Hello, friends. Once again, I have a lot to think about, and I can't really ask anyone in my real life for their advice, because they are well-meaning, but would be incredulous instead of helpful.
The husband and I will pay off our house in a few months -- it all depends on when the last $2,000 check from the book project arrives in the mail. Once that is here, though, it's payoff statements and gleeful cackling while rubbing my hands together.
I started a new job at the beginning of the year. Normally, at my company, one needs to wait a year before joining the 401K program; I managed to negotiate to begin contributing much sooner, in July of this year. Again, gleeful cackling is in order.
Obviously I will be contributing enough to make the company match, which is 5% of my salary to have them contribute 1.5%. I make $52k per year, while the husband makes $50k per year. We're 31 and 33, respectively.
Now, the thing is, I've seen a lot of recommendations for why one should contribute up to the legal maximum amount per year, which is $17,500. That's awesome, and it has the bonus of reducing one's income, which is nice.
However, due to previously working at a university with a generous 403B program, and through prudent saving and investment, we have the following retirement accounts, which have the following rough amounts in them:
$53K in my old 403B plan, which is at Vanguard; I've been very pleased with its performance and have seen no reason to move it yet)
$21K in the husband's company's 401K plan, through ING
$41K in my traditional IRA
$14K in a Roth IRA for my husband (both of these last two are invested with RBC Dain Rauscher, which is my parents' investment firm)
All told, we have about $129K in these various retirement accounts. And for where we are in our lives, I think that is pretty darn good.
I guess the real question here is, Are we good on our retirement accounts?
I know it's important to invest for retirement. But after finding the Mustachian way, the traditional notion of retiring at age 65+ is out the window. I do want to continue contributing to the traditional and Roth IRAs, and setting up my 401K to get the company match is also a no-brainer. But I wonder if it's really all that important for the husband and I to reduce our taxable income by contributing more to accounts that we can't access until we're older, given the contributions that we've already made. Wouldn't we do better by investing in things that will allow us to access our money before we're 70?
What do you think, my friends? I certainly don't need to decide anything anytime soon; the house payoff date is at least a month away, if not longer. I'm mostly just thinking through my options.
More information is, as always, available for the asking; if there's something here that you need to know that I haven't adequately explained, ask away.