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Perhaps a silly question, but I just opened an RIRA account with Sharebuilder and deposited the $5000 max for 2011. I know that since the contributions to it are all post-tax I don't necessarily need to file it on my tax return, but for tax year 2012 will I still have to file all the 1099/K-1 info for the account like with a normal taxable brokerage account (since I will have allocated it in 2012)?
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Feb 24, 2012 00:33
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SeaWolf posted:I just became eligible to enroll in my company's 401k plan.... I'm in a similar boat. The 401k through my company doesn't have any employer match, and the available funds are pretty underwhelming. I've been skipping it for now, maxing out my Roth IRA, investing in a non-tax-advantaged account, and paying down my student loans (most at 6.6%). Once my student loans are paid off (less than 3k to go, so a couple of months), I'll revisit the 401k plans and crunch some numbers again.
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Apr 13, 2012 03:07
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SlightlyMadman posted:Why is it suggested to max out an IRA after your 401k match limit, but before maxing out your 401k? I'm in a weird situation in that my employer decides their matching amount at the end of every year, as an alternative to giving year-end bonuses, so I have no way of knowing what it will be ahead of time. I'm currently maxing out my 401k contribution, but was wondering if there's a really good reason why I should reduce some of that and put it into an IRA instead? That advice refers specifically to Roth IRAs, because they are the form of retirement account with the most favorable tax treatment (taxed now, but all gains untaxed when realized at retirement age) - better than 401k. The reason to max your 401k up to the max employer match is because that's essentially "free" money that you would otherwise be leaving on the table, and more money to begin with is better than tax favorability.
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Jun 6, 2012 01:45
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lord1234 posted:So, we met with our financial adviser yesterday. He pushed maxing out IRA's(which we hold with him/Ameriprise) before trying to max out 401k's(to which we don't get a match from our employers). what say you BFC braintrust? General rule of thumb for order of maximizing contributions: - Max your 401k employer contribution match, if you have one - Max your Roth IRA - Max 401k and/or other investment vehicles So if you don't have a 401k match, then yes it generally makes sense to prioritize your RIRA before your unmatched 401k contributions. Not always, but generally. The biggest benefit of an IRA aside from the tax advantage is that you have full control over it and what it is invested in. It's also debatable whether it's better to actually max out your annual 401k contribution or to diversify with other individual brokerage accounts even if they are not tax-advantaged, since a lot of 401ks have pretty limited and expensive investment options. Of course, maxing out your 401k is rarely going to be a "bad" decision since if you can afford to do that you're ahead of most of the population already. Guinness fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jun 22, 2012 |
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Jun 22, 2012 23:03
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Sleepy Robot posted:Is it generally better to hold index funds in a taxable account and dividend stock in an IRA? If so, why is that? No capital gains tax in an IRA. In the case of the RIRA, no tax on gains ever since the contributions were already taxed. In a TIRA, you won't pay capital gains taxes but you will eventually pay taxes on the withdrawals since the contributions were tax-deductible. Both are advantageous compared to a normal taxable brokerage account where you pay capital gains taxes on every dividend distribution, whether it be a cash distribution or a DRIP. Guinness fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 21:23
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I too feel a little uncomfortable giving all my brokerage accounts' credentials to a no-name third party tool. It's too bad that Mint's investment tracker SUCKS. I've even gone through and tried to manually adjust all of my cost basis info and it still has goofy gain/loss numbers that I don't know how the heck it is coming up with. And it still shows securities that I sold off more than a year ago. I use Mint for everything else, but man their investment tool is worse than useless, it's straight up wrong and misleading.
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Oct 19, 2012 18:17
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Look at the fund's prospectus.
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Oct 30, 2012 00:43
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Briantist posted:So for most(?) people who have a halfway decent health plan through work, this idea isn't feasible then, correct? HDHP/HSAs are becoming quite popular through employer health plans, there's nothing not "halfway decent" about them. My current and previous employer both offered HDHP/HSA plans alongside more traditional plans, and for a young, healthy, single guy the HDHP/HSA was a no brainer decision because its SO much cheaper plus I get to have an HSA. Guinness fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Nov 20, 2012 |
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Nov 20, 2012 20:06
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sanchez posted:HDHP's are great because there are plans available that have a high deductible but zero copay or other out of pocket expenses beyond that limit. They're no good for smaller problems, but if you get cancer or in a car crash, barring any insurance company shenanigans you'll be in reasonable shape. Exactly. If you're in reasonably good health, an HDHP is an excellent option that will cover you in the event of a medical emergency and in the process save you a shitload of money on premiums because minor medical issues you pay out of pocket (or out of your HSA). For instance, my HDHP has a $2500 annual deductible but then covers 100% after that. There's a list of preventative care that is covered by the plan, but anything else I am on the hook for up to that deductible. Which is fine, since my annual medical costs as a young healthy single guy are virtually $0. But let's say I broke my leg tomorrow and racked up $50,000 in various medical bills. I've got to pay $2500 either out of pocket or out of my HSA, but after that my HDHP covers the rest. Basically, since I'm self-insuring for minor medical expenses, the plan is MUCH cheaper than a traditional health plan like a PPO. Also, unlike a lot of PPOs, after my deductible my HDHP picks up 100% of the bill rather than putting me on the hook for 10-20%. And on top of that I'm eligible to contribute annually up to $3100 of tax-deductible money into an HSA, which I have the option of investing much like an IRA. There's no use-it-or-lose-it like an FSA, that money is mine forever. I also have no obligation to use that money now, and can pay medical expenses out of pocket (since I can afford to), hold on to the receipts, and keep letting my HSA grow. If I ever needed to make emergency withdrawals from my HSA in the future I can use my past medical receipts to do so penalty-free. Or I can just keep letting it grow until I am older when my medical expenses will undoubtedly be higher than they are now. Or in retirement I would also have the option of withdrawing from it for non-medical expenses much like an IRA and paying deferred taxes. It's really a pretty neat option.
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Nov 21, 2012 20:03
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Yeah if you got switched from a PPO to an HDHP and retained the same premium, you're getting boned. But for me I have 3 health plan options to pick from through my employer: two different PPOs and an HDHP. The HDHP is significantly cheaper.
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Nov 21, 2012 21:15
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JimTheSarcastic posted:Not to pick nits, but don't expense ratios apply the the investment value, as opposed to its returns? That is, it costs you $0.11 for every $100 of value (applied yearly??), not every $100 earned--right? Yes, that is why expense fees are so killer (and why ETFs are an appealing alternative to mutual funds). Whether your fund gains or loses, you still get dinged for the fee on your total investment value in the fund annually. Over the course of 20 or 30 years, losing even 0.5% of your total investment in the fund every year adds up significantly.
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Nov 29, 2012 18:34
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nelson posted:Certificate of Deposit or Money Market Savings Account. The problem with a CD is that it is non-liquid and the purpose of an emergency savings account above all else is liquidity. You can cash out a CD prior to maturiy if you absolutely must, but you will pay a penalty larger than any potential gain. On top of that, CD rates are not really significantly higher than those found in "high-yield" online savings or MMAs and they make a poor choice for a basic emergency fund, IMO.
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Dec 4, 2012 03:20
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Sorry, maybe I missed something in this discussion, but I thought there were no tax implications for selling/rebalancing funds in a 401k unless you are withdrawing the cash from the 401k. Is that not correct? Or are you taking about cashing out from your 401k and stuffing the money elsewhere in a non-401k account?
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Apr 11, 2013 22:57
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Over the long-term, highly managed funds tend to under-perform passively managed index funds and cost you a lot more in expense fees for the privilege.
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Apr 26, 2013 18:48
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HSAs are great if you have access to them. If you max out the contribution (about $3100) the tax deduction is rather substantial and in most HSAs you can invest in some funds once you have a balance over a couple thousand dollars. If you just leave it alone and let it grow rather than withdrawing from it for medical expenses it works almost exactly like an IRA. Plus, if you save your medical receipts you can always pull out money penalty-free if you really need to later. There's no time window on withdrawals. I pay any of my routine medical bills out of pocket and let the money in my HSA stay invested. I just keep the bills in a folder in the same place as my taxes so if I ever needed to make qualified distributions for whatever reason I have all the receipts to back it up. There's quite a bit less freedom in the kinds of investments you can make with the money in an HSA typically, but if you're already maxing out your other tax-advantaged vehicles it is a good option. Once you're 59.5 you can withdrawal from an HSA penalty-free without medical expenses, but you're also virtually guaranteed to have higher medical expenses as you age so one way or another you'll get all that money penalty-free. IMO it's better to let the HSA grow and pay out of pocket while you're young and healthy and can afford it and treat the HSA like an IRA. Guinness fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 17:35
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tuyop posted:/\/\/\ That only makes sense if you connect spending to happiness, which is problematic. It's not so much that spending = happiness, but having the financial security to not have to stress about strict budgeting, penny-pinching, and coupon clipping for everything is definitely a net positive for my personal happiness. I don't find any joy in any of that - in fact, it's quite the opposite. It's not consumption for consumption's sake that makes me happy. I actually try to consume very little and lead a relatively simple life, but knowing that I can go on a vacation, go out for a fancy night on the town, occasionally buy that new piece of equipment for a hobby or sport, or even just buying the fancier foods at the grocery store without having to worry about how it impacts my budget does improve life happiness. There was a study that was making the rounds not too long ago that basically came to the conclusion that overall life happiness does correlate with having more money up to the point of about $75,000 per year or so - because that's about the point where you have the financial freedom and security to not stress about casual expenses and still save a good amount for retirement and larger purchases (if you're even a little bit smart about it). Obviously that number will fluctuate a bit depending on COL of where you live, but the point still stands. For reference: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html
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May 3, 2013 18:53
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As far as risk-free options, online savings accounts from places like Ally or Capital One have rates a bit under 1% right now. Much better than any retail bank, but still not great.
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May 6, 2013 23:06
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Yes.
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May 29, 2013 18:43
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SlightlyMadman posted:I have an HDHP with an HSA account, and have been contributing about $100/mo into it. I'm looking into maxing it out and treating it as another retirement plan, but I have some concerns about what will happen to it if things change in the future. I see that if I ever stop using a HDHP, then I will no longer be able to contribute to it, but should be allowed to keep the money in it. The only problem is that my plan documents also say the JP Morgan Chase (who holds the account) will begin charging a monthly fee if it's no longer active. You can move HSA accounts between custodians, it's just like transferring an IRA. You can definitely find a better HSA provider that waives fees, at least after a nominal account balance. I'm with HealthEquity and if you have a $2500 (IIRC) cash balance all fees are waived. Incidentally, you also have to have a $2500 cash balance before you can invest the money in funds. There might be someone better out there, too, HE is just what my first HDHP plan sponsored and I haven't had a real reason to look into transferring it. Also yes if you are no longer on an HDHP then you can no longer contribute to the HSA, but you continue to have access to the money for medical expenses at no penalty. I max out my HSA every year for the sizable tax deduction and also don't use it for my current (minimal) health expenses. I just pay those out of pocket and leave my HSA alone to act as a pseudo-retirement account. Eventually I'll either have major medical expenses or I'll reach 59.5 and be able to pull out the money for anything as if it were an IRA. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 18:36
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Fancy_Lad posted:Look at your investment options - I also have my HSA through Chase and all the options I have have pretty crappy Expenses... That I'm not sure about, but I think you could do it. It wouldn't be very convenient since it looks like most transfers/rollovers have to be done via post mail, but if you just want to transfer most of it out to a new HSA custodian while leaving the old one to collect employer contributions it's probably possible but I haven't done it.
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Aug 2, 2013 19:47
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Student loans. I was in a very similar position as you and wiped out all the 23k @ 6.8% I had in student loans in about two years or so. Feels so good to be rid of that burden.
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Aug 10, 2013 23:11
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It means for every dollar up to 6% of your income, they will contribute $0.50. Beyond 6% there is no more match.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:17
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Wicaeed posted:What's the general consensus after you reach your maximum of the employee match in a 401k? Continue bumping up the % of paycheck you are contributing to the existing employer 401k, or open an individual investment portfolio? 1. Max employer 401k match 2. Max IRA/RIRA ($5.5k/yr) 3. Max HSA (if applicable) ($3.25k/yr) 4. Max 401k ($17.5k/yr) Though once you get to step 4, there are sometimes other better ways to save/invest/spend your money than maxing your 401k depending on your situation, 401k investment choices, etc. I don't quite max my 401k (I do 15% which ends up being about 14k/yr rather than the full 17.5k) but I have a taxable brokerage account that I use and I'm also trying to save up for a 20% downpayment on a house in an expensive area. Guinness fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 22:33
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Rurutia posted:We personally treat the HSA like a tax sheltered retirement account and pay for everything out of pocket. If you hold onto your receipts, you can reimburse from your HSA at any time if you hit an emergency that's not medically related (and depletes your emergency fund as well). This is what I do, too. Either I eventually end up using the HSA to pay for significant medical costs or I make it to retirement age in good health and can draw upon the money penalty free. Either way, I'm just maxing it and investing it in the meantime. I also save all my medical receipts in case I ever need/want to draw from my HSA for a non-medical emergency, however unlikely that may be. Also you should be able to contribute to your HSA at any time, doesn't have to be a paycheck deduction. No need to wait until January if you already have the HDHP/HSA accounts. You also get a nice above-the-line tax deduction by doing so. Last year I saved like $800-some in taxes by maxing my HSA. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 18:36
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Nail Rat posted:Well the funds I'd be allocating to it are by and large coming from my traditional 401k(I'm contributing a ton to my 401k right now, in Jan that's going to go down and get ramped back up again through raises and dialing back principle curtailment on the mortgage in the future) - so no tax difference. I *could* reduce my 401k contribution down right now and then make manual contributions to the HSA and get money back in February, but Well the good news is, much like an IRA, you can contribute for tax year 2013 until April 15th.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:17
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You get to claim post-tax HSA contributions on your tax return as a reduction to your AGI. Does that not affect SS/Medicare taxes?
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Sep 27, 2013 20:30
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Wade Wilson posted:A 120 mile round-trip daily commute and gas spiking up to $5.50 for a whole month will royally gently caress you over, no matter how much you make (that's nearly three tanks of gas for most cars every work week). No, it really doesn't. It sucks a lot and is a big drain on cash, yes, but "royally gently caress you over" it should not do. Let's assume a below-average car that gets 20mpg commuting. That's 6 gallons of gas a day. At $5.50/gal that's $33/day. At $3.50/gal that's $21/day. Ignoring the fact that that is an insanely time and money consuming commute in the first place, if an extra $12/day for one month (we'll call it $300 for the month assuming a few days off) royally fucks you then you are living on the financial edge. A $300 unexpected expense is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of unexpected/emergency expenses. It sucks, but your emergency fund should be able to take a $300 hit no problem. It should be able to take a hit 10x that, at least. What if the car that you depend on moving you 120 miles per day blows its head gasket or transmission? That's a $1000+ expense. Or what if your home furnace goes out in the winter? Or your sewer lines burst and start flooding your house? If $300 royally fucks you, what does $1500 do? What about $5000? And that's all assuming that the rest of your budget didn't adjust at all to account for the increased spending on commuting. Edit: I don't mean to attack you personally, but this is a really good example why budgeting and ample emergency funds (that are not retirement accounts) are so important, doubly so if you are a homeowner that is on the hook for huge unexpected expenses like a new roof. If someone is living paycheck to paycheck, or even nearly so, it doesn't take much to really make a mess of things. Guinness fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 23:11
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Small White Dragon posted:Is GIC just a Canadian thing? Depends on how soon you're looking to buy. In the next 1-2 years? You probably want something very stable and secure. Online savings account (0.7-1.0% APY typically) is about the best you'll get among very-conservative instruments. These days CD rates are about the same, or only very mariginally better, than a savings account so it does not make sense to forfeit the liquidity to earn a couple extra cents per year. In the next 3-5+ years? Depending on your risk tolerance, low-expense index mutual funds or ETFs are IMO a reasonably safe option, especially if your timeframe to buy is pretty open-ended. Bonds are also another option that are a more conservative play. Me personally I also have a "house fund" but with an open-ended time frame for buying (likely 2+ years away... but maybe not?), so it's really just more a general medium-term portfolio. I also invest in individual stocks some, but I wouldn't recommend it if you don't put in some real time studying up on fundamental analysis and value investing. I'm also young, single, and have a high financial risk tolerance. Guinness fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Oct 17, 2013 |
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Oct 17, 2013 01:22
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USSMICHELLEBACHMAN posted:I didn't realize you could withdraw from IRAs without penalty. I'll look into them more deeply. I thought they were very similar to 401ks. You can withdraw the contributions from a Roth IRA penalty-free, but not the gains. However this is still not generally a good idea because you cannot re-contribute that money later; you're still limited to $5500/yr in contributions. Also if the money in the Roth is from a conversion, there is a 5 year wait period before you can take it out penalty-free. You can take your money out of a traditional IRA, but you will owe regular income tax on it plus a 10% penalty if you are less than 59.5 years old.
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Oct 24, 2013 18:43
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Oh absolutely, I'm not trying to talk him out of it, just clarifying the rules. It's much better to have the money in a RIRA with the option of taking it out than not having it in there at all. It's still generally best to just leave it alone, but there are definitely scenarios when withdrawing the contributions from your RIRA make sense, like a dire emergency or even a house purchase sometimes. It's one of the advantages of a Roth vs. a traditional IRA. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 18:51
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Woot, after putting pressure on my employer/Fidelity we're going to get access to some low-ER (<0.1%) index funds sometime early next year. Might have to look into actually maxing out my 401k contribution when those hit, I'm only doing about 12-13k/yr now (+ max IRA, max HSA). I still hate Fidelity with the fire of a thousand suns, but at least I won't be getting rear end reamed by ERs in the 0.6-1.0% range anymore.
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Nov 15, 2013 04:00
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flowinprose posted:Congrats. Out of curiosity, how big is your employer? We sometimes get questions in this thread from people about how to go about getting changes made like you did. I would think it would be more feasible to accomplish changes like this in a rather small business. We're a small consulting company of about 60-65 people. I imagine these types of things are much easier to accomplish in a small company where you're on a first name basis with everyone including the President & HR director. Several of us employees had brought up the idea of a 401k review in the past and recently we formed a small committee of interested people to go through our plan and decide if the old fund choices were working for us. Fortunately a few people actually know their rear end from their elbow when it comes to finance and investing, because our Fidelity rep pushed back A LOT on us asking for access to cheap index funds, presumably because they don't get a big commission or something on them. They had a whole spiel about why you should let Fidelity actively manage your money and use their expensive target-date and sector funds and blah blah blah. To someone who doesn't have a very good understanding of 401ks and investing I can see how one could fall into their trap (and I bet is what happened originally and why our fund choices suck(ed) so bad). A couple of us raised the question of why stick with Fidelity at all, but that was mostly a non-starter. But hey, at least we're going to get some cheap index funds through Fidelity so I consider that a big victory. I did learn that apparently Fidelity is one of the cheapest places for an employer to offer a 401k plan through, and that's how they get so many companies to use them. But then they make their money by selling you really hard on expensive funds and don't like to talk about low-ER index funds. Edit: One of the most surprising things in this process is that it got people talking about 401ks, saving, and investing, and it was actually kind of shocking how many of my coworkers are pretty ignorant about all of it. Everyone I work with is incredibly smart and talented, most make over six-figure incomes, and the average age is probably about 40 but their eyes kind of glaze over when it comes to investing and saving. It's not particularly complicated stuff, but people just don't seem to want to think about it. Guinness fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 18:52
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If you've got an established emergency fund, all your debts paid off, and your IRA for 2013 fully funded, then some other things to consider: - Hold on to $5500 of it until Jan 1 when you can fully fund your 2014 IRA. - Are you on an HDHP? If yes, have you fully funded your HSA for 2013? If yes and yes, hold on to another $3100 to fully fund your HSA for 2014 on Jan 1. - Open a taxable brokerage account (through either Vanguard or wherever) to invest with - Online savings account/CD through Ally, CapitalOne, etc. The rates still kind of sucks (0.6-0.8% APR typically) but a heck of a lot better than your checking account if you are extremely risk-averse and want to sit on it as cash/near-cash. If you put funds in a taxable account and then later move them into an IRA, you will be assessed on the gains/losses when you move the money but since it's an ordinary taxable account there is no penalty to selling and transferring.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:35
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Rolling over to an IRA is near-universally the better option than rolling into another 401k/403b. Way more control and flexibility as well as almost always having better investment options and lower fees if you choose a not-poo poo broker. With IRAs the world is your oyster while 401k/403b plans tend to be very limited and often have sub-optimal or even downright terrible investment options.
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Dec 4, 2013 19:28
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DrBouvenstein posted:Ok, IRA is it. For a 401k/403b rollover you probably want to rollover to a traditional. If you rollover to a Roth you'll owe various taxes on the money since it is all currently tax-deferred. Moving it to a traditional IRA will maintain its tax-deferred status and should cost you nothing tax-wise.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:01
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Thanks for bringing up PersonalCapital, I'm looking at it and it looks like it might be a great counter-part to Mint. Mint is great for day-to-day transactional stuff, but is still after all these years just hilariously incompetent at tracking investments and displaying any meaningful info, even after manually correcting a bunch of transaction history and cost basis data.Tony Montana posted:When you're saying your using this site for your investment stuff, what does it do? Aren't we just talking about a list of asset classes and your exposure to each? Isn't a spreadsheet or even a text file enough for this? Spreadsheets and text files don't automatically update from my various investment accounts, get (near) real-time price movement, do automatic asset class computation, compare performance versus major indices, display good historical data, or display pretty graphs. Because of Mint's terribleness when it comes to investments, to get anything more trustworthy than a total account balance I still need to go log in to each of my brokers to check on my various investments (401k, IRA, HSA, and taxable). Plus even some of those sites are still pretty crappy to actually use (like Fidelity's 401k site which I'm stuck with since its my current 401k). Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 18:41
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simble posted:I've tried personal capital, but I prefer sigfig.com. Personal capital was a bit too... personal for me. They called me out of the blue offering advice which I didn't really like. SigFig also integrates with Yahoo finance which is an added bonus for me. SigFig made legit automated suggestions, too. It basically said, hey, idiot, there's an ETF/mutual fund with very similar asset allocation that has much lower fees. You should switch to that. I looked into it and sure enough, it was right. Hmm, that's a bit obnoxious. I'll take a look at sigfig, too. Thanks for these suggestions!
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Dec 5, 2013 18:48
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I'm not terribly concerned, though it is of course something to be aware of. I work in software and security, and while I am not an expert, I have experience in the realm of IT security. Nothing is 100% secure, but I'd say something like Mint is pretty close if they do everything they say they do. If my Mint account (as in my mint.com login) got compromised, the attacker wouldn't actually have any way of doing anything destructive. Mint is read-only. Your bank/broker account numbers are always obfuscated. The usernames and passwords are never displayed and cannot be retrieved. You can't initiate any sort of transfer or buy/sell order from Mint. The only thing an attacker would gain from getting access to my Mint account would be the ability to see my transactions and account balances. Now, if there were a deeper security breach within Mint/Intuit that something like the password database(s) for where they store your login info got compromised somehow, that would obviously be more of a concern, but is also a lot less likely to happen in the first place. I guess this is the point where you have to put some amount of faith in Intuit when they say they follow banking industry security policies like encrypting (and salting!) all your passwords so that they are NOT recoverable to anyone short of a massive brute force attack (would literally take decades/centuries or longer). I'm also confident enough that were any sort of security breach to occur, Intuit would take appropriate measures to mitigate further compromises and notify users in which case I would change all my bank/broker passwords immediately. Considering that data security is basically what their entire service/business model depends upon for continued existence, I'm comfortable enough with it. Personally, I'd be more concerned with some of the janky websites out there that smaller credit unions and brokerages operate getting compromised. But even that is a fairly small concern. You're much more likely to get defrauded by a lovely insecure e-commerce website or by some waiter/bartender skimming your credit/debit card number than an elaborate, highly-skilled hacking attempt on Mint/Intuit. Guy Axlerod posted:ING (Now CapitalOne 360) gives you a unique username and password for sites like this. It gives limited read-only access. Also this is becoming more common. My online savings, taxable brokerage, and IRA are all through CapitalOne/Sharebuilder and they all do this. Guinness fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 19:26
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Not a Children posted:I recently took on a new job in my hometown, so for a few months I'll be living with my parents free of rent and the bulk of living expenses. This is a prime opportunity for me to sock away money and get a jump start on retirement savings (I'm 23). What is your projected monthly cost of living once you move out on your own? Factor in all of your necessities: rent, utilities, car payment, insurance, food, phone/internet, things like that. Whatever that number is, multiply it by about 6 and that is roughly how large your emergency fund should be. Unless you live in an insanely cheap area, I'm willing to wager that number weighs in at about 10k give or take a couple grand. Don't forget that when you sign for a new apartment you're probably going to have to write a pretty big check with the lease, as a worst case perhaps as much as 3 month's rent (first, last, security deposit). Also consider that once you move out you might find you need to purchase a collection of household items that are worth paying a bit for quality. Cookware, dishware, bed/mattress/bedding, furniture, etc. I'm not saying to go on a shopping spree, but some pots and pans and something like a couch might be nice to have and even a "cheap" Ikea couch is several hundred dollars for example. I wouldn't be in a rush to invest all your money right away since you're in such a transitionary period. Yeah it sucks to have over 20k cash sitting around not doing much, but the flexibility and security that it affords you over the next few months while you go through some big life changes is substantial. Move most of that money in your checking account to your Capital One savings account to at least pick up the 0.7% APR (why haven't you done this already?). All that said, if you haven't already maxed out your IRA contribution for 2013 ($5500) I would do that between now and when you file your taxes since you can never make up for that missed contribution. It wouldn't be a bad move to pay down some or even all of your car loan, but at only 2.4% it's not costing you that much in the long run. Beyond that I would advocate playing the wait-and-see game for the next couple months until things shake out a little bit more. You're in a pretty comfortable position for 23 and it's great that you're thinking this far ahead. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 18:50
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 04:17 |
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razz posted:Is there some sort of leeway or do I literally need to have this money invested before Jan 1st? You have until the tax-filing deadline in April to contribute for 2013.
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Dec 27, 2013 23:24
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