My first post and it's a dumb question!

[TuborgP]

I have followed 403b plans for years and love 403bwise. Everything you have heard negative is true. Insurance companies lobbied congress and got them to change accounting and paperwork rules to make it more difficult for school districts to offer multiple vendors.

[Forrest]

Congrats on your wife retiring - my wife retired 4 years ago but I'm still working. A couple of helpful tips:
1. If you haven't already done so, check with state's pension plan office and have them detail how her and your health benefits will change in retirement.
2. Is she entitled to be paid for unused sick days? If so, this may be a sizable windfall and may push you into a higher tax bracket for this year. What will you do with the money? If you haven't done so - check into the benefits of a Roth IRA - you may want to put some of this windfall into the Roth IRA
3. Tax wise, it's may be simpler to delay your retirement until next year - say March or April. You can bump up your 401K % for those last few months, and you'll have a low gross income that year - which will be a perfect time (tax wise) to convert some of your IRA to a Roth IRA.
4. Good luck on the annuity. Given the choice - I would wait 2 years and convert to an IRA. I've tried reading thru my wife's annuity prospectus - it's really confusing. With an IRA - I'm in control and have a better understanding of the fees.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TuborgP I have followed 403b plans for years and love 403bwise. Everything you have heard negative is true. Insurance companies lobbied congress and got them to change accounting and paperwork rules to make it more difficult for school districts to offer multiple vendors.

DW works in admin at a school district, and I was glad to see they had Fidelity as one of the options for her 403B. All the rest were annuity type places.

DD is a teacher, and her paperwork was filled with all these annuity offers, but Fidelity was on a list somewhere deep into the document. When she tried to find out, it seemed she was steered towards the annuities by whoever she talked to. I need to follow up with her.

I'll check out 403bwise, thanks.

-ERD50

[TuborgP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazz4cash Thanks for that input, FD. I was wondering the same thing. My daughter started teaching last year and she signed up for a Principal annuity in her 403b. She also has a mutual fund option from Fidelity (but Fido does not send sales reps to the teachers lounge) and I am pushing her to switch.

Part of the problem is the sales person in the lounge allows to ant teachers to think they now have a financial adviser just like the rich guys. It can be worse in small school districts when the guy in the lounge is related to someone on the board of education etc.