Bill Woessner <woessner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> My wife and I have about $95K in retirement accounts (we're 29 and
> 30). That includes a mix of 401k, Roth and traditional IRA. But our
> after-tax savings are pretty small in comparison. Between checking
> and savings, we have $23K, $13K of which is about to go toward closing
[snip]
> In retrospect, it seems pretty clear that we have contributed too much
> to our retirement accounts over the past few years. One possible way
Really? That's far from obvious to me. At 30 yrs old, having $95k
in retirement plans is a good start, but it's only a good start.
You don't say anything about your income levels, retirement
expectations, etc, but if you are saving what many of us consider
the bare minimum towards retirement - 10% of income - you're on
the right track, not oversaving at all - and need to keep it up.
Remember - time is your biggest ally here. The more you put towards
retirement *early* the better your likelihood of retiring when you
choose and comfortably. And the less - by *far* - you'll have to
sacrifice to save later.
> of correcting that would be to withdraw our Roth contributions. We
That wouldn't be "correcting" it. As I said, we don't have nearly
enough information here, but at a glance, I'd say that's more in
line with "screwing up what looks like it was probably a good plan".
If you can't keep that up *and* rebuild your after-tax savings
(emergency cash, etc), then you need to seriously look at the
*expense* side of your budget.
> Another consideration: Large purchases. Certainly the new house
> qualifies, but what about things like a new car? My wife's car is 4
> years old. It runs perfectly and doesn't have any problems. However,
> I suspect she'll be interested in getting a new car in, say, 2-4
As I was saying about the expense side. Unless you *need* a new
car in 2-4 years, don't buy one, and almost certainly not a new
one. Your retirement savings is vastly more im****tant than an
new car.
[rant snipped. Note that a proposal for simplifying and unifying
govermnent-favored accounts was basically just ignored a couple
of years ago. For reference, it was Bush's 2004 budget, and it
was completely dead on arrival.]
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