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Home > Have you ever regreted not fully funding your Roth IRA?

Have you ever regreted not fully funding your Roth IRA?

April 5th, 2011 at 05:18 pm

Tax time is approaching, I was reviewing my retirement plans.

Two Big areas I need to work on: Mortgage Prepayment and Roth IRA.

I found a Mortgage excel document that I plugged my info into. I hope that once I have my Emergency Funds to where I want them that I will be motivated to apply ALL or Most extra funds to my mortgage loan because I have the document magically cutting interest and reducing the length on my mortgage; basically showing me progress.

Roth IRA, Last year in March I put money in my Roth IRA; I maxed it for 2009. Well last year and so far this year I have not put anything in for 2010.

I wonder has anyone ever regretted not fully funding their Roth IRA the year before? See I am looking at money I have ear marked for other things (Daycare expenses which whatever is not used are going to fund the checking account cushion AKA Deployment Emergency Fund). I wonder, if I don't put that money into the Roth IRA before the tax deadline that opportunity is gone forever, will I regret it?

If I was spending it on junk, instead of the money just sitting in savings I could say without a doubt YES I regret it.

Right now I have another two years until my 5 year window is finished, so if there was an Emergency I can't pull out the deposits with out penalty and taxes for atleast 2 years. If I was outside the 5 year window it would be a no brainer because IF I really needed it I could just pull it out.

So I wonder is it really a big deal to miss putting money in a Roth IRA?

Posted in Budgeting, Personal Finance | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Have you ever regreted not fully funding your Roth IRA?”

  1. MonkeyMama Says:
    April 5th, 2011 at 07:51 pm 1302033111
    1302033111

    I would say it just depends on how you are doing on your retirement goals. I am not sure if we have EVER fully funded our ROTHs. I know we did one year when we received an unexpected cash gift in early April one year. That's the only time I remember.

    That said, all the years we did not fully fund our ROTHs, we had other retirement contributions in place.

    Initially, we were saving for a house (At 23, was a much higher priority than retirement)! & I have found it hard to fund my spouse's IRA since he has not worked. Heck, it's been hard to fund my own. But we have probably hit $5k in most years; rarely $10k. I don't regret it because we are doing fine on our retirement goals, overall.

    I also decided I'd rather put $8k in our ROTHs than $10k in a regular IRA (With the tax break, it's all the same in the end - If I cough up $10k I get a $2k tax refund on the regular IRA). Which is another reason I am not overly set on maxing out at the moment.

  2. My English Castle Says:
    April 6th, 2011 at 03:34 am 1302060864
    1302060864

    I wish we had enough to max out the Roths every year. My 403b is a better break for us, and we can't really do both without a too severe cranking down of our expenses. I try to meet the 15% retirement savings goal, and I can do that without maxing the Roths. But I do regret it--and found myself thinking about it when I woke up at 3am the other night!

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