Posts Tagged ‘Planning For Retirement For Beginning Investor’

Beginner Investor Roth IRA - What Is It, And Should Beginner Investors Get A Roth IRA?

Posted on the May 20th, 2009 under Beginning Investment Strategy, Retirement, Roth IRA by Jeff the late investor

As usual, I am totally surprised by how little I really know about finances: for example, the Roth IRA. I asked my wife if she had heard of it, and she said yes, like ‘duh, of course I havem haven’t you?’ Pretty sad, but if you aren’t familiar with the Roth IRA either, Investing Online For Dummies describes the concept pretty well - here’s why it totally seems like a no-brainer:

The Roth IRA provides no deduction for contributions, but instead provides a benefit that isn’t available for traditional retirement accounts: if you meet certain requirements, all earnings are tax free when you or your beneficiary withdraw them. Other benefits include avoiding the early distribution penalty on certain withdrawals, and eliminating the need to take minimum distributions after age 70½.

Based on what I’ve read so far, this should be one of the first things I pick up. An IRA will have to bolster my small 401K, unless I cash out my 401K to roll it into something better. Not sure yet about that, so I guess just going to hang fire on that.

Next chapter is about choosing an online broker, so I’m pretty excited to see what they have to say about that.

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