Just opened my SEP-IRA

[disneysteve]

As I mentioned in another thread, I saw our accountant on Thursday and he suggested that I open a SEP-IRA for the self-employment income I earn from ebay and medical surveys. For 2009, I'm eligible to contribute $766 to the account. It isn't much but that's $766 more that I can have growing tax-deferred for the next 20 years.

Thanks to replies to my other thread I learned that Scottrade has a $500 minimum and no fees on their IRA accounts. I already have a taxable account with them and just finished opening my brand new SEP-IRA account with them, too. I've already verified my bank account and made my 2009 contribution. Now I just have to decide where to invest that money but at least it is in there and I've got no deadline looming.

Knowing that some of my ebay money and survey income will be going to fund this account going forward is a great extra incentive to keep earning more from doing those things.

[creditcardfree]

That IS a great incentive. I'm glad you found an account with a minimum that would work.

[Ima saver]

That is a very smart idea!

[kv968]

Sounds good Steve. Now what are you planning on investing in? Are you going to the "safe" route or are you going to use it like a little extra mad money in your retirement account and take a chance or two on some riskier stocks?

[disneysteve]

Sounds good Steve. Now what are you planning on investing in? Are you going to the "safe" route or are you going to use it like a little extra mad money in your retirement account and take a chance or two on some riskier stocks?

Good question. I haven't decided yet. This money represents about 0.2% of my portfolio so nothing I do with it is going to matter much in the big picture or throw off my asset allocation tremendously. Still, I don't want to throw it away. Trading stocks I would get eaten up with commissions. Scottrade charges $7 per trade so that doesn't really make sense. I'll probably put it in an ETF but maybe I'll pick something kind of high on the risk scale like a commodities fund for example.

[bigredmachine05]

Hey Disneysteve. What companies do you do medical surveys with. I can do them while I am waiting in the or for patients to arrive. What do you sell on ebay? What else do you do for self employment income? Thanks.

[disneysteve]

Hey Disneysteve. What companies do you do medical surveys with. I can do them while I am waiting in the or for patients to arrive. What do you sell on ebay? What else do you do for self employment income? Thanks.

If you PM me your name and e-mail address, I can send you links and/or referrals to them. There are a bunch. Several of them have a place for me to refer colleagues.

As for ebay, I've been a collectibles dealer for nearly 25 years. I started with Disney memorabilia and gradually expanded into various other things. I also use ebay to sell cast off household items. The other thing I do is sell books on half.com (a division of ebay). They are all medical books that I get through doing the surveys.