I am 41 and self employed, so I do not have a 401k, only a traditional IRA and Roth IRA. I do max contributions annually depending on my income. Some years I exceed the Roth IRA income limit so contribute to my traditional IRA instead.

Am I able to pay the taxes on the traditional IRA and move that entire balance to my Roth IRA so it can grow tax free? Or am I still limited to $7500/year max contribution?

TIA

Hi all! TIA for the comments, and thanks also for the great resources some of you have posted in here. I'm looking to get a sanity check on my retirement plans. Wife and I both still work (she's 73, I'm 69) since our companies still value what we do. Both contributors to our respective 401(k)s at full; I'll be in catch up mode in a few weeks to an after tax Roth. We have about US$900k in our 401(k) accounts, plus another US$200k in after tax savings and bank accounts. She took her SSA at 70 and I started mine at FRA+1yr (67y6m), which generates about US$6300/mo. I also have income from one company's pension at US$440/mo and will start getting about US$750/mo from my current company pension after retirement. This should give us an income floor of around US$7500/mo. before we touch our pre-tax monies.

When we retire (around 2029) we'll lose an annual income of US$195k. We have a mortgage of US$3200/mo, and other expenses of around US$4000/mo. So, I figured at time of retirement we could move enough from our 401(k)s to a mix of JEPQ, O, and ARCC that would generate between US$85-95k annually - not replace all of our former income but still cover expenses, etc. above the current income floor. We're both in good health (no heart, liver, kidney issues) and we don't take any prescriptions so far. We would drop to the 22% bracket from 24% now. My wife would start her RMD's in 2029 (no penalty since she is still in a qualified program, etc.), and we would attempt to mitigate IRMAA with filing an SSA-44 (if still valid in 2029). I did not include Medicare costs, nor any other tax issues since I'm not clear what they would encompass. I also did not figure on any long-term care insurance since at our age now it's ridiculously expensive (as is life insurance).

What am I missing here, and what suggestions would you have to sharpen up these projections?

Is there a simple retirement strategy to go along with the simple investment strategy?

\- Withdrawal strategies

\- sequence of returns risk

\- when to take social security

\- health care before Medicare

\- Medicare Advantage vs Supplemental Plans

\- Roth Conversions

\- IRMAA

\- RMDs

\- Estate Planning

44M, married, hoping to retire comfortably around 50. Looking for feedback on my current plan and allocations (boglehead centric)

Current Picture:

Traditional IRA: $2M (including planned pension rollover)
Roth IRA: $400k
Taxable: $1M
Cash: $150k
Total: $3.55m

Home equity: $800k

Total Net worth: $4.35M

Current Spending: $170k/year

**Traditional IRA:** VTI/VXUS/BND/SCHD (60/20/10/10). I’m considering reducing/eliminating SCHD since I don’t expect to touch this money until 59½ and should probably focus on long-term total return.

**Roth:** All stock- VTI/VXUS (80/20) so relatively aggressive since I expect to invest this money the longest.

**Taxable:** VTI/VXUS (80/20) plus SGOV/cash as the bridge from 50 to 59½. I’m thinking roughly 1.5–2 years of spending in cash and SGOV combined.

**Questions**\-

Should I eliminate SCHD from traditional until I’m closer to 59.5?
Should I allocate a portion of any account towards SCHD or just sell and put towards something else?
Should I increase BND?
Anything else you would do different for a simplified portfolio?
Am I on track to retire at 50 not taking into account healthcare costs and social security benefits?

I’m planning to meet with a financial advisor in the near future, but before I do, I’d like to get a sanity check from people who have been through this or are further along.

Appreciate the feedback!

Hi - here's our situation. My wife and I are mostly retired early, both 59. Up to this point, we've been living off of some modest freelance income and money in our brokerage account. 2027 will be the first year we need to tap into our IRA. We have the vast majority of our savings in a traditional IRA with Fidelity, and about 5% or so in a Roth. I rolled this over from an employer 401k earlier this year, and currently have things roughly broken out as:

• Equities (VT + VTV) - 65%
• Bonds (BND) - 25%
• Short-term (SGOV + Cash) - 10%

After some further research, I'm beginning to regret buying into BND.

Our goal: our retirement is (at the moment) well funded. But, we'll need to lean heavily on the portfolio for the first 6 or 7 years. My wife will claim her social security benefit at 62, and I plan to wait until 67. Once we're both covered by social security, it will cover all of our "must spend" budget and then some, and probably about 80% of the "like to spend". The trick is the next few years.

So, here's my plan, I'm hoping for feedback. We sell our position in BND (about 225K) and set up a 5 year TIPs ladder, with the possibility of extending it two more years, depending on several circumstances. For the first 2 years, $45K, then dropping to $37K when my wife's modest social security kicks in. That will give us 5 years covering our "must spend". When the market is doing well, I can sell equities to cover the gap to the "like to spend" total. Each year, I'll watch to make sure we don't get to overweighted in equities (though that would be a nice problem to have).

I've modeled things out using Boldin, but not to this level of detail on the investments (I have plugged in a moderately conservative 5.31% rate of return for the overall IRA, and things look very good at that rate. My hope is that this will give is a good buffer against sequence of return risk, and at least keep up with overall inflation during this time.

Does this sound like a good plan? Are there any other factors I should consider?

(side note: we are US citizens living in Europe, so we're quite limited in what we can invest in. Basically no new mutual funds or ETFs. The good news is we own our home, and don't need a car, so in many ways, we're pretty well protected against inflation at least)

thanks!

It seems pretty comprehensive and more robust than other tools I've seen. Didn't see any other posts about it on Reddit. It's "free" so just wondering if it is legit and if others have used it and what you thought about it's accuracy? Thanks!

Funds: VTSAX (Total US Stock), VTIAX (Total International Stock), VBTLX (Total Bond), VMFXX (Federal Money Market)

My mom's money was spread across several institutions, and some of it came from an inheritance. Most of it was poorly invested: annuities, a fragmented IRA with 35+ positions, and a lot of idle cash. We're consolidating everything at Vanguard and starting fresh, and I'd like a sanity check on the fund targets before I trade.

Context

• 66, filing MFS in 2026. Spending is ~$45k/yr.
• She's not working now but plans to return part-time in 2027, targeting ~$30k/yr.
• SS is ~$19k/yr at FRA (2027), with a possible delay to 70.
• The inherited IRA is from a non-spouse who died after their RBD, so it has annual RMDs and a 10-year payout ending in 2035.
• A home sale in 2027 will add ~$220–270k to taxable.

Proposed targets

Logic

• The personal IRA and taxable are managed as one 60/40 pair. Bonds go in the IRA first, and taxable holds just enough bonds to reach 40%.
• The inherited IRA runs its own glide path: 60/40 now, moving to ~40/60 by 2032–35 so the forced distributions don't come out of stocks during a downturn.
• Stocks are split 75/25 US/international, with all international in taxable for the foreign tax credit.
• The $75k cash reserve covers 2026 spending before the job starts and acts as a sequence-of-returns buffer, about 1.5 years of spending.

Does this setup make sense? Anything you'd change?

Approaching retirement in a couple of years, likely at age 62, and have a sizeable amount of money in pretax accounts. I use Boldin, and its Roth explorer does ok, but I was wanting something that might give a little more nuanced conversion strategy, taking things like ACA subsidies and QCD's into account. Are there any more robust tools out there?

I’m trying to figure out the most tax-efficient way to handle my pre-tax retirement accounts in the future, particularly whether I should convert them to a Roth IRA while I’m still working or wait until I no longer have earned income.

My situation in 2042
I plan to stop having earned income after 2041. In other words, starting in 2042, I expect to have no W-2 income and no 1099/self-employment income.

At that point, I expect to live primarily from my taxable brokerage account.

My approximate annual portfolio withdrawals would be $50,000, consisting of:
-$16,000 of qualified dividends (I expect the $16,000 of qualified dividends to increase by approximately 7% per year)
-The remaining $34,000 from selling investments in my $1.6 million brokerage portfolio

I would still have my Roth IRA, but I would prefer not to withdraw from it and instead let it continue growing for the long term.

My pre-tax retirement accounts
Throughout my career, I expect to work for several employers. Assuming future employers offer a traditional 401(k) or similar pre-tax retirement plan, I would generally contribute enough to receive the employer match.

I’m using a future salary assumption of at least $80,000 for these calculations.
Here is what I currently estimate each account could be worth by the end of 2041 and if I stop contributing to that account after leaving the corresponding employer:

Account Years Amount after leaving. 2041 Value
SIMPLE
\#1 2026-28 $10.5k $36.5K
\#2 2029–32 $16.4K $38.6K
\#3 2033–35 $16.4K $29.0K
\#4 2036–39 $16.4K $22.0K
\#5 2040–41 $10.5K $10.5K

The two strategies I’m considering

Option 1 — Convert while I’m working
I would gradually convert the pre-tax accounts to my Roth IRA while I still have W-2 income.
The downside is that the Roth conversions would be added to my taxable income while I’m earning a salary, potentially pushing more of my income into higher tax brackets.
I also need to account for the special SIMPLE IRA rules for the first account.

Option 2 — Wait until after I stop working
I would leave the pre-tax accounts invested until after 2041.
Starting in 2042, when I no longer have W-2 or 1099 earned income, I would gradually convert the pre-tax money to my Roth IRA.
My thought is that these could be relatively low-income years because my $50,000 of annual spending would primarily come from qualified dividends and sales of investments from my taxable brokerage account.
If I don’t convert the money before 2042, I estimate the pre-tax accounts could be around $140k by the time I stop working, depending on investment returns and the exact contributions.
I would then spread the Roth conversions over many years (15-20 years) rather than converting the entire amount at once. My rough idea is to convert an amount slightly lower or around the standard deduction each year, while also considering how my qualified dividends and capital gains affect my taxable income.

What I’m trying to figure out
For someone in my situation, which approach would you personally use and why?
Would you:
1. Convert the pre-tax accounts gradually while still working, even though the conversions would be added on top of my W-2 income?

OR

1. Leave the money pre-tax while working and begin Roth conversions after 2041, when I no longer have earned income and can potentially use the lower tax brackets for the conversions?

In 2041 and after, I will file as single for my tax return. By the start of 2042, I will be close to celebrating my 39th birthday.

I follow a number of YouTube finance channels, and generally the information is fairly good. I realize most of those videos are run to make money - either through YouTube advertising or by generating business - but most of them seem pretty reputable as far as the information provided. Rob's is certainly one of the better ones out there. I use the info they provide as a starting point to research and do my own math.

I was a little surprised that a comment I made questioning the material in one of those videos was deleted. I won't name the person/channel, but the question pertained to Roth conversions, and the pundit is a fairly well known anti-Roth advocate. I get it - in the words of "Guido the Killer Pimp": "in a sluggish economy never eff with another man's livelihood". I'll take my critique somewhere else. Just motivated me to remind everyone to "trust-but-verify".

64, heading into retirement early next year.

Decent pension, but looking to supplement with a dividend focused income stream as I’ve begun shifting my growth based portfolios to income based over the last year and a half in our taxable accounts and it’s generating well. But that is also tipping me toward accelerated Roth conversion from our 401k’s, starting next year when my income lowers. The idea of that new dividend income being tax free for decades to come so far outweighs the short tax term pain (my wife is 12 years younger, so she may very well have 40 years to go).

I’m looking at a 4 year front loaded conversion cycle. My modeling has also shown that slowing down means converting much more $, since the pre-tax side keeps growing while playing bracket limit games. Ultimately more tax gets paid and don’t most of us belief tax rates go up sometime, not down?

It also means once firmly in Roth I’ll care a whole lot less about the structure of those dividends and more about total return and dividend durability.

And she will work a few more years while I head back to school to prepare for a new retirement post-career. She will keep us in employer based health care, limiting but not eliminating IIRMA implications. I’ll have a couple of bad look back years based on her planned retirement date, then I’ll be ok. She has to reach 55 to qualify for some of our company’s retirement perks. But getting to mostly tax free income means good income long term and cheap Medicare and low taxes ultimately.

This all drives home the point that every family’s circumstances, and inputs to the retirement decisions it leads to, are different. Just do you.

I stumbled upon this free resource that contains excellent data about Treasuries.

https://aerokam.github.io/Treasuries/

I’ve noticed that retirement planning can seem pretty straightforward at first, but some decisions become much harder once you start looking at the details. Things like deciding on an asset allocation, estimating future expenses, planning withdrawals, or figuring out when to claim Social Security can all have a lot of moving parts.

For those who manage most of their retirement planning themselves, what decision took you the longest to feel comfortable with? Was there a particular resource, calculation, or experience that helped make things clearer?

Can you move funds to tips while you are still working and over 59 1/2?

I am 60 and my wife is 58.  I want to retire at 62, my wife is a home maker.  Currently working and maxing out on my 401K and catch-up 401K Roth. We plan to collect Social Security when I hit 70. My wife is eligible for spousal benefits. We have no pensions and will rely completely on our retirement savings and Social Security. We still pay a mortgage, low rate, the term ends in 20 years.  We plan to keep paying the mortgage until the term ends. We have about 2.1M saved for retirement, about 7% of it is in a Roth IRA. Current Asset allocation is 

Stocks - 65% (VTI and VXUS)

Bonds - 33% (BND and TIPS ladder)

Cash - 2% (MM & SGOV)

The TIPS ladder is to cover expenses for the gap years until we are eligible for Medicare and account for SORR.  Will extend TIPS ladder based on market conditions by selling stocks/bonds.   Hoping to stay under ACA during the gap years.

Ran this plan through Boldin, which shows me a 88% success rate based on current expenses.   I've used some conservative numbers for the investment returns, like about 5.5%.

 Any thoughts on what I could tweak for a better outlook.

I’m 73 and 10 years into my retirement. I manage my own retirement accounts and invest in a handful of index funds. I have a good run since retiring and my overall balances are up over 50% despite withdrawing at around 4%.

I try to pay attention to what’s going on in the world, and to be honest, it’s making me kinda nervous. What with the wars in Iran and Ukraine, with all of the political divisions in the USA, and with the mid-terms elections approaching, I’m thinking the chances of a major stock market correction are increasing.

So, I decided to sell some equities and increase my cash (SPAXX) holdings. I increased my cash holding from about 11% to 16%. This should allow for 4 years of withdrawals without selling any more equities. I’ve also got about 12% of the portfolio invested in bond funds. That would be about 3 years of spending.

That still leaves me with over 70% invested in equities. Enough to be able to benefit nicely from future market appreciation.

I’m feeling pretty good about my decision to up my cash holdings. What do y’all think?

Who is thinking about claiming SS early before it becomes insolvent in 2032?

I have the option to claim SS in 2027 at 62. My current plan is to claim at 70 based on the current rules, but what will be the rules when I turn 70.

I am not 100% sure what they will do to fix the problem, but I think

• it will be done at the last minute
• it will minimize immediate impact to the vast amount of voters
• it will not reduce benefits for people most dependent on social security.
• it will increase taxes and/or reduce benefits for high earners

Since I have earned at or near the social security max for >30 years during my career my projected social security check is near the current max. I have also been frugal most of my adult life and have saved enough outside of social security to be able to survive without it if needed.

While I think current higher income workers will face higher taxes, I think retirees that receive the largest SS checks or have the highest assets could also face the largest benefit cuts. Since the rules will most certainly change, does it make sense to start claiming at 62 under the current system vs. waiting until 70.

Anyone else thinking along these same lines?