Author Topic: Where To Save?  (Read 4450 times)

Here2Live

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Where To Save?
« on: April 13, 2016, 11:27:05 AM »
Hi Everyone - Been a while since I've been on this forum--years in fact.

I recently got a new job, and am making more money.  My goal is to "save" money but want some advice on where to put this money.

My situation:

40 and married with 2 kids. $125k annual compensation.

INVESTMENTS:

$215K in 401K. Company matches 1:1 up to 3%--Contributing 6%:

43.87%   VANG INST INDEX PLUS
   
27.05%   VANG TOT BD MK IS PL
   
19.28%   VANG TOT INTL STK IP
   
9.80%   VANG EXT MKT IDX ISP



$10K in company stock

MORTGAGE:
$2,100/month
Owe: $278K
Value: $450K
26 years left (purchased 4 years ago in down market)


Where should I be saving my money?  If the answer is ALL 401K -- Then how are ppl able to retire early when they can't tap into 401K before 55/59 1/2? 

Thank you for your time

prognastat

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2016, 11:34:14 AM »
Hi Here2Live, welcome to the forums.

I'll be honest and there isn't enough information here to work with. you might want to go through the following to help make a post that people will be able to help with:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/how-to-write-a-'case-study'-topic/

6% towards 401k is quite low, but without knowing your bills I can't really tell where the money is going.

As for the company stock, chances are if you are at a point where it can be withdrawn at the lower tax rate you would be better of withdrawing it and moving it to some kind of investment account(preferably a tax advantages account)

What is the interest rate on your mortgage? If it is over over 4% I would highly recommend finding out why, if it was your credit score then raise that and try to refinance at a more optimal rate.

As far as how people are able to tap in to 401k, you can withdraw all contributions, just not profits/gains, from a roth IRA without penalty. There is also the roth conversion ladder that people use to roll over their traditional 401k to roth.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2016, 11:36:03 AM by prognastat »

dandarc

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2016, 11:36:49 AM »
There is a sticky at the top of the Taxes sub-forum about how to get to your money before 59.5 [Edit to add link]http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/taxes/how-to-withdraw-funds-from-your-ira-and-401k-without-penalty-before-ag-39647/[/Edit]

Personally I'd prioritize all tax-advantaged accounts before any other investing or early mortgage payments.  So our list is:

1.  Wife's 457
2.  My Solo401K
3.  Roth IRAs
4.  Mortgage
5.  Taxable investment account or real estate (haven't gotten to this point yet, so the decision isn't 100% just yet - later this year though!)

Really, 4 and 5 should be flipped going strictly by the math, but this is what we agreed to, and houses are cheap where we are so it isn't a huge deal for us.

I'm sure MDM will chime in with his usual standard list of priorities that includes HSA and college funds and whatnot.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2016, 11:38:29 AM by dandarc »

Jack

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2016, 12:23:13 PM »
Put it all in the 401k (and other tax-advantaged accounts, e.g. IRA, HSA, etc.) until you've maxed them all out. Then put more in taxable. Upon FIREing, you can live off the taxable for five years as you spool up a Roth pipeline (which should be covered in dandarc's link).

In other words, you should be contributing $1500/month (which at your income, works out to about 14.4%) to your 401k, plus $458.33/month to each of your and your wife's IRAs, plus whatever else you might be eligible for.

Keep in mind that if you actually want to FIRE (as opposed to retire at normal retirement age), your savings rate will need to be high enough that, unless you're one of those special people who are eligible for ridiculous amounts of tax-deferred space (e.g. teachers who have a 401k and a 403b, self-employed people who can put $53K in a Solo 401k, etc.) you will be maxing the tax-deferred out and shoveling money in taxable on top of that. 50% of $125K is $62.5K, and if you only have one 401k and two IRAs then your tax-deferred limit is only $29K (not including employer match), so you'd have no choice but to put $33.5K in taxable anyway.

By the way, your asset allocation is (IMO) a bit too conservative. I'd keep the bond fund under 20% (but dropping it down even to 10% would be fine too) and rebalance that 7%-17% evenly between the other three funds. And I'd suggest selling off the $10K in company stock unless you've got a really good reason not to.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2016, 12:26:24 PM by Jack »

Here2Live

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2016, 01:33:28 PM »
Thank you all for responding.  Kicked the contribution into high gear with 15%.  This will help get me started on the right path to FIRE.

Also lowered my contribution to bonds at 10% on the last bit of advice. 

THANK YOU!!


Jack

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2016, 02:11:49 PM »
Also lowered my contribution to bonds at 10% on the last bit of advice. 

Whoa there! Don't do it just because I said so! Mull the idea over first and do some other research.

(It's not that I think 10% bonds is a mistake; it's just alarming that you're willing to change your asset allocation so easily. You should be carefully designing your investment policy and then following it, not investing on a whim. In fact, "staying the course" by investing consistently year in, year out, is more important than picking the "perfect" asset allocation, as long as the latter is halfway reasonable -- which yours already was.)
« Last Edit: April 13, 2016, 02:22:05 PM by Jack »

MDM

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2016, 02:23:08 PM »
I'm sure MDM will chime in with his usual standard list of priorities that includes HSA and college funds and whatnot.
Don't have it open right now so I'll just borrow the link from prognastat (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/how-to-write-a-'case-study'-topic/) and suggest looking at the 'Investment Order' tab in the spreadsheet mentioned in that link. :)

prognastat

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2016, 02:38:05 PM »
Another thing that may save some money is see if you are paying PMI(Private Mortgage Insurance) if you are see if you are eligible to have it removed, you should be able to from the looks of it since the remaining balance is less than 80% of your home's value. This could save a little bit a month on your payment.

Here2Live

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #8 on: April 14, 2016, 01:00:39 PM »
Another thing that may save some money is see if you are paying PMI(Private Mortgage Insurance) if you are see if you are eligible to have it removed, you should be able to from the looks of it since the remaining balance is less than 80% of your home's value. This could save a little bit a month on your payment.

I do have PMI...and have requested my bank to remove it now that values have gone up. However, the rule they go by is based on your current balance against the original loan mount...and NOT today's value of the home.

Would need to refi into a conventional loan to remove the PMI.  Looking into this as well.

Here2Live

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Re: Where To Save?
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2016, 01:02:53 PM »
I'm sure MDM will chime in with his usual standard list of priorities that includes HSA and college funds and whatnot.
Don't have it open right now so I'll just borrow the link from prognastat (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/how-to-write-a-'case-study'-topic/) and suggest looking at the 'Investment Order' tab in the spreadsheet mentioned in that link. :)

Thank you for taking the time to share this with me.  I appreciate it very much!  Will give this a look-through.