850 limit for 2023? And if I switch trustees, could it have any impact on receiving those contributions?
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Nov 29, 2022 20:53
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Atahualpa posted:I'm thinking about switching to a HDHP for the first time and had some questions about HSAs: You own your HSA. You can put that money wherever you want and invest it in whatever they offer. If your employer contributes to your HSA, they picked a place where they're going to deposit it for you. Most people keep it there for simplicity, but it's your money and your account and you can move it if you want to. This sounds obvious, but it is in contrast to an FSA, which is not an account you own and is way less flexible (ironically).
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Nov 29, 2022 21:24
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BigHead posted:Which professional would I see to give me advice on Roth contributions? Would that be an accountant or can I just call whoever Vanguard has assigned to me? I have been auto contributing $500/mo and I think my husband and I are above the income limit for that this year so I need it untangled. I did this for 2021 since I unexpectedly switched jobs midway through the year. Don't bother calling Vanguard: I called them and the person on the phone did not know (or believe me) that there are income limits on a Roth IRA. If you want to be precise, talk to your accountant, have them figure out your income, and figure out how much you need to remove. Once you figure that out, Vanguard has a pretty easy form to remove excess contributions online: https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/iras/excess-contribution (link partway down the page) If you want to be lazy, you can probably just remove the entire contribution and then do a backdoor Roth with it immediately.
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Nov 29, 2022 22:51
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Atahualpa posted:I'm thinking about switching to a HDHP for the first time and had some questions about HSAs: 3a - Yes, employer contributions count towards the limit. 3b - Your employer will likely only contribute to their designated trustee. You can move the money after it's been contributed. Fidelity posted:your HSA contribution limit for the year is $3,650 (as it is in 2022) and your employer contributes $1,000, you can only contribute $2,650
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Nov 30, 2022 00:38
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Unless there's a really compelling reason to switch trustees, I'd probably leave it with your employer's designated trustee. Compelling reasons would include crazy fees or lousy fund availability.
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Nov 30, 2022 03:20
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Vesna posted:I did this for 2021 since I unexpectedly switched jobs midway through the year. Don't bother calling Vanguard: I called them and the person on the phone did not know (or believe me) that there are income limits on a Roth IRA. If you want to be precise, talk to your accountant, have them figure out your income, and figure out how much you need to remove. Once you figure that out, Vanguard has a pretty easy form to remove excess contributions online: Thanks friends!
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Nov 30, 2022 06:41
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Atahualpa posted:I'm thinking about switching to a HDHP for the first time and had some questions about HSAs: You can always do a transfer later if the HSA trustee sucks. Fidelity has one of the best HSAs I'm aware of, so I (eventually) transfer into that account. Aside from free and investment choices, some have "minimum cash requirements before Investing anything."
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Nov 30, 2022 14:21
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Atahualpa posted:I'm thinking about switching to a HDHP for the first time and had some questions about HSAs: 1. Yes, HSAs should all generally be the same. But brokerages will differ in investment options. They might also differ in how they process reimbursement requests. 2. I use GEHA HDHP. The $1800 passthrough (for the family plan) is deposited into HSA bank monthly (150/month). I then have a separate HSA through Fidelity which is amazing. My agency's payroll processor (employee express) let's me do a pre-tax deduction from my paycheck that is deposited directly to my Fidelity HSA. 3. Yes. I would just open a separate brokerage. Fidelity HSA seems to be the gold standard these days but I'm sure there are other decent options. HSA bank is a pain to deal with.
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Nov 30, 2022 15:15
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laxbro posted:1. Yes, HSAs should all generally be the same. But brokerages will differ in investment options. "Brokerages" will differ in all kinds of things. There are complete poo poo fintech-like HSA brokers that make absolutely everything miserable to do. Somehow creating even worse account administration web sites than Vanguard. One particular poo poo one that an old company of mine chose didn't even use account numbers - your account number was apparently internally your SSN. I found this out when I was finally getting the remainder of my money out of that dumpster fire which required more paperwork than moving a 7 figure 401(k). Fidelity is great at this. "Wex Benefits" is not. Nor is "HealthSavings.com". I literally could not get an answer out of our benefits people why a company who already has a relationship with Fidelity for equity and 401(k) administration would choose a place like this.
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Nov 30, 2022 15:35
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My employer chose Optum Bank and despite never having heard of it everything seems to work well.
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Nov 30, 2022 16:03
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:My employer chose Optum Bank and despite never having heard of it everything seems to work well. Optum is part of UnitedHealth.
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Nov 30, 2022 18:14
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My company also uses Optum for their HSA accounts. It's fine I guess, could be a lot worse. The website is a bit clunky and investing in unintuitive, but it works and I only touch it a couple times a year. The worst part is that they require a $2k cash balance before investing and they augment additional admin fees onto their investment funds, so despite being invested in Vanguard Institutional funds the effective ER is like 0.25 instead of 0.04 or whatever. Pretty common among HSAs unfortunately. I have all my old HSAs rolled into Fidelity which is ideal. Good website, no minimums or hidden fees at all, and can invest in the whole Fidelity world of funds. If your company doesn't pick one for you definitely pick Fidelity. In my case Optum is just good enough that I don't bother periodically moving money over to Fidelity, I'll do that whenever I eventually change jobs again.
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Nov 30, 2022 19:29
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Our company changed their 401k plan administrator to Fidelity and along with that we got access to in-plan rollovers (aka mega backdoor roth). Holy guacamole that’s a lot of tax advantaged space. I was already maxing out tax advantaged space before (“normal” 401k, roth ira, hsa) but now it’s going to be hard to max out the “mega” space. Does it make sense to start selling taxable investments so that I can pay the bills and devote more of the paycheck to maxing out the mega backdoor portion of the 401k? My emergency fund is too large and the interest rate (for the portion in CDs) is too low so that’s kind of a no-brainer… but should I keep going beyond that?
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Nov 30, 2022 19:30
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nelson posted:Does it make sense to start selling long term taxable investments so that I can pay the bills and devote more of the paycheck to maxing out the mega backdoor portion of the 401k? My emergency fund is too large and the interest rate (for the portion in CDs) is too low so that’s kind of a no-brainer… but should I keep going beyond that? IMO, no. Don't put yourself into a cash flow crunch just to put even more money into an illiquid retirement account. And now is probably not a great time to be selling taxable investments beyond some loss harvesting.
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Nov 30, 2022 19:33
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With next year looking even more rocky I’d hold a larger cash efund. Transparency though I’m conservative with my liquid assets and most aggressive with my investment accounts. The mega backdoor is more of a if you can afford it do it.
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Nov 30, 2022 19:37
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Guinness posted:IMO, no. Don't put yourself into a cash flow crunch just to put even more money into an illiquid retirement account. And now is probably not a great time to be selling taxable investments beyond some loss harvesting. I disagree to some extent. I think if the notion is to effectively shift investments from a taxable brokerage account to a tax-advantaged long-term retirement account, and if that money is earmarked for long-term savings anyway, there's only going to be a gap of maybe a couple of days in investment and there's no "good" time to do this, e.g. you're market timing if you are trying to pick a low volatility moment. This person also says they have a large emergency fund already. However I am making some assumptions that should be checked. If nelson's emergency fund is "too large" than some amount of their cash can be moved from zero-risk, currently negative real return investments like CDs, into an appropriate asset class, which could also be very low risk if that portion of the asset allocation is currently underweight. Or split across classes if the balance is already set the way they want. I'm assuming nelson is correctly evaluating the size of their emergency fund, taking into account their near and intermediate-term employment prospects. Given they're looking at mega backdoor Roth, we can presume this is a relatively high income career, but I can't say anything about stability etc., that's up to nelson to figure out. I'm assuming that "pay the bills" doesn't mean a huge tightening of the belt, but it could: nelson's retirement goals and balance between them and current quality of life considerations are important. Some people are shooting for early retirement and the mega backdoor is a fantastic tool to drive towards that; but I wouldn't advise anyone to live in a cardboard box and eat canned beans in order to squeeze another hundred bucks into retirement space when they're already maxxing an ordinary ira, 401k, and HSA.
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Nov 30, 2022 19:48
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Some people have very clear visions, plans, such that target retirement date, pour all you can in that bucket makes sense. If you get derailed, use the emergency fund to get back on track. Other people (like me) are not able to be so deliberate and set, and putting all excess into the target retirement date bucket makes less sense. I'm still squirreling away as many acorns as I can, but in different places. Some in long term (30+ years) and some in medium term (5-10 years), etc. So it may depend on how you operate, whether to keep the money in taxable and more accessible versus tax advantaged and less accessible.
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Nov 30, 2022 21:12
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Motronic posted:
Wex/Discovery (same company) lowballs the employer fees and makes up for it by robbing employees and having 0 customer service. Like they hosed up a former employees Cobra and his cancer treatments were paused because of it and, they didn’t give a poo poo. I filed complaints with 7 AGs offices. Every one in which we or they operate. pseudanonymous fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Dec 1, 2022 |
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Dec 1, 2022 02:48
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A receptionist at my gp used to work for WEX and said they were terrible too. I got approved on 6 of 8 claims from an out of pocket procedure and the two most recent claims have asked for a medical necessity letter. I got a grumpy reviewer that time. It’s lol at how bad they are, but I also don’t really pay for healthcare anymore so I’ll keep using it
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Dec 1, 2022 04:10
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Folks, Trying to make heads and tails of a transaction in my vanguard that happened yesterday. I moved my employer IT 401k into vanguard back in february and took the good goon advice of "dump it in vanguard and never touch it". I had some of it in VFLQ and it appears vanguard sold all my holdings? I see the transaction types of Corp Action (Tender), Corp Action (Exchange), and Sweep in. Also it put the money at one point into "VANGUARD XXX SUBMITTED FOR ESCROW US LIQUIDITY FACTOR ETF". Please tell me what i'm doing wrong at the casino.
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Dec 1, 2022 04:21
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https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/vflq posted:Effective on or about November 28, 2022, the Vanguard U.S. Liquidity Factor ETF (VFLQ or ETF) will be liquidated. After the close of business on November 22, 2022, the ETF will no longer accept creation orders from authorized participants. Trading in the ETF will also be halted on the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (Cboe) prior to market open on November 23, 2022. On the liquidation date, the ETF will redeem all its outstanding shares at the net asset value of such shares.
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Dec 1, 2022 04:24
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edit: above
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Dec 1, 2022 04:24
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VFLQ is being liquidated by Vanguard. You can sell your shares on or before Nov. 22, which already happened, so now you'll have to wait till you get the cash in your account and then you can buy something else with it. https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/vflq e, beaten lol however I'll add that this was not an index fund, but rather a managed fund (with a fairly low ER) and I'm not sure why you owned any of it? I admit I don't even understand exactly what purpose a low-liquidity ETF is serving. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Dec 1, 2022 |
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Dec 1, 2022 04:25
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Well, then. Thanks for the info.Leperflesh posted:however I'll add that this was not an index fund, but rather a managed fund (with a fairly low ER) and I'm not sure why you owned any of it? I admit I don't even understand exactly what purpose a low-liquidity ETF is serving. I don't recall why tbh. I think i was looking for those low ER things to invest in.
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Dec 1, 2022 04:53
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Sounds to me like a target date fund is in order
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Dec 1, 2022 13:21
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They liquidated the liquidity fund, hehe.
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Dec 1, 2022 14:31
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CubicalSucrose posted:If you tell the new place "I've already contributed $x this year" they should be able to ensure you don't go over in the new place's plan (if the old place had been better). I’ve never had this happen - every place I’ve asked has said there’s no need to do it because they’ll stop after they’ve accepted the max yearly contribution, which is not the same thing at all. I’ve settled for doing my own spreadsheet calculations to figure out the percentages to contribute to come closest to the yearly max without going over. It’s a pain in the rear end, but it does work.
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Dec 1, 2022 14:50
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The Leck posted:I’ve never had this happen - every place I’ve asked has said there’s no need to do it because they’ll stop after they’ve accepted the max yearly contribution, which is not the same thing at all. I’ve settled for doing my own spreadsheet calculations to figure out the percentages to contribute to come closest to the yearly max without going over. It’s a pain in the rear end, but it does work. I switched jobs in '21. Both the new and old company used Fidelity for the 401k and Fidelity explicitly told me they could not auto-stop contributions based on the sum of contributions between the two accounts. I'd have to self-adjust via the ordinary contribution rate choices or deal with withdrawing excess at the end of the year. The latter is a paperwork PITA, so the former is the only real option.
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Dec 1, 2022 19:57
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I graduated from PA school in 12/2021 and have worked ever since. I've never had to pay back on my loans. I've paid back like 11%, and was planning on doing income based repayment if the loans ever started back up. At this point there's no telling what's going to happen with them. I didn't get the 10k back (could never get through to request back the 10k I'd paid in) and I'm doubtful any will be forgiven. I'm also doubtful they're going to restart in the near future, since the earliest this new Supreme Court case will are decided is like in June, and by that time we're getting into primary season for THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIVES again. We also don't know if that sweet new income based repayment will go through. I kind of suspect we're just going to end up getting kicked down the road over and over again, at least until 2025 My question is - what's the best way to hedge on this? Is there a good investment vehicle that I could start putting money into that I could transition into my student loans if needed? I don't know a lot about investing; I've got vanguard for my Roth IRA, and my 401k through MS (which is about to transition to whatever my new job is) Any advice would be appreciated.
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Dec 2, 2022 00:16
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FizFashizzle posted:I graduated from PA school in 12/2021 and have worked ever since. I've never had to pay back on my loans. I've paid back like 11%, and was planning on doing income based repayment if the loans ever started back up. My wife is in the same position, and we’ve made the bet that it’s better to save/invest then to pay off the loans, assuming she will qualify for forgiveness if it still exists. Thankfully, the rate on the loans are below inflation for now.
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Dec 2, 2022 00:28
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are the loans accruing additional interest (debt) while repayment requirements are suspended?
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Dec 2, 2022 01:06
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pmchem posted:are the loans accruing additional interest (debt) while repayment requirements are suspended? Interest is still on hold AFAIK.
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Dec 2, 2022 18:41
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Thanks to everyone who answered my questions about HSAs!KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Unless there's a really compelling reason to switch trustees, I'd probably leave it with your employer's designated trustee. Yep, those are the main things I'm worried about; I've been trying to research it but keep finding all sorts of conflicting information. For example, I've read in several places that HSA Bank no longer has a monthly fee, but then I found an investopedia article from just last month saying that it has a $2.25 monthly fee for balances below $3,000. And I've also seen some articles saying there's a $25 transaction fee for investing in Vanguard/Fidelity funds but others saying that's incorrect. laxbro posted:3. Yes. I would just open a separate brokerage. Fidelity HSA seems to be the gold standard these days but I'm sure there are other decent options. HSA bank is a pain to deal with. Out of curiosity, could you expand on what makes HSA Bank a pain to deal with?
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Dec 2, 2022 18:54
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Our fees are $2.75/mo if balance is below $3,000 $20 per outbound transfer to another bank/HSA custodian 3 bps/month I'm in some schwab target fund. There were plenty of low-ER TDFs available to me. I figured that the cost in both effort and money to move to a different custodian was not worthwhile to me.
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Dec 2, 2022 19:18
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Atahualpa posted:Out of curiosity, could you expand on what makes HSA Bank a pain to deal with? It was a pain to do HSA transfers with them. They used to only over devenir as a brokerage option but now they at least offer td ameritrade. I'm sure they've gotten better now that fidelity offers HSAs to the public. It used to be a very niche space where the providers offered subpar service. I now just withdraw the premium passthrough contributions from the insurance company to cover medical expenses and then invest my actual contributions through fidelity HSA. It is very easy to withdraw your funds from HSA bank as a reimbursement.
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Dec 2, 2022 19:26
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