Net Worth & Money News: April 2015
April 30, 2015
Change from Jan 2015: 8% increase
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
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Retirement: I’ve been doing lump sum contributions to my IRA at the end of each tax year, but I should really do it monthly instead. Mostly for superficial reasons: seeing $5500 come out of the savings at once is more painful than ~ $500/month. Plus I can probably cash flow that $500/month if I’m creative, rather than taking it out of savings at all! Or am I getting greedy?
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Update: screw it, I’m cashflowing that sucker. 2014 contribution, done.
2015 contributions, set up as recurring withdrawals.
2016 contributions, will automatically go forth and withdraw.
It’s like a monthly gift to myself!
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Also retirement: I had three different accounts at Vanguard, plus a Roth IRA. That’s silly. One was a rollover from my former employer, one was a rollover IRA from my very first IRA of all, and one was the traditional IRA contribution I’d been making since I no longer have a 401(k). After checking with Vanguard, all of them can basically be dumped into the same Rollover IRA, so I went ahead and put those in for consolidation.
Edit for comprehension: I combined the three different accounts (an employer 401(a), a traditional IRA and a rollover IRA), but NOT the Roth, that stayed separate. I wanted to be left with 2 IRAs: a Roth and Rollover.
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I opened an Ally Raise Your Rate CD last year. Interest rates went up a bit and I’m not interested in interest rate-stalking so I went ahead and took my one time bump.
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It’s been about 18 months since my last App-o-Rama, I may go on and do another round if credit card bonuses are good.
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On Life
I’ve been trying new medications to help me function. Well, new for now but not new to me. This particular one had dealbreaker side effects the first time I tried it but it did make me actually functional. Days where I can hardly get out of bed or struggle to breathe are fewer but the side effects previously trumped that. This time, I’m on a much lower dose. It’s not enough to eliminate pain or fatigue but it reduces them to a couple fewer areas of pain per day and tiredness, rather than a soul-deep ache of emptiness where energy would live. That’s worth it in my book. I’d rather not be on anything at all when breastfeeding but that’s a pipe dream.
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We’ve (ahem *I*) finally figured out I can’t keep doing all the night shifts. PiC has adjusted and has taken to spiriting a grumpy LB away to the other room, shutting bedroom doors as he goes, to spare me at night. That causes some weird “I need to know where everyone is” instinct to rise in me and so sometimes I follow them, thus utterly defeating the purpose. But sometimes we’re just happier together, even if we’re both sort of grumpy. At least we’re not grumpy at each other 98% of the time.
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LB has blossomed into a Roly Poly and Angry Inchworm. Ze decided that ze wants to do all the things that a real human would do but seriously lacks the muscle control and that really pisses hir off. We’ll see how quickly ze figures it all out.
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I’m antsy. I need to be planning something and it may be travel. We have dear friends who are older and whose health is declining. We’d like to spend as much time with these friends as we can.
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Yay on the contributions! I get antsy like that too where I at least need to have the anticipation of something cool happening in the future.
Tonya@Budget and the Beach recently posted…What Acting Class Taught Me About Freelancing
<3 Yeah it teaches me to keep myself busy or I get into trouble :)
Wait, what? You rolled your Roth into a traditional IRA? Why?
The darned drugs almost always seem to have side effects that are worse than the ailment! I hope you eventually find something that helps more and doesn’t do anything BUT that.
Ha ha! Inch-worm, eh? The kid is already trying to crawl? You know…they go direct from crawling to running…they never actually walk. 😉
Funny about Money recently posted…Scallops…Gluten-Free!
Wait! Did I say that? …. Oops. I meant I rolled everything ELSE into the rollover IRA. Editing …
The kid is trying to do EVERYTHING right now.
I need advice. I have a measly 401k from the job I left in SF before moving to Seattle. Then we moved and I am on contract and don’t get a 401k through my employer and haven’t been contributing, which I hate. How should I set aside? Can I move my 401k into an IRA and just contribute to that? I kind of don’t want to do my 401k if it’s not being matched at all by an employer. But maybe that is dumb.
Help. Me. I trust your judgement and you already seem to know some tricks.
Lauren recently posted…So Ready
Yes! Without knowing more details, these are the things I would do/look at if I were you:
1. Unless the 401(k) is already with a good institution (I always recommend Vanguard), roll it over to a rollover IRA. If we’re talking < $3000, the Vanguard Star Fund is a good option. 2. Contribute the max you can to the IRA ($5500 this year). You can do traditional or Roth depending on what's best for you (we can talk more about this if you want) 3. You say you don't want to do 401(k) if not matched - are you talking about this current employer or the old one? If you have a 401(k) that you can contribute to now, employer-sponsored or not, then do it. Not having the match sucks, but a 401(k) still reduces your taxable income so it's still valuable. If I had to hierarchy it, it would look like this: 1. 401(k) for the tax benefit and higher contribution limit. 2. Roth IRA if my effective tax rate was still low and I was eligible. 3. Traditional IRA (to the max) if I wasn't eligible to contribute to a Roth, this still carries a tax benefit up to a certain income level. 4. SEP-IRA or SIMPLE IRA for self employed contributions if I didn't have any of the above. Feel free to email me if you want to dig deeper and have more comprehensive recommendations!
You are amazing!!! One question – Can I always contribute to a 401k even if not linked to an employer? It’s a fidelity and just chillin. But I did not know (because lazy and: life) how to set it up. It didn’t occur to me for like a solid 6 months.
With my next job I am HOPING for not-contract, but if I am contract I want to get back on the ball of my own retirement (vs Kamel’s which is massive so at least there is that, but what if he demonizes and we have to cut him loose. I’m all for making sure my own ass is covered). So I could potentially just…. contribute there?
Lauren recently posted…So Ready
I think I need to know more about your existing 401(k) to answer absolutely definitively but if it started out life as an employer-sponsored plan then it would have been set up to take pre-tax monies and if so, you usually cannot continue to contribute to it in that vehicle because you’re not contributing pre-tax money. You would likely have to roll it over and then contribute post-tax money to the resulting IRA.
You have options either way – you can contribute to an IRA for the 2015 tax year either up to $5,500 or to the amount you have earned this year. If you and Kamel file jointly, then regardless of how much you made this year, as long as the contributions don’t exceed your combined incomes (minus the contribution amounts), you can do a spousal IRA.
So yes, in case of Demon Kamel, you could even start right now instead of waiting for the next job!
Glad PiC is helping at nights. I know the best he can during the day, but you’re the one there 24-7.
Abigail recently posted…Prepaying debt
Yeah, as it turns out, he’s always felt like it was fair for him to help nights too, even if he was the only one working at the time. I just failed to grok that.
I so wish I could have automatic withdrawals for my supplemental LTC and variable annuity payments! Unfortunately Vanguard insists on an old-fashioned paper check for the annuity contributions. LTC will do a bank withdrawal, but only annually when the premium is due.
Glad you’re finding some balance with your meds so you can enjoy life more. I can’t believe you have enough energy to take on more planning stuff!
Linda recently posted…Woman stuff and sleep hacking
Seriously?? Vanguard requires a check? Geesh, I can’t understand why perfectly decent financial institutions can’t get it together and do auto-withdrawals. Harumph!
Honestly I just like to do the planning even if I can’t actually enjoy the event. There’s something very wrong with me 🙂