Paying someone to manage my finances June 15, 2019

I know what you’re thinking: Stephanie is wasting her money! Doesn’t she know you just put everything in low cost index funds and call it a day?

Well, here’s what I’m doing, and why.

Remember years ago when I tried out Financial Engines? I was given a free trial to have someone manage my 401k for 3 months.  It was beneficial for getting some of my portfolio re-balanced, but it wasn’t quite enough to make sure I had everything in order.

So, now, we’ve signed up with Financial Engines again (FYI, this isn’t a sponsored post, just sharing what we did).  Luckily, my employer still has a deal with them, so managing the 401k portion of our portfolios will be cheaper (only a fraction of a percent for managing this part of our money). They are also managing our IRAs for a higher fee.

Why did we do this? Honestly it’s because we were stuck in “analysis paralysis”, unsure if we should have everything in one index fund or many, how to balance between lower and higher risk options, and just needed to make a move. We had too much money sitting in the “cash” part of our accounts that we never invested, and we knew if we didn’t pay someone to take care of it for us, our accounts would continue to sit stagnant and poorly invested.

We discussed our risk threshold and retirement goals and they selected the funds that matched our needs. I confirmed with them that they’d be doing mostly low cost index funds and ETFs, and that they were a fiduciary (working in our best financial interests). They were!

Our intention (and we should make sure we set a calendar reminder for this) is to cancel the service after 6 months. This was basically our way of jumpstarting our retirement accounts and getting things in order. We don’t plan on staying with this service long term, as the fees definitely would add up over the long run.

Yes, it will cost us a little money for these 6 months, but compared to how much gains we could potentially lose out on having our accounts sitting mostly in money markets and a few target date funds (that were a little bit more expensive than standard index funds), I think (and hope) we’ll come out ahead. I liken this decision to signing up for a personal trainer: you might hope to get in shape, and you have a basic idea of what you need to do, but you need that extra push and guidance to get you going in the right direction and kick you into gear!

Have you ever paid someone to manage your finances? Was it worth it?

Where should you open your IRA account? April 9, 2014

This blog post is more of a survey for my readers and a reminder (to open/fund their IRA) than advice.  But I hope everyone who comments has some great insight!

Here’s the deal.  I’ve been obsessed with personal finance since I graduated college in 2006.  I opened a Roth IRA in 2007 and have fully funded it every year.  My fiance and I have also been together since 2007, and he’s read all of my posts about IRAs (Opening an IRA:  No excuses, Should Everyone Contribute to a Roth IRA? and even How often should I contribute to my Roth IRA?).  But he never opened one.  And until we were engaged, I thought “well, that’s none of my concern” and barely nagged him about it.  But now that we’re in this for the long haul, I realized I need to amp up my nagging and get him to open and fund an IRA before the April 15th deadline for 2013 (yes, that’s right, you can fund last year’s IRA up until this year’s Tax Day).  As a note, for 2013 and 2014, the contribution limits for IRAs is $5,500 (or $6,500 if you’re 50 or older).

I thought he had all the information he needed.  But he came back with one more question:

Where should I open my IRA?

It’s a valid question.  There are lots of companies out there.  Most banks, credit unions, and discount brokerages offer an IRA.  But they all have different fee structures and funding options.  Some will waive fees if you set up automatic contributions.

Unfortunately, I don’t actually have the answer for what company to go with.  I opened my IRA at Fidelity mostly because it was a company I had seen my parents using in the past, and it was a well-recognized name.  It later worked out that my new (current) job runs their 401(k) through Fidelity, which proved to be convenient for a number of reasons:  only one login to remember, and I could analyze my entire portfolio in one place.

I put out a quick tweet to seek advice for where to open an IRA.  From DQYDJ, I heard Fidelity, Scottrade, T. Rowe Price, and Tradeking.  Jeff Rose seconded the advice for Scottrade. (Then Scottrade chimed in with a link to an incentive to open an IRA with them).  My (real life!) friend Brian says he has his IRA with USAA, holding Vanguard funds (I agree with the Vanguard funds, I’ve heard really good things about their low-cost index funds).  Then the Debt Free Guys said they like their Schwab account.

So, I don’t know if that helps at all.  Unfortunately, my best advice is to shop around at different companies and see what sort of fees they have, what kind of funds they offer and what (if any) minimum investment requirements there are!  Some funds have very high minimum requirements, though the minimums may be waived if you sign up to auto-contribute to your account.

Lastly, check out the comments as they (hopefully) come in.  I’m always looking to friends for advice, and this is no exception!  Tell me what companies you like (and don’t like) for retirement accounts!  And share your insight for what else to look for in a company!

A Graduate’s Guide to Being a Grownup: Retirement Plans June 30, 2013

This is the first in my “Graduate’s Guide to Being a Grownup” series.  I’m hoping to give some introductions as well as in-depth information to help newly minted graduates (and really, anyone who has questions) .

As a reminder/disclosure, I am NOT a financial advisor.  Nor am I an investing expert.  I’m just someone who has been there, done that, and (thinks I) know what I’m doing.

Retirement Plans.  They’re a big topic.  A confusing, frustrating, and sometimes depressing topic.

The basic idea is this:  You work for a while.  Then eventually you retire.  You want enough money to keep you going until you, erm, don’t need money anymore.  So you need to put money away now for WAY in the future, but you don’t really know how much, since expenses and prices will be different when you’re older, and you don’t know how long you’ll need money for.

See, I told you it’s a tough topic.

But here’s what you need to know about retirement plans.

Most of the ones that you get on your own or through work are ways to put away money now so that you’ll have money later.  The main benefit of most of these accounts (over a basic savings or investment account) relates to taxes.  Either you contribute money to your accounts with dollars that haven’t been taxed yet (like Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s) and then get taxed on the money you take out later, or you contribute money that has already been taxed (like Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s) and then get to take your money out tax-free when you retire.  For both of these, that means that you’re not paying taxes on the gains in your account EVERY YEAR at tax time.

Some additional benefits can include contributions to your account from your employer (often correlated to how much you contribute).

There are usually quite a few options for what to put into these accounts.  They might be mutual funds, individual stocks, bonds, or even just cash savings.  Basically, you’re saving and investing within an account, just as you would with regular saving and investing accounts.

There is a limit to how much you can contribute per year to different kinds of accounts.  There are income-related limits for some of the IRAs.  And there are maximums allowed for many accounts, though there are catch-up amounts allowed if you’re closer to retirement age (over 50 years old).

Most of these accounts will not let you take out the money until you’ve hit retirement age.  If you do, you may be required to pay penalties or additional taxes.  It’s NOT recommended in most cases to take the money out, though there are some exceptions (depending on account, the reason you are withdrawing)

I’ll go into more detail about the different retirement plans available (in the U.S.) in future posts.  This is just to get you started thinking about saving for your retirement.

For now, you can check out my past posts on IRAs and 401(k)s.  Once I finish the next posts, I’ll link to them below.

Short version:

Retirement plans are accounts you save and invest money in.

A main benefit over regular savings accounts or investment accounts is that you can save on taxes either when you contribute or when you withdraw your money (after you retire).

There are some limits to how much you can contribute each year.  There are maximum contribution limits as well as (in some cases) income limits.

The earlier you start saving, the (likely) better off you’ll be, thanks to compounding interest, or gains on top of reinvested gains.

Your balance can go up or down.  If you’re invested in pretty much any stock, bond, or other tradeable asset, there is risk involved.

This money is meant for your retirement, so there are penalties associated with early withdrawal.

Okay, how’s this so far?  What questions do you have (about retirement or any other post-graduate topics)?  Did I cover everything?  Miss something?  Let me know what you’d like to see in the next Graduate’s Guide to Being a Grownup!

Was my Traditional to Roth IRA conversion a mistake? May 17, 2013

Remember last year when I went through all the reasons I was going to convert my rollover IRA (from an old 401(k)) into my Roth IRA?  I had plenty of good reasons.  It wasn’t going to be that much money either way.  I wanted to have all my money in one place so I could buy funds with higher initial investments.  And of course…THE FISCAL CLIFF.  No one knew exactly what was going to happen on January 1, 2013.  I definitely didn’t.  But in retrospect, I should have known that congress would just kick the can down the road.

So on December 31, 2012 (seriously, I’m a bit of a procrastinator), I went ahead and converted my IRA to my Roth IRA.

Then, a few months ago, I sat down to fill out my taxes online, and I entered in all my numbers.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I knew I was going to have to pay taxes on the conversion amount.  But I hadn’t predicted how this added “income” due to conversion was going to impact eligibility for certain tax deductions.  Not that I should complain!  But apparently there’s a strict cut off for eligibility of the Student Loan Interest Deduction.  And with my conversion, I’m over the threshold.   There is a range where your increased income decreases the deduction.  But over the threshold, you’re out of luck.

I did check to make sure my conversion wasn’t going to put me into a new tax bracket.  I knew there was no danger in that happening.  But I hadn’t considered the Student Loan threshold (or any other tax deduction/credit cutoffs).

It’s not the biggest issue.  But in looking back, I probably could have planned out a little better how much of my IRA to convert so that I wasn’t over the limit.  In the end, it wasn’t a lot of money that I could have gotten back with the student loan deduction, but it would have been nice.  I’ve never really been the type of person to base financial decisions on tax liabilities…I figured that’s a problem the super wealthy have to deal with!

What tax and money decisions did you make leading up to the end of 2012?  Did you make any mistakes with your money decisions?  Are you already over it?

Converting my IRA to a Roth IRA December 16, 2012

Back when I was laid off from my old job in 2008, I took the money that was in my 401(k) and rolled it over into an IRA.  And since 2008, I’ve had my Rollover IRA just sort of sitting there.

I started the rollover IRA with $5,026.80

I bought a bit of a target date fund (2045, so it would be different from the 2050 fund in my Roth…because I thought that would be diversifying…whoops!) and kept the rest in the Cash/Money Market fund.  When it started, the return on the money market was around 2.4%.  Now it’s 0.01%.  Bleh.  And then I never touched the account again.

So, with the ups and downs of the market, after 4 years, as of this posting, I now have $5,308.69 in that account.  So my money has grown ~5.6% total in the past 4 years.  It’s not terrible.  Especially considering the financial crash.  But it’s not fantastic.

But here’s the thing.  I want to do more with this money.  Not crazy “invest in the next bubble” more.  Just put it into something normal like an index fund.  And apparently most low-cost index funds available to me in my IRA have minimum investments of $10k.  Which is hard to do if you only have $5k.  So I’d like to roll over my IRA into my Roth IRA.

Another reason I want to roll my IRA over is because I assume my 401(k) will remain larger than my Roth IRA, since 401(k) plans have higher contribution limits, AND my company puts money in through a match and a defined contribution plan.  So I’d like to be able to diversify my tax liability when I retire (you know, have more options on what distributions to take and when), and so the more I have in my Roth, the better!

Lastly, there’s the taxes themselves.  Everyone’s freaking out about the Fiscal Cliff. I’m honestly not sure what tax rates might change to in 2013.  They could stay the same.  Or they could increase due to phasing out of tax cuts we’ve enjoyed for years.  I honestly don’t know.  What I do know is that if any of the tax rates go up, I might as well convert now, just in case.  Plus, I’m still in a pretty low tax bracket at this point in my life, so I might as well take advantage of these rates as well.  (yeah it’s only taxes on a tiny bit of money.  So I might as well do it now!  And I guess it wouldn’t matter much either way).

As a reminder, I’m not a financial advisor.  I’m just sorting out my personal finance thoughts on this blog.  So please don’t take this as financial advice.  I mean, you can still convert an IRA to a Roth IRA if you want.  But talk to your own tax/money people!

Saying that, here is something I learned from my tax/money people (i.e. customer service at Fidelity):

“At the time of your conversion, you will have the option to have taxes withheld. Many investors choose to pay the taxes due on the conversion from another source, as any taxes withheld from the conversion will be considered an IRA distribution and will be subject to any applicable taxes and an early withdrawal penalty if you are under the age of 59 1/2.”

I am planning on paying the taxes using another source.  The taxes I have to pay on this conversion I will pay for out of my regular bank accounts.  The other (not preferred) option is to pay the taxes out of the money you’re converting…which just seems like a horrible idea, because you have to pay a withdrawal penalty for that amount, and you’re lowering the amount of money you’re putting into your retirement account.  I guess some people do it if they have no other option.  Though I’ve also heard of people only partially converting to a Roth so that they can pay taxes on it bit by bit.

As a reminder:  Converting or contributing to a Roth IRA isn’t for everyone.  Depending on your income, your age, your tax liabilities, and plenty of other issues, you might stick with a traditional IRA or try something different.

What tax-related steps are you taking before the end of the year?  Is the drama over the Fiscal Cliff impacting your decisions?  Have you ever converted one retirement account type to another?  Do you agree with my decision to convert my IRA to go into my Roth IRA?

Opening an IRA: No Excuses March 28, 2012

When I was younger and didn’t feel like doing the dishes, I’d make excuses.  The top excuse usually was “I don’t know how to do it!”  Of course we know that’s a ridiculous lie.  And I’d still have to do the dishes.

We all make excuses.  It’s too hard!  I don’t know how to do it!

No.  No more excuses.

I’ve talked before about how it’s a good idea to open an IRA.  And I’m especially keen on the Roth IRA as a good way to diversify my tax liabilities when I retire.

So, I’m here to show you that there are NO EXCUSES.

Disclaimer:  I’m not a financial advisor or other money professional.  I’m just a blogger.  But I want you to pay attention to what I say anyway.  You don’t have to.  But that’s all I can offer.

Excuse number 1:  I don’t have any money to do it!

No.  You do.  You just don’t realize it yet.  Depending on what company you end up opening an IRA with, you’ll have a certain minimum initial or repeating investment.  If you don’t have enough for the initial investment, start stashing away $10 or $20 in a savings account.  Maybe you’re getting a tax refund this year?  There’s some money you can use!  When you build up enough, go for it.  As I said, it depends who you open an account with, which leads me to excuse number 2…

Excuse number 2:  I don’t know how!

As I mentioned before, that’s a lame excuse.  And if you honestly don’t know how, guess what?  It’s easy.  You pick a discount brokerage or bank (I’ve used Fidelity, I know Vanguard is highly recommended, I welcome other good suggestions in the comments).  Check out their website to find out minimum investment requirements, fees, benefits, etc.  If you’re still confused, call them up.  Tell them what you want to do, find out what is required of you to avoid fees, taxes, etc.  Then do it!

Excuse number 3:  I don’t want to lose money!

Guess what?  NOBODY DOES!  You don’t go to Las Vegas hoping to “strike it poor”.  Yes, investing in the stock market (and in bonds, ETFs, etc.) has risks.  There’s no guarantees.  That ridiculous 2008 downturn?  I remember it too!  But here’s the thing.  An IRA is a really good idea.  You’re putting money away for your retirement.  There are tax benefits to having an IRA.  And if you follow the theories of John Bogle, buying low-cost index funds and invest over the long-term, you’re pretty likely to come out ahead over the long run.  And if you consider that keeping money in a regular savings account doesn’t really keep up with inflation, the market is a good way to go.  Which leads me to:

Excuse number 4:  I don’t know what to invest in!

As I said before, I’m not a financial advisor.  As they said in this Marketplace Money interview, the most important part is just starting that account.  You can start by contributing whatever you can (up to $5k, or $6k if you’re over 50 years old) each year.  Your best bet to start is to invest in a low-cost index fund or life cycle fund.  As you build your account, you can start learning more about investing (by reading books, magazines, blogs, listening to podcasts/radio shows), and diversify as you see fit.  If you want, you can always talk to a fee-only certified financial planner or advisor to get some advice.

So.  What do you think?  Any other excuses you can come up with?  Anything I got wrong here or left out?  Where do you find your investment advice?  Let me know!

Would you pay for someone to manage your portfolio? November 24, 2011

The other day I got an envelope in the mail.  It was an offer (through my 401(k)) to sign up with a retirement advice company.  My employer signed up through them to offer a retirement portfolio management service.

My first response was:  No Way.  I’m not paying some people to do something I could do for free!

But then I read the paperwork they sent me.  Apparently I have two options available to me.  I can use their site for free to continue to manage my 401(k) on my own.  Or I can pay a fee to have them plan out, monitor, and rebalance my portfolio. Of course, the paperwork tries to point out how much better things would be if I did pay them for help.  They included stats/graphs showing that if you get their help, you’re likely to improve your return over the long run.

So, will I sign up?  Turns out they’re offering a few free months to hook you onto the “paid” plan.  The fees actually aren’t horrible, and it’ll be nice to actually talk to someone about my fund selection.  Plus, I can import my other retirement accounts (like my Roth IRA and rollover IRA).  I’ve tried out their free program, and it has some decent advice (like how to reallocate my funds to have a slightly more aggressive portfolio) and what other funds I could invest in within my IRAs.  It also told me to increase my contributions from 5% to 7%.  So, I actually already changed the contribution amount.  It was an easy change that made sense.

As for the fund recommendations, they aren’t quite right.  For example, one of the funds they suggested I invest my Roth IRA in has a $1million minimum investment.  Um, no.  But it’s putting me on the right track, I guess.  I could look for similar funds that don’t have outrageous minimums or high fees.

I think I’ll try out the paid program, get my portfolio in order, then switch to the free advice system.  It sounds like Krystal is also thinking about briefly trying a financial advisor, then continuing to manage her portfolio herself.

So, like Krystal asked, would you pay for someone to manage your portfolio?  Would you pay for just advice?  I’ll admit, while I think I’ve got personal finance stuff covered, I’m not very confident about my investing skills.  So, trying this out to start, but then trying to learn more along the way (and shifting back to the free plan after the trial period is over) is the best way for me to approach this.

Should everyone contribute to a Roth IRA? November 10, 2011

The short answer?  No.  It’s not perfect for everyone.  And actually, depending on your income level, you might not be eligible for it.

Roth IRAs are the Big Thing these days for younger people looking to save for retirement.   We’re all encouraged to open one, and contribute to it.  Seems like it doesn’t matter what fund you buy.  Your mission (from the personal finance gurus) is to put money in there.  Put all $5k in there if you can.  If you’re doing that and contributing to a 401(k) up to at least any employer match, you are on the right track (according to gurus, and to be honest, according to me, too!)

My younger sister is currently in grad school.  She sent me a message the other day, with the basic question:  Should I open a Roth IRA?  What are your thoughts on this?

My response?  A combination of advice and general information.  Read on:

They’re a good idea.  It’s good to start saving for your retirement now.  Plus with the stock market down, you buy funds “on sale” 😛

I maybe sound like a salesperson.  Ooops.

You can contribute up to $5000, or your income (what shows up on your W-2s), whichever is lower.  But I’m assuming your stipend is more than $5000!

Also, not sure what your stipend is, but if you make less than $27,750, you can get up to $1000 tax credit if you contribute to a retirement fund.

(Edit for 5-7-2018:  Here’s the new information for the saver’s credit)

The benefit of contributing to a Roth IRA right now is, of course, “The Power of Compounding”.  There’s a common example that if you contribute now and for only a few years, you’ll have more money than if you start later and contribute longer.  Magic.  Assuming the markets go up!

With a Roth IRA, you’re paying in money that was already taxed (through your employer), so when you contribute to your Roth, it can now grow tax-free (and be withdrawn tax-free when you retire).  And since your income level isn’t super high right now, your tax rate is relatively low.  Presumably, in the future, your tax rate will be higher, so if you had used a traditional IRA, while you don’t pay tax now (or you get a tax refund now, depending on how you do the IRA), you’d have to pay taxes on the money you take out of the account (when you retire).  So taxes might be higher then.  It’s a bit of a hedge, because it’s hard to know for certain what rates will be.

Lastly, if you’re mildly freaked out by the idea of putting a lot of money into an account, don’t worry.  Two parts make it less scary:  1.  You are able to withdraw your CONTRIBUTIONS at any time without penalty.  So, you can take out that money.  2.  You don’t have to put the whole $5000 (or however much you decide to contribute) all at once.  I contribute 1/12th of the total amount every month, and buy into a fund every month.  The idea of “dollar cost averaging” will work in your favor, here.  The basic idea is that you buy some of the fund every month, and you buy more when it’s “cheaper” (when the stock price is down), and less when it’s more expensive.  That way you don’t have to worry so much about putting all your eggs in one basket and trying to time the market perfectly.  Because that’s basically impossible.

As for what fund to invest in, most companies offer a fund geared at your particular retirement year.  So you can just contribute to the 2055 fund or something like that, and it’ll start out being more aggressive, then transition to being more conservative as you get older.  Another good option (often with much lower fees) is an index fund.  You’ll want to put your money in a fund with a low expense ratio (read:  cost) so that more of your investment goes to you and less to fees.  Usually it’s hard to buy certain other funds or individual stocks/bonds when you’re just starting out, because you need to have a pretty large minimum amount.  So you can build up your retirement fund until you have enough money to diversify, or you can just keep it in the lifecycle fund that fits your age or an index fund.

So.  If you want to start saving for your retirement (and you should!) I think Roth IRAs are a really good way to start, and it’s good to start now when you make less money (you can’t contribute if your AGI is over $107k…you know, SOMEDAY you might make that much!) and while you’re in a relatively low tax bracket.  It’s hard to know where the markets or tax rates will go, but I’ve found my Roth IRA to be a great balance to my employer’s 401k plan.

(Reminder, I’m not a financial advisor…I’m just a girl who likes talking about money!  But if you have any questions, I’ll answer them!)

Do you have a Roth IRA?  Traditional IRA?  Do you max out your contributions every year?

Paying attention to my retirement accounts May 4, 2010

In the past few days, I’ve paid attention to my retirement accounts.  Not sure what came over me, but I’d been debating making some changes, weighing short-term financial plans vs. retirement plans.  So what have I done these past few days?

I examined (and modified) the asset allocation mix of my retirement portfolio.  I have my rollover IRA, Roth IRA, and 401(k) all at Fidelity; with all my accounts with one firm, they could easily show me a nice pie chart of my asset mix.  And it was definitely not what my goal mix was supposed to be!  I am far enough away from retirement that I should have a pretty aggressive portfolio.

When I rolled over my old 401(k) to a rollover IRA, I didn’t really do much with the money.  I invested some of the money in a target fund, and left the rest in “cash”, i.e. a really low returns money market account.  It wasn’t until the other day, when I looked online and realized that my entire portfolio was way too heavy in short-term (i.e. cash) that I knew I had to do something to rebalance my portfolio.  So I used some of the money in “cash” to buy more of the target fund.  I’ll probably buy more of that later.  I figure I can use a little dollar cost averaging to my favor! 😛

I also decided that I might as well contribute more to my 401(k).  I had said that I was going to hold off increasing my contribution amount until I reached a goal amount in my savings accounts.  But then I realized that was kind of a silly plan.  I have enough extra cash in my checking account that I’ll still be able to continue my automatic savings plan even with a reduced net income.  I also realized raising my contribution by just one percent doesn’t really impact my cashflow, and I know that the more I contribute now, the better!  So, as of now, I’m contributing 5%, and getting matched on 4%.  I might be increasing the amount even more in the near future, once I finish doing a few more calculations.

Have you checked on your retirement accounts recently?

Notes from Suze Orman January 12, 2010

As I mentioned in my recap of the Massachusetts Conference for Women, I was going to go into further detail about what Suze Orman said in her keynote speech.  I figured that, what with it being pretty good advice, as well as this being a personal finance blog, it would only be right to include it here for others to check out.

Suze Orman has written plenty of books.  In fact, she’s the author of one of the  books I read early on in my quest to learn about personal finance.  I remember reading Young, Fabulous & Broke, which was a good start into the personal financed world.  I also read The Wealthy Barber, which conveys the importance of paying yourself first and starting early (and other advice) through a story.  And most recently, I’ve finished reading Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich.  All pretty good books for getting yourself started on your way towards financial freedom!

I’ve heard most of what she said before, but it was good to be reminded to continue doing what needs to be done.  I’ve sorted out her advice into the separate topics she covered.

Opening Remarks:

• To be powerful, you need a solid platform, which includes an 8 month emergency fund and no credit card debt (Debt=bondage)
• If you have credit card debt, get a balance transfer to a credit union credit card.  She encouraged us to get away from “Big Banks”.  She recommends checking out credit unions here.  I’ve heard discussion recently on the topic.  The last thing I saw about it was at the Move Your Money project.

Retirement:

• If there is a matched 401(k) or 403(b) available to you, you can’t afford not taking advantage of it, as getting matched contributions means you’re immediately getting returns of 50-100% (depending on the match you are receiving).  If your employee-sponsored retirement fund is matched, contribute up to the match.
• 401(k)s are protected during bankruptcy, so if you are going to declare bankruptcy, don’t take money out of there to pay debts, it will be money you can use later.
• If your 401(k)/403(b) is unmatched, or if you contribute to the maximum match, your next step is to open up a Roth or Non-deductible/traditional IRA.
• Her view is that we’ll likely be in a higher tax bracket in the future; we’re currently at a low rate right now at ~35%.  She mentioned this because she wagers that the government is likely to raise tax rates to pay for a lot of what’s going on right now (I guess she threw a little politics into the mix).  Also, if the rates are this low, there’s a good chance they’ll go higher.  But I think the other reasoning is that you’ll be making more money later in life, and presumably have such a large retirement portfolio by the time you retire that you’d also be in a higher tax bracket.  Regardless, she mentioned this because she encourages everyone that is eligible to open a Roth IRA.
• If your income level is too high for a Roth IRA, she encourages you to open a traditional IRA and then convert it to a Roth.
• Regarding Roth IRAs:  Give up the tax write-off, so you can grow your money tax-free.  The benefits of Roths include:  You can take out your principle if you need to, you don’t have to start taking distributions when you reach retirement age, and you can leave your Roth to your children, and it remains tax-free for them.
• NEVER TAKE A LOAN FROM YOUR 401(k)!!! You essentially get taxed twice, you will pay a penalty, you’ll owe income tax, and, you still have to pay it back.  And as mentioned above, your 401(k) is protected during bankruptcy.

Wills and Living Revocable Trusts

• A will describes where your assets will go upon your death.
• A living revocable trust will include an incapacity clause.
• Both are important to have.
• You can use her Will & Trust Kit to prepare your will/trust.

Life Insurance

• The only type you should look to get is Term (she was very adamant about this).

The Stock Market

• “Anything can happen at any time”,  so only invest in the stock market if you don’t need that money for at least 10 years.
• If you’re young, now is the perfect time to invest.  Take advantage of Dollar Cost Averaging (buy more when the stocks are “on sale”, buy fewer when the stocks are pricier)
• Other things to invest in:  High yield dividend funds (3-5% returns) and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
• Your investment portfolio should be 80% United States, 20% international
• If you’re older, stay away from bond funds.  Instead, invest in bonds with a specified (and desired) maturity date.

Buying a House:

• If you have your emergency fund, and are able to afford a 20% down payment, you can buy a house.  Those are the minimum requirements she gives.
• If the administration gives incentives, and then extend them, they are afraid that ending the incentives will send the markets back down
• If you are looking to own, but are waiting it out, be careful; it’s very difficult to time the market

Children (specifically, sending them to college):

• Don’t put yourself on the back burner:  if you love your children, teach them it’s okay to put mom first.  Don’t feel guilty putting yourself first.
• Your children can always get scholarships/loans/grants for their education; you can’t get those for your retirement.

Gift giving/the holidays:

• Give the gift of time or money for the less fortunate.

Long Term Care insurance:

• Speaking from experience with her mother, long term care can be very expensive, so it’s a good idea to look for long term care insurance, either for yourself, or for your aging parents (depending on the age)
• She recommends getting long term care insurance through Prudential.

So, that’s what she said, in a relatively large nutshell.  I know there are other opinions on these matters (life insurance, investment choices, etc.), but I think this information, along with the info you can get in the books I mentioned and the blogs I link to will get you on the path toward financial independence!

Anything I missed from her speech?  Do you agree or disagree with her advice?