Recent content by NOLA Rob

My wife and I looked at it and have opted for the pure investment 529 plans for our kids due to similar concerns about the fine print and how little we know about what our kids will decide to do. We may be wrong, as we are not the most sophisticated investors by far, but we like the flexibility...

My grandfather took me to Europe when I was 14 and it was one of the best trips of my life and I remember it with great detail. He and I still talk about it (and our other trips) regularly a couple decades later. I’d say that is a good age. Edit: it was actually 20 years ago almost to the...

Try airfare watchdog. You can set certain routes and they email you deals or just set your home base and get deal notifications for the best prices all over the world from your location.

We used Dale Booth for tours in Normandy last time I was there (a few years ago) and he was wonderful. It is a van tour and he drives you all over the beaches and has you hop out to see various sights. We did one day, but he also does a two day tour, one day for the British beaches and one day...

That is really interesting. Is it just the ability to use the future gains at any time that makes you prefer taxable over Roth in your circumstances (where you are over trad Ira limits)? I may be over the Roth limits for the first time this year, but I've been planning on doing a back door...

But here the income is 100k, which exceeds the limit for a traditional deductible Ira right? So his choice is between a traditional non-deductible Ira, Roth Ira, and taxable account. In this situation the Roth is the best option. Or am I missing something? And once he goes over the Roth...

Yeah, honestly my plan at this point has been limited to the 'get those loans paid off and then start saving in taxable accounts' plan. I like the aspect of the tax advantaged accounts being able to grow untouched until I'm 59.5 or later. I think that you can withdraw from traditional Ira /...

I've certainly thought about it! Seriously though, the only reason we are not contributing to taxable accounts is because we are aggressively paying off my DW's student loans. We are on schedule to pay them off in 3-4 years. Once we do that, we will have about $36,000 a year to put in taxable...

I like that. I posted the info on the FIRE and Money forum about roth 401k v. traditional 401k as a direct question and it seems like the consensus was that I should be doing the traditional rather than the roth for the majority of those contributions. It makes sense to me so I think I'm going...

Ok, you guys sold me. I'm going to switch to traditional 401k with at least 15k of the 17k going to traditional and keep about 2k going to the roth 401k. The concept of effective versus marginal tax rates was new to me. I pitched it to my wife and she agreed. Plus the extra 400+ a month...

Yes they are and yes. I tend to agree. Thanks for the advice and the links!

Car loan - None Mortgage - $238,000 at 3.875% (Payment is $1,125) Graduate School Student Loans Currently: $20,027.25 @ 5.8% $24,304.42 @ 7.5% $41,678.42 @ 8.5% $18,031.65 @ 6.8% I'm not sure exactly what the total minimum payment is and how much extra on top we are putting in because my wife...

My goal is to be financially independent at age 50. I'm really happy at my job and would not retire now if I was FI (might cut back a bit though). However, I would like to be FI by 50 because I have no idea whether I will still like my job after 22 more years in it. So, for purposes of this...

I'm currently maxing a Roth 401k at work. My wife has significant student loans that we are on schedule to pay off in exactly 48 months at our current payment levels (not counting tax refunds, extra income, bonuses, etc...). We are in a 31%-36% tax bracket when counting state and federal...

I had not considered the concept of some sort of tax on roths. Definitely not sold on continuing the Roth 401k forever. Thanks for the advice! I'm going to have to dive into it and run the numbers.