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JAM Program Simple Steps
JAM Interactive Budget Program
Phase 2
Roth IRA as an Emergency Fund?
I recently read an interesting article on Using Your Roth IRA as an emergency fund. There are some pros and cons with stashing your emergency fund in a Roth IRA.
Use Roth IRA as your backup emergency fund
Pros
- Money grows tax free. This works especially well if you don’t have a major emergency.
- Less temptation to [...]
Phase 2, Step 3 10% Personal Savings. What’s this Step All About?
Most financial programs, whether it’s “Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University” or Ramit, from the book/blog “I Will Teach you How to Be Rich”, all look pretty much the same. The JAM Program is a little bit different in that it has this additional step for us to save for some things that go beyond retirement [...]
Question: What Should I Do With Old Retirement Accounts?
A lot of people I know have an old 401k or IRA at their previous employer, so I get asked this question a lot. The answer, ultimately, will be dependent on you and what you feel comfortable doing. However, here are a few directions you can take your old retirement accounts.
First of all, there is [...]
Question: I want to convert my 401k/403b/Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. How does This Work?
Doing a Roth Conversion has become a hot topic this year. There used to be income restrictions on a Roth conversion, limiting the people who can do this. However, the income restriction has been lifted this year, leaving the option of being able to take advantage Roth’s tax free growth and withdrawals open to everybody. [...]
Question: Should I continue to contribute to Retirement Accounts While Eliminating My Debt?
While I understand the logic of continuing to contribute to your retirement while you eliminate your debt, I would personally hold off retirement contributions with only one exception. That exception is that you should continue to contribute up to your employers match. This free money is too valuable to pass up. All other retirement contributions [...]
3 Priorities of Retirement Contributions
Congratulations, you are now debt free and have your emergency fund set. You are right in the middle of the JAM program. Now is the time for true wealth building in Phase 2, Simple Step 2: Retirement savings.
I suggest putting 10%-15% of your total income towards retirement. 10% should be the goal if you are [...]
IRA/401k Taxation 101 – Introduction to Phase 2, Step 2
IRA/401k Taxation 101
This post will start a series around Phase 2, Step 2 – 10-15% Retirement Savings. Before we invest 10-15% of our income into retirement, we need to learn how they work.
Tax season has come and gone again this year (hopefully this isn’t news to you) but I wanted to outline some very [...]
Emergency Fund- How Should I Invest My Emergency Fund? Part 3
My answer for what you should invest in is much shorter than the list of what you should not invest your emergency fund in.
ING checking or savings- If you have been reading this blog at all, you know my heart, for savings accounts, lies at ingdirect.com.
Money Market Funds-
You will see Money market funds in your [...]
Emergency Fund – Where do I put it? Part 2
Your emergency fund is not the account that is going to build wealth. Your emergency fund should be exactly that: a fund that is accessible for an emergency. Our definition of ‘emergency’ may be different, but I think of emergencies as something unexpected, like medical expenses or a job loss. Christmas & Vacation: not an [...]
Emergency Savings- How much should I put in? (Pt. 1 of 3)
This question seems to always come up when it comes to the emergency savings. Unfortunately, there is no quick answer to this. My answer is typically: it depends (gee, thanks Bryan). My general answer is 3-6 months of living expenses. If you don’t know your monthly expenses, this would be a great first step up [...]