Evolving Personal Finance » retirement
Reader Question: Where to Open an IRA?
Last week I received a great question on where to open an IRA from a reader! I think this is an important question that doesn’t necessarily get the discussion it deserves in comparison with the question of asset allocation or particular investments. I’m not a financial advisor, though, so please do your own research as well! Hey Emily, I’m starting my first “big kid” job at the end of the summer. So this got me thinking about … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
My Sister’s Awesome Financial Decisions
I don’t talk about my family of origin a lot on this blog (for privacy reasons) but I want to suspend that policy for today’s post to brag about my sister. My sister is 25 and not a nerd. Like, I’m a nerd, right? I went to a nerd high school and a nerd college and now I’m doing a PhD in engineering and I picked up an interest in PF along the way, which … Read entire article »
Filed under: college, debt, family, goals, investing, retirement, savings, stock market
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
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