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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Personal Finance / Retirement Investing
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Author: rayvt 🐝  😊 😞
Number: of 1282 
Subject: Re: Investment/Retirement Accounts
Date: 06/22/24 8:12 PM
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any accounts I should be contributing to while I go back to work for a few months.
Anything I'm missing?


Looks fine.

My last year of work I put the max into my 401K. My takehome pay was pretty small, but we wanted to stuff the 401K as much as we could.

Max out the IRAs. Yours and your wife's. Doesn't matter if she doesn't work, she can contribute based on your income.

Roth vs. regular doesn't matter much in the big scheme of things. I suggest you balance them, to have as much in Roths as in regular IRAs. That comes in handy when you take withdrawals, allows you to choose paying tax on the withdrawal or not. sometimes you want a year's income to be taxed, sometimes you don't.

HSA? Wasn't really an option for me. My company didn't have an HSA until the year before we retired. Wouldn't have been able to put more than a piddly amount, so we didn't bother. I think you really need to be in it for several years for it to be worthwhile. At 65 you go on Medicare and if you have a good plan your out-of-pocket expenses will be small. I was 10 days in the hospital for a TIA and my total bill was $1500.

The benefits of Roth conversions is mostly illusion. It just changes which year you pay the tax, now or later.

I was watching a Kitces interview on youtube YouTube: Are FIRE Naysayers Bad at Math? Yes. with Michael Kitces | BP Money #120 (BiggerPockets) He was saying that many people get bored after a couple of years of retirement. He hasn't talked to me or any of my friends & neighbors. For us, 17 years and we still have not had the inclination to take on a job. Although a few people have volunteered to be golf course marshals---you get to ride around the course in a cart and get to play for free.
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This community has written 1,215 posts about Retirement Investing. The article-length ones it recommended most:
The Case for Long-Term Buy and Hold Investing · 49 recs · 2025
Transferring assets to the next generation · 20 recs · 2025
Retirement Year 8 · 17 recs · 2025
(nearly) year one of retirement has been good · 11 recs · 2026
Buying Treasuries Via Vanguard · 10 recs · 2023
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