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Nothing I've read regarding today's legislation says anything about changes to the backdoor Roth loophole.

EDIT: There is mention of it here: http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_22294868/fiscal-cliff-bill-extends-most-bush-tax-cuts

I'd like to echo these sentiments. I've received more valuable financial and career guidance on this forum than anywhere else I've looked.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the input.

Hello everyone, I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season. Quick question regarding our savings as I have not posted here in while and need to put back on the right track. We have the ability to save about $6,500/mo. We have a cash emergency fund that is appropriate size for our income. We do ...

Good morning, My apologies if this has been covered (it probably has) but I cannot find this information in clear form anywhere. I am attempting to do a backdoor Roth contribution for myself and my wife for 2012. I have already contributed $5000 to brand new traditional IRAs for each of us (these IR...

I spent $4000 (that I didn't have) to get my cat the surgery he needed a few years before he died. 2 years later his kidneys failed and I was told by the vet that his quality of life would never be great again. I spent the money to have him put down and cremated and it was the hardest decision I eve...

I am sure you are aware that PENFED requires no more than $500 deductable on car insurance (or at least they used to). If you are currently carrying a higher deductable they will contact you to have you get it to no more than $500. Actually hadn't heard that. Well I will wait for them to make the f...

Seriously though, quit borrowing money for cars. Your retirement accounts will thank you. Already saving for future car replacements, however I do not have the money to pay off the current loans at this point. I figured I might as well get interest rates as low as I could in the meantime. I've got ...

I was at a United ticket counter this summer getting a pass to enter the secure area to wait with a couple of teenagers flying on their own. A lady in front of me missed her flight, obviously for work, and was pretty upset. She said she was held up in part because the United site was inaccessible w...

Good evening, I just refinanced my vehicle at PenFed for 1.99%...great deal. They are sending me a check which I am to sign and them forward on to US Bank, where my current loan is held. I know in the past when I have paid off car loans directly, the bank sends me the title. In this case, when I am ...

I would think anyone who flies with any regularity knows that children are not permitted in the exit row. It amazes me that actual airline employees could be unaware of this.

I am curious if those in this thread who are calling debt "stupid" and implying that it makes you a slave to the lenders are referring to all debt (including mortgages, low interest auto/student loans, or just consumer debt). While I share the debt aversion, I don't think most people in th...

Not sure if it qualifies as Southwest Florida but headed down to Anna Maria Island for a week in mid April with the wife and my parents. Never been to AM so looking forward to it! I have spent quite a bit of time down in the Sanibel and Captiva area, as my parents used to live in Cape Coral. Is Ann...

Not sure if it qualifies as Southwest Florida but headed down to Anna Maria Island for a week in mid April with the wife and my parents. Never been to AM so looking forward to it! I have spent quite a bit of time down in the Sanibel and Captiva area, as my parents used to live in Cape Coral. Is Anna...

I would like to second this. I had a financial advisor for years who I met with on a constant basis, however I did not really learn a thing about investing until I started reading this board and fired my financial advisor. In a year's time I have gone from credit card debt and no savings, to maxing ...

Either way is fine because they end up being the same thing. Try this: Use the Instant X-ray tool at http://www.morningstar.com in 2 separate browser windows. Then use different combos of FXSIX, FSEMX, and FSTMX to see what happens. Suppose L = large = FXSIX and S = small/mid = FSEMX, you should kn...

Good evening, I want to set up my wife's 403b with a small to moderate tilt toward small cap. The 403b is with Fidelity and there is no Spartan small cap fund available. The only relevant Spartan funds available are the following: FXSIX - 500 Index FSEMX - Extended Market Index (small/mid) FSTMX - T...

I don't understand why anyone stays with these big banks. Why? Why torture yourself? My local credit union pays me 2.25% in checking up to $20k per account, has no fees, is friendly as all get-out, and reimburses all ATM fees. No debit card fee, low interest rate on a Visa card if you carry a balan...

Thanks all for the informative replies.

I'm now realizing the the swings look larger in the early years of the chart due to the nature of the scale. Can't remember the name of this type of scale but I've heard it talked about here many times. That clears things up a bit for me as it doesn't look like the volatility was ever that much high...

When debt is gone I will begin taxable investing and i am trying to do some planning for that now. I plan to use a muni fund for the bond portion of the taxable portfolio and also as a second tier emergency fund. I was trying to understand which of the following 3 muni funds made the most sense: VWS...

Harold wrote:

ChrisAZ wrote:We hate debt

That may be true, but it sure doesn't look like it.

Sometimes it takes observations like that to get some perspective on your behavior

Thanks for the advice.

By the way, you do realize that if your 2011 gross income is $185,000 and you're contributing only $9,000 to pre-tax employer plans that your MAGI will be too high for direct Roth contributions, right? The phaseout starts at $169,000, so you may be several thousand into it. In 2012 if your gross in...

OK, but you're mixing past and future tenses. If cash flow isn't an issue now with your higher income, why wouldn't you pay off the high rate debt first? I was assuming that freeing up cash flow sooner by paying off the car loan would allow me to pay off all debt in less time. Since none of the int...

You should be able to be debt- free in a year with your income (actually less than that). Do a budget, pay off your debt, and then build an emergency fund. Don't use your e-fund to pay for cars in the future, instead only buy what you can pay cash for out of other funds (this means more saving). ed...

1. $185,000 gross income with $48,000 annual expenses doesn't seem compatible with having to borrow to buy cars. The high income is a relatively new thing for us and we used it to tackle credit card debt in the first year. 3. Why prioritize the lower interest car loan over the higher interest stude...

The board veterans must be tired to of hearing pay off debt vs invest questions but I am having serious analysis paralysis and need a fresh perspective. I've posted here before and gotten good advice on my debt payoff vs investing plan, however I am rethinking a couple things and wanted some new adv...

Currently renting in a smallish house, and looking at the market for an equally smallish house but with lots of land. +1 Currently renting 1600 sq ft, but would like to buy in the next couple years. House size doesn't matter to me...I could live in something smaller than we do now; lots of land is ...

House Blend wrote:Capital gains in a muni fund are still taxable, even if the interest is not.

Wow, I had no idea this was the case.

My main question is if it makes sense to continue buying bonds now when interest rates are so low. since i am investing for the long term it seems like rates have only one way to go and thats up Even if rates rise, you will receive more interest to offset the NAV decline. I am a novice investor but...

Synthetic
Every 10,000 miles
Toyota Camry

Yes, she is paying into SS and therefore is accruing quarters and wages for future determination of SS benefits. In addition, when she collects on her AZ pension, she will be able to exclude 2,500 from income for AZ state income tax purposes. If her annual pension was less than 2,500 she could excl...

The technical answer is that long ago state and local governments and their agencies were not in social security, but then the law was changed to allow them to make voluntary agreements, called a Section 218 agreement. [The agreements are not voluntary on the part of the worker, just the state and ...

Good evening, I've recently heard that some people who receive state pensions do not also receive social security. My wife contributes to the Arizona State Retirement system so I went to their website to research the issue. Of course, I could find no information on the topic, which is par for the co...

I know many in my line of work that invest more aggressively knowing the pension is there to back them up if those investments go south. I do 50/50 stock bond. That's interesting...we are the opposite. Because my wife will receive a pension from the state of Arizona, we feel less need to take risk ...

This is a topic that I have a really difficult time making a decision on. I have heard so many different opinions: - pay cash to maintain monthly cash flow - don't finance depreciating asset - finance if rates are low because you can get a better return on that money elsewhere - finance to hold onto...

DSInvestor wrote:Wiki article link: Principles of Tax-Efficient Fund Placement

Very interesting information regarding small cap funds selling certain stocks as companies leave the index. This would appear to answer both my first and second questions.

Thanks!

Good evening all, Once my debt is paid off several months from now I would like to begin doing some taxable investing. This is my first experience with taxable investing so I am trying to be sure I fully understand all of the considerations. I plan to invest in municipal bond funds but would like so...

It takes a wise person to know his limits. Most folks think they can tolerate a big drop - until it happens. The the stuff hits the fan and, well.... you can imagine it I'm sure. Then they either sell (permanently losing money) or gut it out and lose sleep and be unpleasant to be around for a coupl...

My wife's state university pension is partially vested after 5 years and fully vested after 10 years.

If you have a $500,000 portfolio at 80/20, and over a few months your portfolio value goes down to $300,000.00 are you going to sell all your stocks. This isn't a theory, A 50 percent net drop in equities happened in 2007-2009 and happened 2000-2002 also. OH, and if after that 50 percent drop, some...

No, 50/50 is not too conservative. If maintaining "age in bonds" is going to make you lose sleep or bail after a significant downturn, then it's not right for you. Some people maintain 50/50 or 60/40 portfolios throughout their investing lifetimes. A greater allocation to bonds gives you ...

Hi everyone, I am new to investing and have posted a few times over the last several months and received wonderful help from this board. I have been going back and forth on the basic asset allocation question over the last several months. Upon first planning my investments I had decided on an asset ...

This is good stuff, thanks for posting.

Yes, you have the contributions part correct. With respect to the penalty, the 10% penalty applies to pre tax conversion contributions not held for 5 years, not to regular Roth contributions. But if your income does not allow you to make regular Roth contributions, the tax free conversion of contri...

If you do not have any pre tax dollars in your TIRA now, then you can avoid the concern over where your MAGI ends up by just making non deductible TIRA contributions and converting them. There is no limit on the number of conversions you can do, but it will simplify things if you can afford to make...

Hi everyone, I am trying to plan my investing for 2012 and I am a bit torn on what to do regarding our Roths. My wife and I may or may not make too much money in 2012 to qualify for contributing to our Roth IRAs and we will not know how much we make until the end of the year. I am aware of the backd...

I hate to be blunt - find yourself someone who is compatible. It is unreasonable for one with an endless bank account to expect you to use all your resources. I would not hesitate to have the "talk" - it's apparent from your post she is living in another realm. Time to move on, there are ...

Someone called in to the Suze Orman show's "Can I Afford It?" segment several weeks ago with this very same question.

retiredjg wrote:How about an expansion on the east coast?

This is probably the most likely possibility. Will have to see how things play out over the next few years. We will either sell the business, hire others to run it, or perhaps stay more involved and expand geographically as you mention.