I work for the state of Texas and about once a year I get a statement from our Employment Retirement System. Each month I contribute 6.45% from my paycheck towards a pension and the state agency matches this contribution. Among other things, the most exciting part of the statement is the chart where it details [...]
The IRS and the Social Security Administration released a bunch of 2012 limits for us to sort through. Here are the limits that I find most meaningful to readers. And when I say most meaningful, it really boils down to the ones that impact your paycheck: retirement contributions, health plan contributions, and social security taxes [...]
A lot of what we do is plan for retirement by accumulating money. However, there’s some planning that goes into the decumulation phase too. And it’s where one of my favorite retirement planning calculators excels: the Optimal Retirement Planner (ORP). There’s a lot of advice floating around to access your taxable accounts first, then your [...]
I have recently taken a lot of interest in our annual Social Security Estimated Benefits statements we receive around our birthdays each year. For one, it’s exciting to keep a rolling tally of how much I have earned, and to (hopefully) see my earnings to continue to increase. Also, it’s nice to see a tangible, [...]
When you file your tax forms, you report contributions to an IRA or Roth IRA. You also report completed conversions (and corresponding tax liability) from one type of account to another. Finally, you can use your tax forms to reverse your conversion by recharacterizing your Roth IRA back to a Traditional IRA. In 2010, income [...]
