On another thread Widerhaken wrote
The three main buckets are:
IRA/401k/403b/etc: Skip taxes today and pay taxes at retirement/withdrawal.
ROTH: Pay taxes today but no taxes at retirement/withdrawal.
Taxable: Pay taxes today and on all future earnings/withdrawals.
Obviously, there is a lot of nuance, tons of options for growing savings, and other issues with fees/age to take withdrawals/etc. Good luck! Learning about this subject will make you a superstar to your friends and family.
I'm curious for you american's, which of those 3 buckets do you invest in and when?
in Canada we have
RRSP - not taxed today, lowers your income saving you taxes but taxed at withdraw
TFSA - taxes now, no difference on income taxes but not taxed in the end including gains.
Taxable - tax now, tax later, tax if you think too much about it, tax, tax, tax...
so that sounds like RRSP matches your IRA/401k/403n/etc option
and TFSA matches ROTH.
Conventional thinking here is RRSP to the limit to lower income taxes now and pay less taxes in your withdraw years due to being in a lower bracket. TFSA is a new thing and only for after maxing the RRSP. being younger(mid 30's) then the average investor I'm thinking taxes long term could be brutal and I'd rather know that 25k in the TFSA is 25k I can spend not guess what taxes will be like after the boomers do a number on the economy and pension plans.