Thank you!

[Lindahfx]

Congratulations!!! I wish I was in your situation.

[DayByDay]

Congratulations!

[buzz]

Congrats. That's quite a year!

[loanstar]

its nice to see a success story!!

[pennrj430]

Congrats Becca!!!! That's not easy to accomplish on Long Island. Makes me proud!

[financialdominance]

Wow, you're on the right track now!

[jasonfuller]

glad you got everything goin your way! keep itup.

[ginene]

Congratulations! I would to have my house paid off.

[Lindahfx]

Congrats. What an achievement. I do have a question though... I live in Canada and not familiar with this term... What is HELOC? is that Home Equity Line of Credit?

[Beccagold]

Thanks again for everyone being so supportive!

As for the IRA's: Unfortunately, I don't qualify for the Roth, I've heard mentioning on this board about traditional IRA's being convertible in the future, but I haven't opened any. I played with the numbers last year (after lurking on here) and there were no tax advantages for the IRA for me. At my current rate my 401k should be "fine", so I've just been putting extra money into mutual funds.

Is my thinking completely off?

fyi- DH leaves all of the finances to me. I mention to him what I'm doing or ask for opinions, but its pretty much up to me.

[Beccagold]

Congrats. What an achievement. I do have a question though... I live in Canada and not familiar with this term... What is HELOC? is that Home Equity Line of Credit?

Exactly!

[n_vizion]

You are in a wonderful place. Now tell the people you know what you have done and you can inspire others to do the same.

[Diolla]

Thanks again for everyone being so supportive!

As for the IRA's: Unfortunately, I don't qualify for the Roth, I've heard mentioning on this board about traditional IRA's being convertible in the future, but I haven't opened any. I played with the numbers last year (after lurking on here) and there were no tax advantages for the IRA for me. At my current rate my 401k should be "fine", so I've just been putting extra money into mutual funds.

Is my thinking completely off?

fyi- DH leaves all of the finances to me. I mention to him what I'm doing or ask for opinions, but its pretty much up to me.

"... removes the income limit for IRA conversions in tax years beginning after 2009. The new rules will make it possible for anyone, including individuals currently not eligible for a conversion, to convert their traditional IRA assets to a Roth IRA. The new rules also provide a loophole that effectively will allow otherwise ineligible individuals to get their regular traditional IRA contributions into Roth IRAs."

If you put the money in a traditional IRA now then in 2010 (and possibly years after) you can convert the traditional into a ROTH. If you wanted to invest more than you can in your 401(k) then you could use this loophole to get a ROTH IRA. Since you don't qualify the IRA would not be deductible but once converted in 2010 the ROTH's growth would be tax free.

[i-endeavors]

Keep it up!