I am curious to see what kind of vehicles my readers drive and why they drive the vehicles that they do. Purchasing a vehicle is usually a pretty major decision/expense and depending upon what kind vehicle you buy, how you pay for it (cash, credit), and how you maintain your vehicle can really affect your overall financial picture.
I just thought of something that I think would be fun to track as it will make sure I don’t overestimate how big my retirement nest egg really is. I currently have a mix of Roth IRA, Roth 401k, and Traditional 401k retirement accounts that combined together give me that number at the top right corner of my blog. One thing that people often forget when saving for retirement is taxes (the other is inflation). You see any money that is stored in traditional 401k or traditional IRAs you need to pay taxes on when you withdraw it. This means that the government actually owns part of my retirement nestegg.
I always find myself looking for these limits so I figured I’d just put them on my site for a point of reference. Below are the maximum contribution limits for 401k plans each year from now through 2009.
| Year | Maximum contribution limit |
| 2006 | $15,000 |
| 2007 | $15,500 |
| 2008 | $15,500 |
| 2009 | $????? |
This is the fourth post in a series of posts on Realistic Rate of Return. You can view Part I, Part II, and Part III here. In this part I will try to touch on inflation and how it can affect my nest egg’s value as we travel through time. Sorry for the small delay between Part III and Part IV as this post has been sitting in my drafts folder 60% done for oh the last 9 months 😉
What got me going was that I it was pointed out that I did not consider taxes and inflation in posts like this. While the original post was suppose to be more motivational than scientific it did bring up a good point that I have not talked too much about taxes and inflation on my blog and what do you know I had an article on inflation half done in my drafts folder so here you go.
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Well 2006 is coming to a close and I figured I would check in on how I am progressing on my goal to have $100,000 in principal (solely my contributions) contributed to my various retirement plans. Here is my contribution table my initial planning post on reaching $100k by 30.
One of the great advantages, at least for me is that by contributing to my Roth IRA at work I know that some day when I leave the company I can roll it over to a Roth IRA which is a much friendlier vehicle for someone who may be thinking about retiring early. Well I have only been contributing to my Roth 401k for a year, but I am interviewing pretty hardcore lately and it’s likely that I’ll be leaving my current company in the next month or so.
How do you ever become content with with the amount you are saving for retirement?
Sorry if this is just a ramble and I know this isn’t the worst problem in the world to have, but I’ve found saving to be too damn addictive. To me it’s the same as salary, you’ll never be content. You always think to yourself, you know if I was making $10,000 more a year I’d be so content and wouldn’t ever need to make more money than that, I would have all I would ever need. Then all of a sudden you get that $10,000 boost in salary, your lifestyle/expectations adjust and all of a sudden you just need a little bit more to make you content.