Max Roth or wait until market calms down

[rennigade]

Putting it all in on January 1 IS dollar-cost averaging. It doesn't have to be monthly. Once a year for 40 years is a form of DCA.

Definition: investment technique of buying a fixed dollar amount of a particular investment on a regular schedule.

By definition that is correct. Seems like a stretch to me though. Ive never heard anyone openly say "For my roth ira I dollar cost average once a year."

Ive completely funded my roth ira once or twice on jan 1. Ive been fortunate enough to have the money to do so every year but ive just become accustomed to doing it once or twice a month. (1st and 15th)

[disneysteve]

Ive completely funded my roth ira once or twice on jan 1. Ive been fortunate enough to have the money to do so every year but ive just become accustomed to doing it once or twice a month. (1st and 15th)

Last year, due to some cash flow issues, I did it quarterly, so didn't max until December. This year, hopefully, we'll be able to do it much sooner. I haven't put anything in yet but probably will this weekend.

[StormRichards]

Last year, due to some cash flow issues, I did it quarterly, so didn't max until December. This year, hopefully, we'll be able to do it much sooner. I haven't put anything in yet but probably will this weekend.

We already contributed $1k in each of our accounts and I am probably going to make another contribution today. Then leaning toward maxing both out at the end of the month when DH's bonus comes in.

[cologero]

Thank you all for the excellent advice and for reassuring what I was thinking. I'm going to invest the money now while I'm fortunate enough to have the funds available. Thank you again.

[TexasHusker]

Helpful post

Ok hot shot. Make sure you PM me when they calm down.

[cologero]

My friend, relax. All I was implying when I said "calm down" was waiting for this rash of back-to-back-to-back record-high days to end...and perhaps waiting until it falls back below 20K. That's all I was getting at.

[cornfieldj]

I'm having a similar problem. (And as an aside... it's a nice problem to have. I know several people who are in bad shape financially.)

I meant to stock my IRA with a few thousand last month. I didn't get around to it. Now the market is soaring so everything's more expensive.

Came across some research from TIAA that compared over 90 years which will give you the better return: lump-sum investing vs dollar-cost averaging.

They do not mean you shouldn't do auto-saving through a workplace plan. They were simply trying to work through what you should do with a bonus or a windfall.

And except for about 5 separate months in the period, lump-sum did better than dollar-cost averaging.

The basic message is, the longer you're in the market, the better you do. The TL;DR is if you can be in the market, be in the market.

So I am really mad at myself for not putting the money in when things were a bit cheaper. On the other hand, I feel they're likely to stay the same or get even more expensive. So I'm putting the check in today.