Aug

28

Money Moving In The Opposite Direction

August 28, 2007 | 1 Comment

For a long while I had a rule: money that goes into investment account stays there. Dividends: reinvested, capital gains: reinvested, spare money in checking: invested. All of the money flowed into the Ameritrade stock brokerage account.
In my new stage in life I have to make changes on that rule. Now I am living out [...]

Jul

28

90% Salary Into 401k

July 28, 2007 | 2 Comments

No, I am not advocating everyone to do this. I think a disciplined approach to saving and investing is best under normal circumstances (10 to 25% of your weekly/bi-weekly/monthly salary into 401k, depending on level of income). I have a special circumstance, however: I am moving from regular employment to becoming a [...]

Jul

3

SEP-IRA vs SEP-401k: Which Retirement Plan To Choose

July 3, 2007 | Comments Off

Definitions first:

A SEP-IRA allows up to 25% of compensation (up to $45,000 for 2007) to be stashed away in a tax-deferred account (to be used at retirement age, just like any other Traditional IRA).
A SEP-401k allows up to $15,500 in salary deferrals, like any other 401k plan (employee contributions) and up to 25% of compensation [...]

May

18

Fidelity Gone, Vanguard In

May 18, 2007 | 1 Comment

I did manage to create a SEP-IRA with Fidelity (Self Employed Pension – Individual Retirement Account). The challenge was to fund it. Apparently, Fidelity has some back-office issues that prevent easy set-up of electronic fund transfers online to some “specialty” accounts, including the SEP-IRA. Even over the phone it was a struggle.To [...]

Apr

1

Rolling Over My 401k

April 1, 2007 | Comments Off

First thing I did this morning after I woke up was rolling over my previous employer 401k into a Rollover IRA. Fidelity allows it to be done on line in extremely simple steps. I hadn’t been able to do it before since I hadn’t been able to call Fidelity to re-establish my on [...]

Jul

25

401k: If I Where Employed by EMC

July 25, 2005 | Comments Off

(Originally posted on the Anes Blog)
If I became an EMC employee, first of all, I would be happy.  I trust the company to do well.  It has a solid and expanding product suite that compensates for a decline on basic storage.  The need for massively large and complex, highly available, and highly reliable storage systems [...]

May

26

Lame Excuses for Not Contributing to Retirement Plans ( 401k, IRA )

May 26, 2005 | Comments Off

And their rebuttal …
People know they need to save for retirement.  People know the Social Security system just provides for the basics (the green flyer they send every year says so).  Yet, most people either don’t save for retirement at all, or if they do, they start very late in life.
 The US Government has developed [...]