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Correct, I plan on directing it away from my emergency fund. I don't plan on needing the money soon but would rather not lock it up in the 401(k). I'm guessing something like 5-10 years. Thanks for the two scenarios for BrokerageLink, it was pretty surprising to me to see how hard that $100 is to o...

It's not a mistake for someone in the highest tax brackets to hold stocks in their IRA and Treasuries in taxable. At 39.6% tax on .7 Treasury yield, the tax cost is about 28 bp per year. At 23.5% QD plus 5% state tax on stocks yielding 2%, the tax cost is 57 bp per year (plus additional CG taxes som...

Tax Rate: 25% Federal, 9.3% State Roth IRA at Vanguard - $25,220, 94.3% New annual Contributions 15% of salary, ~$7425, into my 401k (Company matches 25% up to the IRS maximum) Funds available in my 401(k) BROKERAGELINK Roth IRA contributions can be withdrawn tax and penalty free. You should do tha...

Looks good. If you will be maxing out your 401k and Roth in future years, you should stop paying extra on the debt such that you can max out the 401k and Roth this year, too. Any other thoughts on this. I currently have 15,000 left out of the 59,000 I started with. The effective interest rate is 5....

Thanks for the input everyone. I see a couple of recos to refinance. If I do, wouldn't I (best case) be going down just .25% or so? Do you think I could get a refi at 3% or less (which may make sense doing)? If I can only get 3.25 or 3.5%, is it worth the refi cost (which may get absorbed into the ...

Looks good.

If you will be maxing out your 401k and Roth in future years, you should stop paying extra on the debt such that you can max out the 401k and Roth this year, too.

First, use the money to max out any tax advantaged accounts. Do you own any bonds in your investment portfolio? Don't put this money in your investment portfolio and buy bonds yielding 2% when you can get 3.75% by buying down the mortgage. Pay down the mortgage and refinance to a shorter term and lo...

Selling AGTHX will cost me about $1750 in taxes, but will save $130/year in expenses Selling AEPGX will cost me about $600 in taxes, but will save $38/year in expenses Selling EXWAX will cost me about $300 in taxes, but will save $450/year in expenses Based on this, it seems that selling EXWAX is t...

I regret the time you spent compiling the expense ratios of all of these funds, as instructed by another poster above. If these are the only funds available in your employer plan, and no fund family other than Price is offered, then the expense ratios essentially become irrelevant, because you have...

Bob's not my name wrote:Yes, but note the full time student restriction on that.

You're right. Somehow I was remembering it as being a little less restrictive.

My order would be: ⋅ Get the company match ⋅  Get the best possible education credit, using traditional 401k contributions as necessary to reduce your AGI (see the article I linked) ⋅ Build up emergency fund (sell the individual stocks for the EF, plus you could use th...

List the Expense Ratio of each of these funds.

Use index funds, or TR if they are low cost.

Do you have IRAs?

Max out any and all tax advantaged accounts. At your income level and living in CA, taxable investing is very expensive. Within a few years you will start taxable investing and should avoid that until absolutely necessary. Any money put in these tax advantaged accounts might as well be 100% stocks. ...

I was hoping to bump up my 401K savings this year but I don't really like the fund options. So I guess, I will just keep contributing enough to earn the match from my employer and then fully fund an IRA every year and then open another account for non-deferred retirement savings. If that makes sens...

Do you have any IRAs? If so, you should treat your whole portfolio as one and get US small/mid, Intl EM and Intl SC there. If no IRA, then contribute only enough to get any company match and then contribute the rest to IRAs. Otherwise, this looks like the right decision. You could consider adding so...

Max out your tax advantaged accounts today.

When you get to within 10 years of retirement, stop contributing to tax advantaged accounts and save in taxable.

Although, if you plan to retire before 60, you will probably need to save more than 17.5k per year, so you will have taxable assets anyway.

Tax Rate: 28% Federal, 5.45% State State of Residence: OH Debt: Mortgage 190K Loan at 2.99% / 15 Years (Home Value $320K) My Taxable Funds at Vanguard 2% / $5K - VG Target Retirement 2040 Fund (VFORX) (.18% ER) - I now contribute $500 monthly to this account My 401k at T Rowe 50% / $140K Retirement...

Taxable (proposed allocation, funds currently in high-interest savings) 28% Spartan 500 Index Fund - Fidelity Advantage Class (FUSVX) (.05) 20% Spartan International Index Fund - Fidelity Advantage Class (FSIVX) (.12) New annual contributions (estimated) $7000 her 401k (no employer matching) $3,500...

Your wife has excellent choices in her 403b. Use these funds: Spartan 500 Index Fund-Institutional Class (FXSIX)(0.05%) Spartan Extended Market Index Fund-Fidelity Advantage Class (FSEVX)(0.07%) Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Index Fund Admiral Shares (VFWAX)(0.15%) Spartan U.S. Bond Index Fund-Insti...

I'm thinking about it. My rationale is that there is a greater possibility of out performance with an actively managed international stock fund than U.S. stock fund. Based on what? There are a greater number of assets to monitor and choose from tactically internationally to keep prices efficient. S...

What's the breakdown of His vs Her IRA values? Might make sense to do a smaller one. Do you have taxable accounts? Taxable investing in your tax bracket is relatively expensive, especially in CA. Would argue for doing conversions now. Do you plan to retire in a different state? Many states exempt IR...

Debt: Sudent Loans: 300K (most locked at 6.8%), Mortgage: 400K (3.875%), Cars: 40 K (0.9%) Tax Rate: 33% Federal, 7.85% State Desired Asset allocation: 90% stocks / 10% bonds???? New Annual Contributions: $17500 his 401(K) (plus a 1% match which should be around $2100) $10000 her 403 (b) (plus a 3%...

We have two children ages 6 and 1 and have about $13,000 in a 529 plan (not state tax deductible). More on this at the bottom of the post. Tax Rate: 25% Federal marginal, 8% Federal Effective, 5% State State of Residence: IL ***New annual Contributions for 2013 $17,500 – 23,000 his 403b (no match, ...

I am looking at some refinance options, and we have cash that we can put toward the principal to avoid paying PMI on the refinanced loan. My question is whether I should pay that amount down on our current loan, and then refinance, or bring that money to the table during the refinancing? Pay it now...

I think Turbotax's "effective" tax rate might be a bit misleading because it only counts taxes against your AGI, which will be reduced if you have tax-deferred contributions (maxed-out 401k and HSA in my case). If I add my pre-tax 401k and HSA contributions back to my AGI--ignoring the fa...

If you already have Roth IRAs with contributions then you already have an EF. Just shift the investments that are currently in the Roth to something similar to what you would hold your EF in. Then decide based on your tax rate, is it better to contribute to your 401k instead of new Roth contributions?

You've now turned your tax free portion into taxable. What do you mean exactly by "turned into taxable?" The money shifted from your 401k account to a taxable account is the same amount of money, and you don't pay taxes on that amount of money. You could take a 401k loan and pay it back i...

And to be clear, if I can't beat 3.37% nominal with the rest of my portfolio, I am a very sad investor indeed. I use 80% equity, 2/3rds of which is foreign. So I definitely expect to greatly exceed 3.37% nominal long-term. So is that borrowing money to invest? I guess from a certain point of view. ...

Some benefits from having pre-tax money outside of your 401k: ⋅ long term gains and qualified dividends taxed at favorable rates instead of ordinary income ⋅ foreign tax credits if international positions would have been in 401k or other tax-advantaged accounts The first bullet ...

assumer wrote:
Option 2: You bought treasury bonds. Next year you have a relatively-low-interest loan and also buy bonds at 7%.

The value of the bonds you bought are now worth less.

Some benefits from having pre-tax money outside of your 401k: [list][*]long term gains and qualified dividends taxed at favorable rates instead of ordinary income [*]foreign tax credits if international positions would have been in 401k or other tax-advantaged accounts The first bullet is a fallacy...

25% - Northern Trust S&P 500 (.02% ER) 10% - Northern Trust ACWI EX-US IDX DC (.11% ER) 15% - Pimco Total Return INST : PTTRX (.46% ER) [also contemplating Vanguard's ETF equivalent of VBTLX] 15% - [BrokerageLink] Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF : VO (.10% ER) 15% - [BrokerageLink] Vanguard Small-Cap ETF ...

The reason as far as I can gather, for purchasing bonds, if the decision is close, could be illustrated in the following example: If the rates are close, there may still be an advantage in keeping the loan due to changing rates. Let's assume you have $10,000 to either pay down a 5% loan, or invest ...

At these tax rates, I would contribute 17.5k to tax deductible 401k first. All other savings would go towards high rate debts. That means stopping the Roth contributions. I consider the 6.5%, 6% and 4.25% rates high. Refinance the car loan at PenFed for around 2% and borrow as much as you can. Use t...

I'd pay off the mortgages before taxable investing in a heartbeat.

At your tax rates, you lose some deductibility of mortgage interest and taxable investing has higher QD taxes.

When locating assets it's usually best to start with the accounts with the least available options (based on costs and availability). That means, locate to His 401k, then Her 401k, then TSP or taxable, then Roths. Use all TIPS and SP500 in His 401k. Use all bond index in Her 401k, followed by SP500...

I've just watched people on fantasytsp.com rack in ridiculous amounts of money each year by timing the market. Kind of reminds me of a friend. Whenever he goes fishing, he always catches fish thiiiiiiiiiiiiis big, but he always releases them back into the water. He only brings home the tiny ones be...

When locating assets it's usually best to start with the accounts with the least available options (based on costs and availability). That means, locate to His 401k, then Her 401k, then TSP or taxable, then Roths. Use all TIPS and SP500 in His 401k. Use all bond index in Her 401k, followed by SP500....

Once we max out our Roth IRAs this year, should we focus on extra mortgage payments or invest? What are you going to invest in? Do you want to invest in bonds yielding 2% or pay down debt costing 3.5%? Take the portion you would invest in stocks and buy stocks. Take the portion you would invest in ...

Tax Filing Status: Single Tax Rate: 25% Federal, 5% State State of Residence: CA Salary: 65k New annual Contributions $16250 401k (plus $2340 match) $5500 Roth IRA ('12 not eligible, '13 already contributed) I think your CA state tax is higher than 5%. You should consider making at least a partial ...

You really need to be specific with all the details. It is very possible that your mother is not in the 25% bracket. If she is drawing SS, it's very possible she could paying taxes at a 37.5% marginal rate. It might make sense to put as much as possible into her 401k. It might also make sense to tak...

Sounds unlikely that the OP gets any tax benefit from the mortgage, with no state income tax and a low rate + balance (unless he donates substantially to charity or has some other large deduction). Still, the rate is low even with no tax benefit. No, it's not as low as a risk-free rate, but I'm not...

Did you contribute to an IRA or 401k last year? Do you want to know how to get a 50% immediate return on your investment? Tell us your gross income last year and whether you've contributed to an IRA or 401k for 2012. If you haven't, you may be able to contribute to a deductible IRA and reduce your i...

At 350k of income, I would think you should be saving more than 35k to 401k and 11k to Roth. I would guess another 50k to 100k of taxable account investing. Given that you will be contributing to and already have taxable accounts, you should probably not use Target Retirement or Lifepath funds. Usua...

Also, after selling the Wellesley, I am under the impression that I cannot move these into the 457K (which is a government plan, yes) since I contribute pre-tax dollars that comes out of my paycheck. Is this true? Raise your contribution to the 457 to reach the 17.5k limit. Use the proceeds from th...

Tax Rate: 25% Federal, ??% State State of Residence: NY Taxable: 39% of assets 15% Wellesley (38% Stocks, 59% Bonds, the rest short term reserves) ER: .25% 457k: 10% of assets Large Cap Core Index Fund: 11% of fund - ER: .02% Roth IRA at Vanguard: 49% of assets OTHER: Various Stocks: 2% of assets C...

One obvious thing is that your mortgage and car loan rates are too high. I would look to refinance both. Pentagon Federal has car loans for 1.74%, and you should be able to get well south of 4% for the mortgage, assuming there aren't any problems (bad credit, underwater). In fact, I'd cash out some...

Tax Filing Status: Single Tax Rate: 18.21% Federal, 5.3% State New annual Contributions $5,200 to my 401k, including employer match You should specify your marginal tax bracket (not effective). If this is all of your annual savings, you should probably be saving more. Your savings rate is the most ...

Ten year US treasuries are yielding 1.85%. You're paying 3%. Don't compare to what you might earn in the stock market. Compare to a similar risk investment. I disagree. You absolutely should compare to what the stock/bond allocation you prefer would make. In this case, your money would go into stoc...

Larry Swedroe - all you need to know about investing
John Bogle - costs matter. use index funds
William Bernstein - asset allocation
Jane Bryant Quinn - all around life financial decisions

That's all you need.