Hi all! This is my first post on the forum. I have recently found and subsequently become addicted to MMM. I have done some research on this forum looking for an answer to my question, but I can't find anything that specifically addresses my situation. I apologize in advance if I missed a thread containing this info.
Here's my situation (its not really a case study - I don't think, if it is, let me know and I will provide the required info).
The DH and I are putting a plan together to retire in 6 years. Our plan is to have enough cash in 6 years point to pay off the remaining balances on our two mortgages (duplexes), both of which are / will be used as rental properties, and pay cash for our retirement house thus retiring mortgage free. The rental income from the two duplexes will generate our yearly income. Our safety margin will be our 401k from our current employer.
In order to make the above happen, we need to have $780,000 cash at the time we retire to pay off / buy the mortgages. We are saving / spending at a rate which will allow us to do this ($280K currently in 401k, with $55k annual additions and additional $46K a year to a taxable investment account). Then, I looked into the timing and disbursements into our ROTH IRA. Essentially I don't want to pay a high tax now and start converting our 401k to our ROTH so we can withdraw the disbursements from the ROTH in 5 years, I want to wait to do that until we are in a lower tax bracket (we also can't do this rollover our plan until we leave the company, so its not even an option at this point). However we need the cash at retirement to pay off the mortgages and our current contributions to the after tax investment account will not provide the required cash alone.
So here is my main question: We can stop contributing to our 401k's and just to a taxable account now. I hate giving up the before tax savings though (our tax bracket is currently 25%). That being said, our company (DH and I work for the same one) contributes 15% to our 401k. This is not a match. So if we put nothing into our 401k they will still contribute the 15%. Yes I know that is insane good, but its true. With the company still putting away the 15% is that justification to give up the tax break and put everything into after tax investment accounts so that we have the cash readily available at retirement to pay off the mortgages / future home?