Year end investment moves?

[Hermit]

I cashed in all my Savings Bonds and took a distribution from my 401(k). How about you?

This was my first full year of retirement and the first year my income was low enough to take advantage of the Savings Bonds Education Credit. It is also (hopefully) the last year I am going to pay for DS's tuition. I also took a distribution from the 401(k) to bump the income up to just under the level allowed for doing the education credit. Next year I will bump my income to just under the break point for Medicare. With pension and SS I cannot get below the 25% tax bracket.

This was my first withdrawal from retirement savings. Total savings withdrawal under 2%. Putting extra cash into house building fund to cover possible overages.

 

[harley]

Just going to do my annual Roth conversion. We had more income this year so I may end up recharacterizing it, but I'd rather do it and then have to undo it than to miss the opportunity.

 

[travelover]

I fully funded my HSA and Roth. Retired, and DW only works another year and a half, so I want to stash as much as possible in the Roth as I can. Medicare in 3 years, so ditto on the HSA.

 

[calmloki]

I was a dummy and didn't fund an HSA till this year - managed to take advantage of the 10 months I could fund prior to turning 65. Did fund a full year for the gal and will fund her last 4 months next year. Sold all the International fund we bought this year at a loss and bought the oh-so-similar-but-not-the-same ETF VEU - just in time for it to bump up in price after our purchase. For a whole couple days I got credit for sagacious stock marketeering. My thanks to the ER members who weighed in on that - and you will forgive me for not crediting you as I basked oh-so-briefly at home.

 

[Alan]

Once I got TT 2014 I entered all my income to date for the year to get an accurate tax estimate and then did another ROTH conversion.

 

[harley]

Yeah, I should probably do that too.

 

[jebmke]

Will do a ROTH conversion as soon as I finish my pro-forma tax return.

 

[pb4uski]

+1 Beginning in October, I make our annual HSA contributions and start a running pro forma tax return and update it periodically as new info comes in. In December, I update it and rebalance to bring my cash balance back up to target and then I know my capital gains for the year (my taxable account investments do not make capital gain distributions). After my taxable account investments pay their year-end distributions (which happened last week) I update again and determine what my Roth conversion will be and my 4Q2014 estimated federal and state tax payments. I do just enough of a Roth conversion to get to the top of the 15% bracket.

 

[RockyMtn]

Was wondering if this makes sense?

Today was Div/CG ex date for a number of my ETF's. Others were last week. I take all Div and CG's in cash as that becomes my $$$ for living expenses next year.

As a result of the distributions and corresponding dilution/drop in the share price of those ETF's a couple of them (primarily some International ETF's I bought this year) are now in a loss position.

I'm wondering if I should sell those funds and book the loss to offset some other CG's I had during the year? I would reinvest the funds in other funds that would avoid wash sale rules.

Am I missing something?

 

[CoolChange]

Was wondering if this makes sense?

Today was Div/CG ex date for a number of my ETF's. Others were last week. I take all Div and CG's in cash as that becomes my $$$ for living expenses next year.

As a result of the distributions and corresponding dilution/drop in the share price of those ETF's a couple of them (primarily some International ETF's I bought this year) are now in a loss position.

I'm wondering if I should sell those funds and book the loss to offset some other CG's I had during the year? I would reinvest the funds in other funds that would avoid wash sale rules.

Am I missing something?

I hope you are not missing anything since this is the last bit of year end maneuvering that I have planned as well.

 

[jerome len]

After so many good years without a correction I don't have many losers. I did sell some international mutual funds but that was it. Up until know I've been reivesting dividends and bond interest but I've switched them to go into my mm account. that way I'll have some cash to buy index funds when we have a correction......which will come someday. I don't try to time the market but I made a lot of money bacause I had cash in 2008/2009 and bought heavily into the market at that time. Today, very little cash.......so I'm trying to get ready for a correction. And, if 2015 is another good year, I'm still invested.

 

[Car-Guy]

I'll withdrawn enough out of my IRA's to take "us" to the top of the 15% tax bracket.

 

[pb4uski]

This thread motivated me to do my annual Roth conversions and estimated tax payment today so I can enjoy the holidays without that minor task hanging out there.