My wife and I are saving money so that we can refinance into a conventional mortgage and get rid of our PMI, which will require us bringing money to the table. How much we wont know until we get an appraisal this summer.
We both opened Roth IRA's a few months ago and maxed them at $5,000 for 2012. I noticed that we can put $5,500 each for 2013. We have about $24k in cash right now.. The plan has been just to keep money in our savings account until we refinance, but would it be smarter to put $11k of that money into the Roth IRA right away, then if needed pull that money back out for the refinance?
A couple other Roth IRA questions..
1) I realize I can take the money that I put into the Roth IRA back out, but earnings have to stay. Can I replace that 2013 money at a further date? What if I pull money out of there in 2013 and then in 2014 I want to replace the 2013 money AND contribute for 2014?
2) Can the Roth IRA be used as a short-term (6 months probably) place to keep $5,000 like suggested above? Any downside?
When all is said and done we will both max our 2013 contributions, but I'm wondering what the smartest thing to do right now is.
Thanks,
Ryan