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I posted earlier that we recently learned that my wife has a 403b plan at work. I definitely want to participate as we have no other tax-advantaged retirement plans except our IRAs.
I spoke to the agent yesterday who handles the account. He is with Janney Montgomery Scott. I was afraid the only choice would be an annuity, which I know some 403b's do, but that fortunately wasn't the case. We get to pick from any of the funds offered by Oppenheimer. I'm waiting to get the plan details and enrollment paperwork, but did some preliminary research last nite. Oppenheimer offers load funds. Class A shares have a 5.75% front-end load. There seems to be some language on their site suggesting that the load might be lower or waived for certain types of accounts. I'm hoping that just maybe 403b's with non-profit groups might qualify for lower or waived loads.
I guess the bottom line is that paying a 5.75% load is still a lot better than paying 25% income tax on the money, plus it grows tax free for the next 20+ years. Also, the load percentage decreases as the amount in your account increases (5.5% over 25K, 4.75% over 50K, etc.). We should hit the 25K mark within 2 years and the 50K mark after about 4 years if all goes smoothly.
I'll get all the details by the end of next week and sign her up to get started.
I spoke to the agent yesterday who handles the account. He is with Janney Montgomery Scott. I was afraid the only choice would be an annuity, which I know some 403b's do, but that fortunately wasn't the case. We get to pick from any of the funds offered by Oppenheimer. I'm waiting to get the plan details and enrollment paperwork, but did some preliminary research last nite. Oppenheimer offers load funds. Class A shares have a 5.75% front-end load. There seems to be some language on their site suggesting that the load might be lower or waived for certain types of accounts. I'm hoping that just maybe 403b's with non-profit groups might qualify for lower or waived loads.
I guess the bottom line is that paying a 5.75% load is still a lot better than paying 25% income tax on the money, plus it grows tax free for the next 20+ years. Also, the load percentage decreases as the amount in your account increases (5.5% over 25K, 4.75% over 50K, etc.). We should hit the 25K mark within 2 years and the 50K mark after about 4 years if all goes smoothly.
I'll get all the details by the end of next week and sign her up to get started.
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