Bogleheads.org

14/15 - overthought the Muni bond question.

Actually, I think I may have finally found the answer (I've been looking for a while, just not searching on the right criteria, apparently). Linking in case anyone else is stumbling on this one. http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/iq/Retirement-Plan---Social-Security/Split-Single-Distribution-From-Re...

I've got a 401(k) that allowed withdrawals of both after-tax and select pre-tax funds (i.e. employer match made more than 2 years prior). However, last year, they didn't have the subaccount structure that allowed the after-tax sources to be withdrawn without the pre-tax sources - it was all-or-nothi...

If you have a feel for your likely income level when she's in college, Series I Savings Bonds might be a nice compliment to the other savings vehicles you mentioned.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/pla ... cation.htm

(Edit: Changed link to a better, more up to date site)

Hey, it looks like otherwise active users with no history of confrontation (first birdy, now femtoace) are generating that robo-post about Alex et al. From the outside, it looks like someone may be scripting their way through a password file, do you have any sort of 'force reset' options for passwor...

doug91 wrote:We have no 'scheduled' medical events in the forseeable future (an unplanned pregnancy is not possible for us).

By the way, just bumping this thread to say... don't ever put something like this in writing. It apparently taunts the Medical Possibility Deities.

For all of you who still use cash for everyday use do you look and or have you found some silver coins? I used to use mostly cash until about 4-5 years ago. Now I use a CC for most everything. The other day I made a $1+ purchase and wound up with a 1963 quarter. That beats 2% cash back anyday, melt...

So it sounds like everyone who has an e-bank also has a local brick and mortar bank? I don't, have been online only since I opened up a Security First National Bank in the mid-90s and didn't visit a physical bank for a while... about a year later, I went all online. They went under & I transfer...

Yeah, that's what we do. I've got a large-ish Rollover IRA at Vanguard which is fine where it is, so we just do the backdoor for my wife each year - contribute to Traditional & immediately roll it over.

I'm in the middle of doing exactly the same thing. I tried Carwoo, which seems like a really interesting concept, but so far (3 days in) only one dealer has responded. That said, he's given a really detailed response with complete price, sight-unseen estimate on trade-in, and all fees itemized. I di...

When I click on Rollover, I get to choose between two types of Partial Rollovers: Rollover type 1: IN SERVICE W/D - NO SUSP-PREAPPR Rollover type 2: IN SERVICE W/D -SUSPEND-PREAPPR Any idea what these different types are? Which one should I choose? It may vary by plan, but here's the difference for...

retiredjg wrote: The earnings on that post-tax money do have to come out with it so it is not just the post-tax basis that comes out. That is why we suggest doing these "in-service" rollovers regularly - so the earnings don't amount to much and the tax doesn't amount to much. And there is...

One quote that helped me when I was as nervous about things as you sound was this post from Taylor: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=85831&hilit=+taylor#p1229652

Ordinarily, that'd be fine, but I actually have a number of pre-tax sources other than earnings that will roll out, most notably company matching and automatic contributions that have been in the plan for at least 2 years. I've been doing exactly what you recommend up until recently - just roll over...

Yeah, in my case, the withholding is small, so I'm really not worried about it - it's just a question of relative convenience at this point.

I've finally maxed out my 401k with after-tax funds & company match, and am looking at the best way to roll the after-tax funds into my Roth. Had I done this earlier in the year, I would have followed Alan S.'s advice and done an indirect rollover, because of the risk that the IRS might issue ne...

Bumping and chiming in with another $50 donation. Thanks to the volunteer staff for all you guys do.

Interesting poll - that's way less common than I'd inferred from the number of posters here who talk about it (and from the three older, Fortune 1000 companies that I've been at that allowed it, although I didn't understand it well enough to take advantage of it until last year). Definitely somethin...

After reading a few threads on this topic, I looked into this since I was interested in contributing more and then rolling these after tax contributions into a Roth IRA. I checked with my company's 401K provider and they replied thay my company's plan did not allow for after tax contributions. If t...

After-tax contributions to a 401(k) are pretty commonly available. What you can actually *do* with those contributions (example: sheltering them from additional taxes via a Roth rollover) varies widely. Here's a recent-ish Forbes-hosted article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/financialfinesse/2012/07/1...

Looks like VTI (Total Stock Market ETF) was at 72.26 on May 1. If you'd come back after Labor Day on Sept. 4, you'd have been buying back in at 72.16. October 1, you'd have come in at 73.78. Looks like you can add 2012 to HomerJ's list of didn't-work-years, although there was a drop in VTI from May ...

those are great points but not much under our control. One could always switch back and forth between a HDHP and a PPO.... Well, my personal hangup is that once I choose an HDHP, I won't be able to switch back to a PPO / POS option without changing employers (since I doubt that any employer would r...

I'm just about sold on making the switch - $170 less per month for me and a $1,500 employer subsidy into the HSA are pretty compelling. I am concerned, though, because this is the last year my employer's allowing enrollment in a traditional POS, and I'm worried that if the HSA subsidy stopped and th...

Vanguard, where we keep our 529, has a nice chart comparing allocations:
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/conten ... sedJSP.jsp

12. Your brain keeps thinking about how that new Thai place down the block is so much better than the leftovers in the fridge.

If you wanted a gamble a bit more, wait another month or so, and see if the plan will do tandem direct rollovers instead, with the pre tax amount to your TIRA and the post tax amount to your Roth IRA. By that time it will be too late for the IRS to issue revised 1099R guidance to the plan for 2012,...

Sorry, yes, I misread the docs. $500 per person with a cap of $1,500 per family, so the deductible is per-person.

They both seem like good plans, but sounds like my preliminary decision to go with the POS plan is the best one for now.

The POS deductibles above are per-family. The plan documents state that the deductible is 1/3 of the total per individual for the POS option.

My company's open enrollment starts in a few days, and I'm trying to decide between what appears to be a good HDHP/HSA option and my current POS option. I've never really given any thought to health insurance, I have basically always just picked the traditional option and gone with it. As I've been ...

For me, it will be simpler and easier to spread 401k through year via automatic deduction and put the lump sum bonus into taxable acct, so that's what I'll do. Just a quick note that 401k and taxable aren't the only places to put your investments, even if your income is too high for Roth contributi...

Should I use home equity in the "actual"?

I purchased my maximum of ibonds for this year. My first time with TreasuryDirect. I noticed the current fixed rate is 0% but in the past the fixed rate maxed at 3.40%. What is the appropriate strategy when the ibond fixed rate rises? Can I convert my current bonds to new bonds with a higher rate? ...

Edit: Our current Investment Plan goes in the following order. I've got so much more tax-deferred space relative to taxable that I've never looked into putting munis into taxable, so I use my taxable space for International allocation. 1. 401k up to the company match 2. Put aside enough cash to max ...

Oh, one last question - who assesses a 10% penalty on early withdrawal of pre-tax retirement funds? The provider or the IRS? In other words, might I have to do something with Fidelity to keep from paying any sort of early withdrawal penalty, since they'll be paying the full distribution out to me v...

Oh, one last question - who assesses a 10% penalty on early withdrawal of pre-tax retirement funds? The provider or the IRS? In other words, might I have to do something with Fidelity to keep from paying any sort of early withdrawal penalty, since they'll be paying the full distribution out to me vs...

Actually, the withholdings weren't my main reason, it had more to do with the number of transactions per month. Because I'd been rolling after-tax contributions and their associated pre-tax gains directly to a Roth, I had wanted to get the funds out ASAP - while in, they're in Money Market so as to ...

Hi - I've participated in (and initiated) a number of threads on this topic, and am getting close to pulling the trigger this week on moving funds around. I'm hoping that Alan S and others familiar with the nuances of this complex topic can sanity-check me before I execute on the plan. Background: I...

Alan, Thanks for the advice - I knew there was some guidance due, but I hadn't heard about it being requested this year. Fairmark's strategies 3 & 4 don't currently work for me because I have a large Rollover IRA from old 401(k)s from previous employers, so I'd get walloped by combined value of ...

retiredjg wrote:If your plan has such awesome choices, you might forgo all this activity and just convert the after-tax contributions to Roth 401k. That is allowed now.

hmm... new area to be researched. I know nothing about Roth 401k.

Well, I'm really confused now. But I do have a question and a couple of comments. 1) Q - How/why is some of your after tax contribution being matched? I would think (but don't know) that would only happen if you are not contributing your complete $17k in elective deferrals. Is it possible your elec...

I find it hard to believe they couldn't track matching vs non-matching balances, after-tax or otherwise, especially if there was a 2 year vesting period on the match. I might double check with another CSR to see if you get the same answer. Either way, it shouldn't be what he described (allowed with...

I wonder if they're pulling out my 2-year-old after-tax matched and company matching contributions each month... Possible. Did you just pass the two-year mark or something, so some matching is now vested? Brian Yep, two years since I was able to participate in the 401K. Didn't even think about it. ...

Wow - kudos to Fidelity. They have to withdraw all eligible funds, so all the funds are coming out, but they're able to separate where they go so that the pre-tax money goes into a Traditional IRA and the post-tax money goes into a Roth IRA, which will eliminate all of the tax consequences. Feels lo...

Reading my plan summary more carefully, there's another possibility: Non Age 591/2 Withdrawal You may request a non-hardship, non-suspension withdrawal if you are under age 59½ and have the following types of money in your account – • Prior company contributions • After-tax un-matched contributions ...

One can't, short of a qualifying event. As I gather, the company has decided to make the OP take a share of the company matching along with the after-tax. I don't know of any regulations that prevent such a scheme, although it's unusual. If rolled over, whether to Roth or TIRA, I wouldn't think the...

Xerty: I'm on track to max out both pre- and after-tax contributions, so $32,000-ish (don't remember the 2012 totals off the top of my head) will be after-tax by the end of the year. The $2K in accumulated pre-tax match isn't that big a deal - like I said, penny-pinching. Reference to the penalty is...

Hi - minor question on the penny-pinching scale. For the last year-and-change, I've been rolling my after-tax 401(k) contributions into my Roth. Up until this month, the plan allowed the after-tax unmatched balance to be rolled out, but the after-tax matched and the matching contributions stayed in....

...or that its disappearance was related to the Dharma Investment Group's prosecution for a Ponzi scheme. http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_14928157?source=rss Appears to be the same Dharma Investment Group that launched the Index with Dow Jones in 2008. I did look into and participa...

I draw it at 50% TBM, 50% TIPS Index fund.

RG, I apologize if I missed a detail that makes this impossible for you, but here's what I do with my Fidelity 401k: 0) Opened a Roth IRA at Fidelity 1) call Fidelity after each paycheck & ask for "inservice withdrawal without suspension" of post-tax 401K amount (which may include some...