http://money.msn.com/retirement/retirement-calculator.aspx

Range 1.4 million still at 72 to $19 million still at 82 based mainly on yearly return on investments. I will have a pension and if Social Security is still around...gives u the option to not include Social Security.

I changed the return to 2% to be way conservative, 8% (default) gave me $19 million at 82 and I would retire at 57.

[Edited on March 15, 2012 at 10:10 PM. Reason : w]

3/15/2012 10:09:20 PM

Anyone really good with time value of money, interest rates & all that blah blah? I need to make a $20,000 cash money decision & not sure which way is better

I need to buy a car (been driving a free one for 4 years). I have $20k cash money today right now that I can either

A) put toward a car & even prepay 6-12mo insurance (also I'd be buying used, possibly my company car)

Or

B) throw into my mortgage (please note my interest rate was good when I got it but not by today's standards & I have very minimal equity which is costing me lots of PMI

Plz to help. PM me for more of the details if you can help me calculate the two scenarios

3/16/2012 3:09:45 AM

PM sent.

3/16/2012 10:08:59 AM

So I just got a completely unexpected distribution from my 99 year old grandmother who broke a hip in her nursing home last week. They don't think she's going to make it too long, so her two sons started doling out checks to all of the grandkids to avoid tax consequences going through the estate. Really wasn't expecting this considering I haven't talked to the woman in years and generally thought that she had no longer considered me part of the family since I changed my last name when I was 18 (divorced parents, long story).

Anyways....$13,000 is not a huge sum, but it's $13k that I wasn't expecting and I don't know if I should do anything with it. I have a bunch of big purchases coming up (new car, honeymoon, etc), but I was already working out my salary and savings to account for that. It was going to make things tight for a few months, but it could be handled.

I don't have many investments. I've already maxed out my Roth IRA for the year and I have around $15k laying in a low interest savings account and I keep around $10k immediately available in checking. I don't want to pay down extra on my mortgage (it's around $220k now and I don't plan on living here for longer than 5 more years) or my school loans (around $50k right now).

Any ideas??

4/3/2013 9:06:19 AM

Up your 401k/403b/simple IRA contributions?

4/3/2013 11:20:50 AM

^

Quote :

"I don't have many investments."

All I have is my Roth IRA (maxed out) and a savings account.

4/3/2013 3:31:35 PM

Maybe this is a perfect time to take advantage of that then? I max both my Roth IRA and 401k currently. Sounds like you have plenty of cash and savings on hand, you don't want to put this toward your house or student loans and your Roth IRA is already maxed. I can't think of a better scenario than using this money to fund a tax-sheltered retirement avenue you aren't already utilizing.

4/3/2013 4:03:31 PM

Finally earning enough now to actively fund my retirement, feels good

4/3/2013 6:27:53 PM

So put 10k in a 401k then? (3k is going towards miscellneous stuff so I don't have to tighten up the wallet too much leading up to the wedding)

4/3/2013 6:45:04 PM

^^congrats! It really does feel good.

^well I'd like for some others to weigh in, but if you're not looking to blow it, you don't want to put it toward the house or student loans, you already max your Roth IRA, and you seem to have a good amount of cash on hand (not saying any of that is bad at all, just restating the facts we have), then investing it seems to be the best option for a windfall profit.

And, without knowing any specific personal finance goals (so just thinking generically here), if you aren't utilizing a 401k or similar vehicle, I'd rather invest my money in something like that, which would grow tax-free for the time being.

I forget, are you self-employed?

4/3/2013 7:27:56 PM

10K in the 401K sounds good to me

4/3/2013 8:50:54 PM

Why not open a brokerage account or just buy some stock through DRIP programs?

I like big US industrials right now. GE, CAT, and the like.

[Edited on April 3, 2013 at 9:05 PM. Reason : sfdf]

4/3/2013 8:54:36 PM

He's self employed. 401k is not going to be a good option, too expensive.

You should talk to a financial advisor or investment firm about opening a SEP-IRA probably.

There are some Uni k providers out there, but a little complicated for my tastes.


To Wolfey's question it really depends on what the interest rate is on your car purchase most likely.



I'm not a fan of paying off your home early. You do save on the interest expense, but you lose the tax deduction and home equity earns 0% and is pretty damn illiquid if you ever get in a jam. Also it's completely non diversified. Once you trap your money in those walls it's really not working for ya and it's possible to lose it if your home value goes down.

You never know when you might have a ton of medical bills, moving expenses, an opportunity to start/expand a business, or invest in something. Having your money trapped in a home is one of the worst places for it to be in those cases. Though if you're paying PMI then it might not be such a bad idea to pay it down to the point where you remove that expense.


Also CalledToArms it's a little early to think about this but since you mentioned retiring early I just thought I'd let you know you can take penalty free withdrawals from a 401k if you retire in the year you turn 55 or older.

Also, with a 72-t distribution you can retire at any age and start taking penalty free withdrawals from an IRA. Most folks aren't lucky enough to do it, but if you've started saving early and often and don't have a lot of outflows in retirement it can happen.

[Edited on April 7, 2013 at 6:34 PM. Reason : a]

[Edited on April 7, 2013 at 6:35 PM. Reason : a]

4/7/2013 6:31:07 PM

^ Awesome. I really appreciate the input.

4/7/2013 6:46:56 PM

I am looking for advice on where to open a retirement account. I am self employed and need the tax deductions, my wife's company does not offer 401k.

4/18/2013 7:27:48 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEP_IRA
https://investor.vanguard.com/what-we-offer/small-business/sep-ira?WT.srch=1

[Edited on April 18, 2013 at 7:45 PM. Reason : ]

4/18/2013 7:45:08 PM

Are there advantages doing it that way vs just doing it in my name. I do not have a business entity, all of my income is on 1099 to my SSN.

4/18/2013 7:53:36 PM

What do you mean by "doing it"

4/18/2013 11:55:14 PM

I have a SEP-IRA with fidelity. All the same function as my Roth IRA I have with them in regard to trading.

Of course the sep-ira is done on a traditional basis, though. AFAIK, there is no Roth sep-ira

4/22/2013 12:24:51 AM

Who is better Fidelity or Vanguard?

4/25/2013 10:42:23 AM

It's subjective, but Vanguard has lower fees overall iirc.

4/25/2013 11:18:17 AM

I'm content with fidelity. I don't have any fees on my sep-ira. Save for transaction fees. 7.95 trades... Some mutual funds have fees associated obviously.

It literally functions the same as a traditional IRA, however the contribution must be by check, and only once per year. (The quarter after closing of your fiscal year, iirc.... Typically jan-april). You may contribute up to 25% of your income after business deductions. So, if you gross 100k, have 20k in business related deductions, your gross payroll is 80k. You can contribute 20k, lowering your personal pretax income to 60k.... Turbo tax has a "maximize" function that will look at your tax records and tell you what the legal contribution limit is... You can always go below that of course.

The caveat.... If you have an employee(s), they must receive the same percentage! There is something about definining employee eligibility, like I worked for a small business that did SEP distributions at roughly 15%... But you had to work there for 3 years before you're eligible. You may have to clearly outline the requirements... If you're on a 1099 basis, they're on their own, as their compensation is considered a business deduction, not a payroll item. But I would confer with a tax lawyer on this one.

4/26/2013 7:29:12 PM

I am forced to use Fidelity for my 401K and certainly no complaints thus far.

4/27/2013 4:57:20 PM

I overheard this discussion:

'Why wouldn't you take out money from your 401k, take the penalties, and payoff your mortgage? Then the money you're used to spending on a mortgage you can dump into your 401k, and contribute like 1,000 more a month, and save all that interest on your house"



I mean, if your mortgage rate is like 40% , sure, maybe.

[Edited on April 27, 2013 at 5:33 PM. Reason : safe to say he is not investing well]

4/27/2013 5:31:52 PM

I'm in my thirties. still 9K in debt from school. $0 saved for retirement.

Things could be better.

4/27/2013 8:11:27 PM

I've got a few retirement accounts, but I basically didn't do much in the way of saving. I just went back to school and coming out I basically tripled my annual income so I figured I'll start saving more then.

4/27/2013 10:21:05 PM

You might want to consider rolling those accounts into one at this point

4/28/2013 10:33:56 AM

Why?

4/28/2013 1:03:47 PM

Just upped our monthly Vanguard contribution (taxable account; the Roths are already maxed). Still paying extra on the house but I decided to not pay any more on the house and just double our contribution to my pool of mutual funds.

We're basically putting the equivalent of each of our Roth IRAs here now, but just together in one account vs the individual accounts we have for the Roths. If we ever had a major emergency we can obviously dip into this, but the idea is that this is the early retirement fund. In a perfect world, with pay increases we'll just keep increasing our contribution to this account now.

5/9/2013 8:37:30 AM

Fucking dinks.....

5/9/2013 10:40:44 AM

well im making additional this year because of a specific project assignment too. Using some of it toward things we wanted to do around the house (kitchen being the big one), but I'm just investing the rest of it which is where this is coming from.

5/9/2013 10:52:27 AM

I still keep thinking about whether we should be refinancing or not, I just feel like I have absolutely 0 time on my plate to be dealing with that at all. We are at 4.75%.

5/29/2013 9:33:34 AM

I got mine down to 4.0 but mainly b/c my bank is walking distance from where I work.
Really just depends if have plans to sell any time soon.

5/29/2013 10:36:25 AM

Obviously you never know with work and life, but definitely no plans to leave for awhile. We both work for the same company and we each just took new positions as well within the same company.

I'm sure I could save some money, I just keep internally debating if it's worth the hassle of another thing on my plate at the moment to save a little money. We are on schedule to pay the house off in 15 years currently too (assuming we stayed in this house). So with the upfront money, writing off interest, and only 15 years to save the difference between a current and new interest rate, I keep talking myself out of messing with it.

[Edited on May 29, 2013 at 11:26 AM. Reason : ]

5/29/2013 11:22:34 AM

Oh, well if you're going to do 15 yr fixed you can get below 4%
I'd do it.

5/29/2013 11:29:20 AM

sorry, I should have clarified. We are on a 30 yr but right now I'm paying around $300 extra a month and that puts the end date on a 15 year path. (Yes I know, I'm paying more than my minimum, but I started dumping more into mutual funds this year like I mentioned in a previous post instead of putting more toward the mortgage like I mentioned in a previous post). I

5/29/2013 11:34:32 AM

So, just refi to a 15 yr fixed unless you prefer the liquidity.

5/29/2013 11:47:46 AM

Just opened up my second fidelity 401k
There is no roth option

10/2/2013 2:08:32 PM

ANTIQUES AND BLOW

10/2/2013 11:49:31 PM

At current interest rates and tax deduction structure, why would you pay a cent more than necessary towards your mortgage?

10/3/2013 1:13:26 AM

to get it off my plate. Yes, I know the math works out better dollar:dollar in the market with the returns I've gotten the past several years - so lots of people will disagree with paying anything extra and I do understand why.

We're already both Maxing our 401ks, both maxing our Roth IRAs, and both investing a sizable amount every month into a non-retirement account. So, money into the house isn't preventing any of the investing milestones I set for us when we first starting working. It was only after satisfying all those milestones that I started putting a little extra into the house. And even then, I still dump extra money into the market every 6 months: when I re-balance our accounts, I also shave money off the top that accumulated in the bank above and beyond our emergency fund + upcoming house projects/travel spending budgets.

[Edited on October 3, 2013 at 9:43 AM. Reason : ]

10/3/2013 9:28:18 AM

My view is that if I have the money to pay the debt off anytime I want, it isn't "on my plate". I'd just put it into the taxable brokerage account (or maybe use some to further increase the emergency fund, or a 529 plan, or HSA, or invest in income-producing property, or something...but I think I could just about always find a better way to put it to use than by paying off a mortgage--at least with today's interest rates and tax deductions.)

You are basically spending money for piece of mind. If you have the money (hell, put it in fixed-income funds, blue chip dividend payers, and bond funds if you want a near-sure thing), then the piece of mind is that you can always pay the debt off at will. You're just borrowing money to make money with it.

[Edited on October 3, 2013 at 7:52 PM. Reason : ]

10/3/2013 7:50:48 PM

^^ i'm with you

i've maxed out my 401k and roth ira (me and my wife), have plenty in savings, and invest the extra from savings into another investment account. However, I made it a goal that once I paid off my second mortage 4 years ago (I had an 80/20 originally), I would put the extra money to paying off my house. I refinanced 2 years ago to a 10 year loan, and it feels good to see the mortgage drop 1k every month.

I'm looking forward to being debt free (but I know that won't last, my wife is already talking about a bigger house or adding on to the current one).

10/3/2013 9:34:57 PM

Shit, I'd refinance to a 50 year mortgage if there was such a thing and the interest rates weren't higher.

...and I'm all into living below my means and not borrowing money to maintain a lifestyle.

10/3/2013 10:22:06 PM

When you say you're maxing your 401k... Do you mean actually maxing out the 17% limit or whatever it is, or maximizing employer matching?

10/3/2013 10:54:02 PM

maxing the current 17,500 IRS limit.

10/4/2013 7:25:06 AM

Yeah, if you're doing that already, just start paying down the house more aggressively. Youre saving at a pace where you'll still be able to retire early and live a nice life... I'd also just want to get rid of it.

[Edited on October 4, 2013 at 10:18 PM. Reason : .]

10/4/2013 10:16:14 PM

Anyone ever use https://www.futureadvisor.com/ ?

10/7/2013 3:51:56 PM

Personal Rate of Return from 01/01/2013 to 12/31/2013 is 30.1%

1/2/2014 10:49:49 AM

Anyone use Lending Club?

https://www.lendingclub.com

1/2/2014 11:10:52 AM