What separates Local banks and online Roth IRA 's???

[disneysteve]

i wish i could just follow what u guys are doing and buy w/e u guys are buying and hopefully I can land a jackpot like u guys have... you knowledge is better than mine at this point

Don't put yourself down. You are 24. I am 46. Believe it or not, you are way ahead of where I was at your age. At 24, I was still in grad school. I hadn't started earning an income yet and I certainly wasn't thinking about retirement savings.

And get that "jackpot" idea out of your head. None of us have hit a financial jackpot as far as I know. We've all been right where you are - just starting out wondering how to get ahead. It is a learning process. Every one of us has made financial mistakes, some bigger than others. We learned from them and moved on with our new-found knowledge. You will do the same.

Basically, all we are trying to say to you is this: Invest, learn, and invest some more.

The only mistake you can make at this point in time, is to be paralyzed by the indecision you are in. Choose something and go with it. You can allocate other dollars in future months and years to balance it all out.

Exactly. The one thing you can never get back is the value of time. Starting your retirement savings at 24, whether you choose MMA, CD, stocks or bonds, puts you far ahead of the curve of the average American. Even if you put $5,000/year into a Roth and leave it in the money market, you'll be light years ahead of most of your peers. Not that I'd recommend that, but just saying doing something positive is far better than doing nothing at all.

You can't expect to know it all at 24. I certainly don't know it all at almost twice your age though I know a whole lot more than I did then. Take your time. Take little steps. Read and ask questions and grow your knowledge over time.

[dgcoupe]

while i was sleeping i was thinking if the govt screws us over one day who have roth that already paid taxes on our ROTH IRA and decides to change things? Could be a possibility, so i can now see why people may go the traditional route just in case govt screws us, and for the traditional people atleast they havent paid the taxes yet. Anyone ever thought about this?

[disneysteve]

while i was sleeping i was thinking if the govt screws us over one day who have roth that already paid taxes on our ROTH IRA and decides to change things? Could be a possibility, so i can now see why people may go the traditional route just in case govt screws us, and for the traditional people atleast they havent paid the taxes yet. Anyone ever thought about this?

Yes, that topic comes up periodically. Could the government change the rules? Sure. But the best any of us can do is plan based on the system that is currently in place and control what we can control. I personally think it is very unlikely that they will change the Roth rules for those already participating though I wouldn't rule out them eliminating the Roth tax break in the future for new people. They can't double tax the contribution money, though. The worst they could do is tax the earnings and you will still have gotten the benefit of tax-free growth for 40 years.

[jIM_Ohio]

and if you were older than 59.5 and did not like the tax, you could withdraw 100% of the funds in the Roth to a taxable account (tax free) because all Roth withdraws are tax free. So if government changes the tax law Jan 1, you better believe there will be a max exodus on Dec 31 the previous year.