Short and sweet guide on which to max first. Roth and Traditional IRA Differences Roth IRA Contribute up to $5,500 after tax pay (your take home pay) per year You may withdraw up to the amount you contribute with no early withdrawal penalty - this can double as an emergency fund, but any funds withdrawn …
Cheapest Way To Open IRA
How to start saving for retirement with less than $100 in a tax preferred retirement account.
Your House Shopping Budget
How much house should you buy? This is a very different question from how much house can you buy. Pre-Approval Process Most serious house buying adventures begin with getting pre-approved for a mortgage so you know how much money the bank is willing to lend you. The mortgage broker or lender looks at your income …
Don’t Use 401(k) Loans
It's a bad deal. What is a 401(k) loan? You borrow money from your 401(k). You have to pay the money back in a certain amount of time. It seems like a good idea because you are "borrowing from yourself", the interest rate is usually "low", and it doesn't affect your credit. What's the catch? …
The Biggest Retirement Account Myth
You can't access retirement account funds before 59 1/2. WRONG! Ask anyone who thinks they understand retirement accounts when you can access retirement account funds. Even the professionals. They will probably say what has been beaten into everyone: "59 1/2 for 401(k) and IRAs otherwise you pay a 10% early withdrawal penalty" They are wrong …
Save half your money, work half as long
Try, save half your money and only work for 13 years. I haven’t always saved half my income, but I have always saved more than the average American. Often in the 10-30% range at the low end. When using online tools such as the “retirement checkups” offered by many online brokers and retirement plans, they …
17 Steps to Clean Up Your Finances
Financial Checklist Any good business needs to get revenue and also needs to control expenses in order to be profitable. Personal finance is no different. You went to school and have some kind of career and that gets you revenue. You have some influence on your revenue but you definitely can control a lot of …
Introduction
Saving and investing has always been important to me. Over the years we got sidetracked from time to time. Our planned retirement horizon was the classic 40-year career, so it was no big deal to splurge as long as we were on track to retire in our early 60s. But, why wait that long? With the …
Pulling Pork 