As of this year, my spouse and I will be maxing out his 401k contributions and both our IRAs. We are also close to hitting the max income allowable for IRA contributions (sadface sadface sadface), so I am wondering what we should do next. I think my spouse can contribute beyond $19,000 to his 401k, then we could roll the excess over into the Roth ("backdoor"), but I'm not quite sure how this works. Or would it be best to set up a Trad IRA for the extra money, then once a year roll all the contributions into the Roth IRA. How would all this affect our taxes? Is there a set period of time we have to wait before rolling over the money after it is in the Trad IRA or 401k? What is the best time of year to do this (from a tax perspective?). I'm not even sure I'm asking the right questions.
If it matters, we are both in our mid 30s with several kids under the age of 10. We also fund a 529 for them with $5000/yr. We hope to retire in our early 50s, our current retirement savings is around $600,000 (we have another taxable account as well). We have a significant emergency fund, so no need direct extra savings there. We also fund an HSA with ~ $4000/yr (usually spend it all, too). Our priorities are retirement savings, and reducing our future tax burden.
