My retirement nestegg report for this month –
Traditional Rollover IRA – $8,914.80 (-7.67)
My Roth IRA – $26,538.91 (+1.36%)
Wife Roth IRA – $14,259.01 (+0.50%)
Current Traditional 401k – $30,536.53 (+1.71%)
Roth/Traditional % = 50.84% (tax free)
Total Retirement Nest Egg $80,249.25 (+0.25%)
My retirement nestegg report for this month –
Traditional Rollover IRA – $9,655.62 (+2.28%)
My Roth IRA – $26,182.21 (-1.23%)
Wife Roth IRA – $14,189.15 (+1.84%)
Current Traditional 401k – $30,023.11 (+9.50%)
Roth/Traditional % = 50.43% (tax free)
Total Retirement Nest Egg $80,050.09 (+3.56%)
Well not quite as good of month as last month, but pretty darn good. I guess I will take 17 or 18% gains every month. I’m really going to be disappointed when things return to normal and I’m not having 15% swings in either direction each month. The last 2 years in the stock market sure has been a lot of fun!
One thing I will mention in this months report is that I pretty much have all but abandoned making my $100,000 by Age 30 goal. It was within my grasp, but I made a conscious decision late last year to start saving up for a new house and that has trumped my retirement saving here in the short-term. I still will come close by my 30ths birthday ($90k+), but am afraid I will not actually meet my original goal and I am ok with that.
Anyway here is the report.
Traditional Rollover IRA – $9,440.31 (+15.79%)
My Roth IRA – $ 26,509.50 (+22.32%)
Wife Roth IRA – $13,932.31 (+18.91%)
Current Traditional 401k – $27,418.91 (+13.32%)
Roth/Traditional % = 52.32% (tax free)
Total Retirement Nest Egg $77,301.03 (+17.56%)
Well I’m pretty sure this is the biggest single increase I’ve ever had in a single month by far! At this rate I will be retired in no time! In all seriousness this just proves my previous points about how getting in and out of the market to try to time it is a fools game and there is no way you can get back in in time to not lose your butt in the process. If you don’t believe me check out the unfortunate mishap that happened to 2million. Not saying we won’t go much lower from here, but just shows you how volatile things get when things get ugly in the stock market.
Traditional Rollover IRA – $8,152.87 (+16.41%)
My Roth IRA – $21,687.83 (+17.29%)
Wife Roth IRA – $11,717.15 (+17.97%)
Current Traditional 401k – $24,195.47 (+21.77%)
Roth/Traditional % = 50.80% (tax free)
Total Retirement Nest Egg $65,753.32 (+18.91%)
I am currently actively saving for a house my wife and I want to build in the next few years. I have about $20,000 saved up at ING Direct and am adding to it at a rate of about $1,000 per month. I have been a happy ING Direct customer for a number of years and I think everything about their service is top notch and I have never had a problem with them. The only issue is they have been slashing their interest rates at a torrid pace the last few months (as has everyone else).
Normally the difference in interest rates between ING and their competitors is usually pretty negligible where I feel the ease of use of the ING Direct’s site outweighs the few extra bucks I would get in interest. This time however I am accumulating a pretty significant cash savings and as it currently stands SmartyPig’s interest rate is currently double that of ING Direct. So I’ve decided to make the switch for now.
Now SmartyPig and ING Direct certainly aren’t apples to apples. ING Direct is a pretty standard savings account and certainly has a lot more flexibility than SmartyPig. For those of you that don’t know SmartyPig is a goal oriented savings bank where you can’t just deposit and withdraw funds as you please (at least not if you follow the intention of their user interface).
In order to have an account at SmartyPig you have to setup a savings goal. So you enter in an amount you want to save and when you want to reach the goal by and it calculates a monthly contribution that is automatically withdrawn from your checking account once each month. Interest accrues daily, but it is only credited to your account quarterly. In order to withdraw your money you have to close your savings goal and then you can withdraw the money to your checking account via ACH, receive a Debit Card with the balance, or a gift card for the retailer of your choice. Deposits to and from SmartyPig take 3 days before they post to your account, which I believe is 1 day longer than they take at ING Direct. For those of you that are wondering, SmartyPig is FDIC insured and they partner with West Bank to store your money, so you have that peace of mind.
Now granted all of the nuances with SmartyPig may turn some people away, but here are a few ways around their interface that could allow things to work a little more like a traditional savings account. SmartyPig has a minimum goal of $250. So you just setup a goal for $250 and just make a $250 initial deposit. At this point your goal should be reached so it will not require any automatic monthly deposits. Interest keeps accruing on completed goals and you can add money at anytime to a completed goal. Then simply deposit money as you would your normal savings account. About the only drawback is when you want to withdraw money you have to withdraw the entire amount.
I’ll admit even with these workaround SmartyPig may be too rigid for a lot of users, but for my situation where I will only be depositing and likely withdrawing all at once it is not a big deal to me. I setup a trial account with them last July after receiving a SmartyPig gift card and that made me comfortable enough to make this switch. Currently the rate difference alone if all things stay equal will result in $320 extra in interest a year and like I said I am depositing about $1000 a month so the interest difference is enough for me to make the change.
Now granted SmartyPig could and very likely will lower their interest rate on their accounts as well, but they have enough of a cushion right now and seem to be cutting rates slower than the competition so I feel comfortable with the switch for now. If SmartyPig slashes rates and gets anywhere near the ING Direct range – I will simply close my savings goal and go back to ING.
What do you think? For me right now their interest rate makes this a no-brainer in my situation. Am I overlooking something major as right now this seems a little too good to be true given the interest rate environment out there right now.
Another brutal month as far as performance goes. Nestegg value feel by about 8% and as much as I know this is an opportunity for me, it is hard sometimes to see the progress or any forward momentum when your portfolio value is almost half of what it was a year ago.
Of course I’m not alone as I’m pretty much just keeping on track with the market and even guys like Warren Buffett have faired just as bad or even worse. The great news though is that I’m young and I don’t need this money for the next 30 years so while it’s somewhat depressing to see your saving and hard work go up in flames in the short term the odds are in my favor that long term I am still very much headed in the right direction.
Anyway here are this months results.
Traditional Rollover IRA – $7,003.59 (-4.68%)
My Roth IRA – $18,490.95 (-12.13%)
Wife Roth IRA – $9,932.34 (-12.59%)
Current Traditional 401k – $19,868.59 (-1.51%)
Roth/Traditional % = 51.40% (tax free)
Total Retirement Nest Egg $55,295.47 (-7.73%)
My retirement nestegg dropped in value by over 12%, which I believe is slightly worse than the market over that period of time. No big concerns at this point other than the fact that my contributions have been a little lacking lately due to the fact that I’ve gotten pretty excited about saving for a house we want to build in the next couple years and have been beefing that fund up lately to the detriment of my retirement contributions. It probably should be the other way around in this market, but both my wife and I are pretty excited to move into our “dream house” sooner than later and by getting a good house fund built up is becoming a priority.
Here are the figures for this month – if things keep going the way they are our new house fund might surpass our retirement nestegg!
Traditional Rollover IRA – $7,347.80 (-10.94%)
My Roth IRA – $21,043.66 (-11.74%)
Wife Roth IRA – $11,362.75 (-12.21%)
Current Traditional 401k – $20,173.86 (-14.30%)
Roth/Traditional % = 54.08% (tax free)
Total Retirement Nest Egg $59,928.07 (-12.61%)