Re: Balancing Retirement and Non-Retirement Savings

Bill Woessner <woessner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> I won't lie and say that the house-building project took us by
> surprise. 
> 
> In retrospect, it seems pretty clear that we have contributed too much
> to our retirement accounts over the past few years.
> 
> Another consideration: Large purchases. 

I know it's tough to get a handle on somebody's situation based upon a 
single post, but it seems to me the original poster and his wife were 
diligent about funding their tax advantaged accounts and built up a nice 
balance. But now they're building a house and at least thinking about a 
new car and they realize they don't have enough cash on hand in their 
taxable account to pay for that and keep up the retirment savings too.

The debate over "save for the future" vs. "live well now" is almost as 
eternal as "tastes great" vs. "less filling." Just my two cents worth, 
but building a custom house at age 30 is pretty ambitous. In my value 
system that's the kind of thing you do later in life. (Unless you're an 
Internet prodigy or a pro athelete.) Ditto for replacing a perfectly 
good used car with a new one. 

So I'll sup****t the consensus. Max out on the retirement accounts and 
put off those Viking appliances in the kitchen under construction. 
Houses are CONSUMPTION, not an investment.

--------------------------------------
Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators
strive
to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting
guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to
which we respond.  For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM
THE
MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on
the
Newsgroup.