Good Financial Reads: Retirement Accounts

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Catch up on some of the latest posts with this week's roundup:

My company allows me to contribute after-tax money to my 401(k). Should I?

by Meg Bartelt, Flow Financial Planning

Hopefully you’ve figured out the basics of your 401(k). Maybe you’ve even figured out whether or not you should contribute to your Roth 401(k). But are you ready for The Next Level in 401(k)?

Should you contribute after-tax money to your 401(k)?

Not all 401(k) plans allow you to make after-tax contributions to your 401(k). Google allows this, for example. Uber does not. So, you need to know whether your 401(k) allows such contributions. You could ask your HR department or look in your 401(k) Plan Summary. Look for the phrase “after-tax contributions.”  (Tricky, I know.) Go on. I’ll wait.

[Read the Full Article]

Maximize Annual Retirement Contributions

by Michelle Smalenberger, Financial Design Studio

One of the items at year-end that we need to be thoughtful of is how much money we’ve put into your retirement accounts available to us.  This is one item that is part of our year-end tax planning checklist. In this video, we discuss maximizing your annual retirement contributions:

[Read the Full Article and Watch the Video]

Make Too Much to Contribute to a Roth IRA? Here's Three Ways to do it Anyways

by James Canole, Root Financial Partners

I love putting money in my Roth IRA! I also really like making more money!

Unfortunately, those two things don’t always mix well in the eyes of the IRS. In fact, The IRS gives us this very simple **paraphrased** equation: High Income + Roth IRA Contribution = Not allowed

Ok, that’s grossly over-simplified. Here’s really what the IRS really tells us (based on 2017 numbers):

[Read the Full Article]

What Should I Do with My Old 401(k)?

by Meg Bartelt, Flow Financial Planning

Did you just leave your job? Or did you leave a job a loooong time ago, and just never did anything with that 401(k)?

It’s usually not urgent, to be sure, and there are plenty of other more-urgent things to think about when you leave your job. But in tech, where you might move from  job to job every few years, you’re going to collect a lot of 401(k)s over the years. 

It’s possible that doing nothing is the right choice, in addition to being the thing that you’ll do anyways. But if you haven’t thought it through, how would you know?

[Read the Full Article]

Consolidating Retirement Accounts

by Michelle Smalenberger, Financial Design Studio

Are you nearing retirement or maybe in retirement?  Or have you had a 401(k) at an old employer and now need to decide what to do with the different accounts?  Can you consolidate them, move them, or need to just leave them where they are? To move a 401(k) to an IRA you complete what’s called a rollover.  Similarly, a Roth 401(k) gets rolled over to a Roth IRA.  It is a nontaxable event when you are rolling funds over to the IRA.

Let’s talk through some things to consider as you think about this.

[Read the Full Article and Watch the Video]