Anyone already max out their 2015 Roth or Traditional IRA?

[Davids]

Just curious to see if we have people on here who on January 1st or 2nd immediately max out their Roth (or Traditional) IRA contribution for the year. I do not do that, my wife and I do $1,100 a month for 10 months.

[Lookilu]

Yep. It's the one New Years' resolution I actually keep. :)

[NinetyFour]

I will be doing it very soon.  Part of it will come from a Required Minimum Distribution from an inherited IRA.  As soon as Vanguard tells me how much that Distribution is, I will put that and the rest of the $6500 (I'm old) in my Roth.  I figure it's good to do it early in the year, and let that Roth grow tax free for the rest of the year.

[fkampere]

Yeah I had the money in a savings account so didn't see the point in waiting

[Allen]

Yup! My wife and my Roth IRA are both maxed out with the funds all going into international ETF because we are light on that in our allocations.

[RelaxationSpecialist]

I'm behind... still have to max out for 2014! Yikes!! But, I have it budgeted to max out for 2014 & 2015 by March then July respectively. :) 

[AustinKat]

Yeah I had the money in a savings account so didn't see the point in waiting

Me too. I had way too much cash sitting in savings, so I put 5,500 of those employees to work on January 2.

(How you know you're an aging Mustachian: when you think, "Oh hey, in five more years I can put more into my IRA!")

[RWD]

My wife and I have maxed our 2015 Roth IRAs already as well.

[Will]

Since I rebalance once a year on my birthday, and since my birthday is January 8th, I will wait until then to add in my new money which will max out my IRA for the year.  Plus, I like having that week to let the market settle down from all the new money that came flooding in.

[Left]

I will tomorrow after I hit up my bank

[MrScottStache]

I used to do it early but now that my income (the main unknowns are bonuses and some stock options expiring in the next year or so) flirts with the contribution limits, i wait to the end of the year.

[pdxvandal]

Scheduled it for tomorrow for my Vanguard TIRA. No point in waiting any longer.

[fkampere]

Yeah I had the money in a savings account so didn't see the point in waiting

Me too. I had way too much cash sitting in savings, so I put 5,500 of those employees to work on January 2.

(How you know you're an aging Mustachian: when you think, "Oh hey, in five more years I can put more into my IRA!")

Yeah I sold my truck last month so had extra money sitting in my savings account.

[Calvawt]

I am getting a large credit on my taxes this year for installing solar panels.  I plan to fill my Roth IRA and my wife's Traditional IRA with $5,500 each in March when we get our refund.  It will be the fastest I have ever funded the accounts.

[WYOGO]

Not yet. It will be somewhat slower and more gradual this year for me since I recently discovered that my 401K plan permits in service rollovers of after tax contributions to my ROTH IRA. I will max the after tax contributions along with the pre-tax in the 401K, slowly fill the tIRA, and then back fill the taxable account with the excess. Looking forward to a great year!

[mochila]

Not sure this counts: I sent $5500 from savings to Vanguard on Friday. However, it's in money market, and I'll fool myself into thinking I'm dollar cost averaging by sweeping $450-460 into a fund each month. If I'm being honest, what I'm really doing is timing the market, because I'll "forget" to buy until the market has been looking cranky, but I never delay for more than two weeks.

[ToughMother]

Money goes into the Roth this week!

[jmusic]

(How you know you're an aging Mustachian: when you think, "Oh hey, in five more years I can put more into my IRA!")

Don't forget that that also means you can contribute an extra $6k to 401k plans. 


Myself, before finding this blog, I used to contribute early to Roth, but when I found out how much tax I'd save, I recharacterized this year's contributions to traditional.  For 2015 I'm planning to get married, so I'll wait until we get a good picture of our annual taxes before deciding which account to contribute to.  We'll save about $4k in 2014 taxes between the two of us because we didn't get married last year, partially due to the aforementioned IRA recharacterization.

[Avenger]

I transferred funds on the 2nd. I want my money to get the benefit of the full year.

[viper155]

Just curious, why wouldn't everybody here dollar cost average? Seems more efficient. Am I wrong?

[viper155]

You know, I'm going to answer my own question.... I just did the math myself....Assuming that we all are hoping for index funds to rise I looked at the S&P 500 for the year 2014. If you maxed out on 1/1/14 you would have paid 183 a share. I used Spyders as my base. Ticker symbol SPY. If you would have dollar cost averaged over the 12 months of the year you would have paid, on average, 192 a share. I guess, in most years, not withstanding a relatively major correction, this is the approach to take.
Anyone else have any input?

[RWD]

Just curious, why wouldn't everybody here dollar cost average? Seems more efficient. Am I wrong?

http://jlcollinsnh.com/2014/11/12/stocks-part-xxvii-why-i-dont-like-dollar-cost-averaging/

[Bread]

I'm confused. I had read the deadline for 2014 contributions was April 15th and I assumed that was also when 2015 contributions could start. Is there an overlap period between Jan 1 and Apr 15 where you can contribute to both?

[Lyngi]

Roth: 3000 on Friday, and 2500 on Monday--

[dhlogic]

Maxed my IRA on the 1st. Have elected to contribute 100% of my pay to the TSP, but it will take several months for that to be maxed.

[Pooperman]

Maxed on the 2nd only to watch it drop 2% yesterday and today. Oh well.

[Melf]

I made my 2015 $5500 contribution into my ROTH IRA settlement fund on Jan.2nd.  I went ahead and invested all of that plus another 2K from the settlement fund into VTSAX yesterday when I saw the markets pulling back.  I've still got a bit more to get invested from where I recently sold off some high ER funds in my ROTH.  I had also just maxed out my 2014 contribution before the end of the year.  This is the first time I've ever maxed my ROTH contributions and actually the first time I've even contributed to it in the past several years.  I'm planning to max out my 401k contribution this year for the first time as well.  I think I just barely cleared 10K for my contribution last year after ramping up the last couple months.

[Jags4186]

Yup I deposited $5500 on January 2nd, bought 52 or so shares of VTI and promptly lost 2.5% of that money!

[Nothlit]

Just to continue the pile-on here, I logged on to Vanguard around 10 AM on January 1 and entered my $5500 Roth IRA purchase for the year (VTSAX). Of course, with the markets closed for the holiday, it didn't go through until the 2nd.

I used to contribute bi-weekly (timed to coincide with my paychecks) but a year or so ago I realized I already had enough money saved up to do it lump-sum at the beginning of the year, so I might as well just do it that way.

[Eric]

Yep.  Fully funded for my wife and I.  I wasn't expecting to be able to pull this off so soon, but we got a couple of nice unexpected Christmas presents (read: checks) from our parents, plus end of the year bonuses at work.  Hooray!

[DragonSlayer]

I'm waiting until after I see what our tax situation for last year ends up being. Our state passed a whole bunch of new laws last year that changed how allowances/dependents/deductions, etc. work and I'm hoping I got it right (and that the worksheet they gave out to help us calculate it was right and not the typical government screw up). Once I see how that shook out for last year, I'll know more about whether I need to contribute more to the standard IRA's for the deductions, or the ROTH's.

[PathtoFIRE]

I'm in the process of contributing the max. DW and I have to do backdoor Roths, so I'm waiting for the wire transfers into Vanguard overnight, and then will transfer to the Roths tomorrow night. With the recent market drops, the waiting is killing me! Anyway, also increased our monthly aftertax scheduled Vanguard deposit by $1k, and we have those set to go in on the fourth of each month, so at least that was bought partway down the slide.

[Patrick A]

Yup, feels good!

[BarkyardBQ]

Yup I deposited $5500 on January 2nd, bought 52 or so shares of VTI and promptly lost 2.5% of that money!

x2 for my wife and I, but even though I know it doesn't matter, she reminds me not to care. :D

[lackofstache]

Just curious, why wouldn't everybody here dollar cost average? Seems more efficient. Am I wrong?

http://jlcollinsnh.com/2014/11/12/stocks-part-xxvii-why-i-dont-like-dollar-cost-averaging/

And to pile on a little more:

https://pressroom.vanguard.com/content/nonindexed/7.23.2012_Dollar-cost_Averaging.pdf

Dollar cost averaging is good unless you have the full amount already not making anything. If I only have $100/mo to put into an account, doing so by adding $50 twice may not be a bad way to go. If I have $5,500 sitting in my checking account, I'd rather let $5,500 compound for 12 months than having $458.34 compound for 12, $916.67 compound for 11, $1374.99 for 10, etc.

[KatieSSS]

I made my parents do it already! That's more important to me since I know I can save throughout the year and they cannot.

One of my 2015 goals is to max-out the Roth. I've put in $1,140 already! I did that on January 2nd.

[frugaldominican]

Yep! Maxed out the 2014 over the course of a few months, ending in December.. This year I decided I couldn't wait - 2015 contributions maxed out on Jan 2nd!

Feels good..

[Sid Hoffman]

Yeah I had the money in a savings account so didn't see the point in waiting

Same, although mine is still sitting in cash (TDAmeritrade account).  I'm actually probably going to be transferring it to a Vanguard SP500 account and let them hold it and manage the dividend reinvestment and whatever.  I fear that if I leave that account with TDAmeritrade I'll be tempted to try individual stock picking, as I've done for the last 15 years or so with my taxable accounts, with little success to show for it.  Sometimes I'm too optimistic for my own good and if I move it to Vanguard it takes away the ability to attempt stock picking.