Evolving Personal Finance » retirement
Contributing to Last Year’s Roth IRA
Kyle and I have deviated from our normal Roth IRA contribution setup. Our normal routine is to each make bimonthly contributions (working out to about once per week between the two of us) to our Roth IRAs and make additional contributions when we receive extra paychecks. Despite my intense desire to max out both our Roth IRAs, we were several hundred dollars short of maxing out our 2012 contribution at year’s end. In previous years … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
Should You Count Your Employer’s Contribution into Your Retirement Savings Percentage?
The question of whether or not to count an employer’s match or contribution into your own savings percentage is a perennial PF debate – but I swear I have a new twist! (At least, it’s new to me. I have never read this advice anywhere, but it’s so simple that I’m sure I can’t be the first to suggest it.) I had this brain wave while reading a Money Under 30 post on how to … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
How Can We Plan Our Retirement in Our Twenties?
Basically any reading on the topic of retirement emphasizes the necessity of visualizing what we want retirement to be so that you can set a goal for a certain amount of savings/passive income to achieve by retirement age. I totally understand the utility of this exercise for 1) actual planning for people approaching retirement (in their 40s or 50s, say) and 2) motivation for young people to start saving (aggressively). But, really? I don’t know about … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
Giving Should Exceed Saving?
My church put on a financial boot camp this past weekend, the content of which largely followed Dave Ramsey’s baby steps, along with additional Biblical support for a debt-free generous lifestyle and some fun mathematical examples of the power of compound interest. But one of the volunteers mentioned a principle that he and his wife live by: his savings rate does not exceed his giving rate. I admit that I was surprised to hear this come … Read entire article »
Filed under: giving, retirement, savings
Obligations on Your Side Hustle Money
Kyle has been volunteering with the production team at our church for about a year, mostly running the slides and handling the video-playing. One of the men who runs the sound board is taking a sabbatical and they are looking for someone to fill his weekends. Kyle has wanted to learn how to run a sound board for a while so this is a perfect opportunity. Plus, we found out that it is a paid … Read entire article »
Filed under: giving, retirement, side income, taxes, values
Can a Net Income Boost Compensate for Not Having Earned Income?
Two weeks ago I got a great comment on my Roth IRAs for Graduate Students post from Joe. He asked “Why would you want fellowship income to be reported as earned income? The payroll tax (6.2%+1.45%) that must be withheld from wages … in my opinion, makes the unearned income classification better.” The payroll tax exception for 1099-MISC income wasn’t something I addressed in the Roth IRA post (although I mentioned it as a perk for some … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, retirement, taxes
Organic Search Terms
EPF’s organic search traffic has really spiked up in the past couple weeks – well, at least in comparison with what it used to be! Just last week I started looking at the search terms leading people to EPF (people, not bots). Today I’d like to take a look at a few of the search phrases. Post with the Most By far my most popular post in terms of being found by the wider internet is the … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, grad school, retirement
How to Save When You Don’t Have Earned Income
For those of us without earned income, the standard retirement advice does not apply. Not only do our workplaces (if we even have them) not provide retirement plans, but we’re locked out of contributing to IRAs. Assuming we’re making enough money to be able to save, how can we advance our goals? 1) Evaluate your financial situation holistically. Not everyone needs to save for retirement at all times. There are other legitimate savings goals that you can … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
Earned Income: The Bane of the Graduate Student’s Roth IRA
Source: goodfinancialcents.com via Jeff on Pinterest This is my contribution to The Roth IRA Movement started by Jeff Rose at Good Financial Cents. The post will briefly touch on the advantages of the Roth IRA account but will focus on how graduate students can determine whether or not they have earned income. For more posts with greater detail on various aspects of the Roth IRA, please visit the Movement’s page. Also, I am not a CPA … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
Why You Should Save for Retirement While In Graduate School Part 2
aka Why You Should Save For Retirement Even with a Low Income This is the second half of a two-part post intended to inspire graduate students and others with low incomes who are currently not saving for retirement to start. Check out the first post for my assumptions and an argument concerning compound interest. Please remember that I am not a financial planner or CPA and you should not consider my opinions financial advice targeted for … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, retirement, savings
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