Friday, April 09, 2004
Financial Tips for Military Families: Getting Started
Time's running out on the deadline for taking advantage of this fabulous tax credit!
In a nutshell, the government is offering a substantial match to low-income individuals who contribute to a retirement plan. Depending on your adjusted gross income, you may be eligible for up to a 50% match on the first $2,000 you contribute.
Here's where being a reservist or Guardsman comes into play: If you are in the reserves or Guard, and you were mobilized early last year, and sent to a combat zone, then in most cases everything you made in the combat zone does not count towards your AGI.
That means chances are great that even though you were making active duty wages last year, you'll still qualify for the low-income credit.
It's up to $1,000 in free money, people. Take the opportunity!
If you haven't contributed to a Roth IRA for 2003 yet, do it now! You only have until April 15th. After that you lose the opportunity forever.
Splash, out
Jason
PS: For Novice Investors Only
Now, I'm a soldier at heart, so unlike certain international terrorist organizations in 2001 I'm going to make my intel specific enough to be "actionable."
If you're a flat-out novice investor, just starting out, I encourage you to claim your free money by taking the following steps:
1.) Go to the TIAA-CREF website and open a Roth IRA for you and your spouse, if any. Contribute as much as you can without risking disaster if your car breaks down or something else unexpected happens. I'd start with the Equity Index Fund.
OR
Go to the Vanguard website, and select either the Total Stock Market Index or Vanguard 500. If you're over 40 or so, try the Vanguard Asset Allocation, which balances your holdings between stocks and bonds, and so is a bit less volatile.
I chose the above funds because they're middle-of-the road funds which are free to get into (no sales charges to commissioned agents) and they're very inexpensive to own relative to other funds.
OR
Go to the Fidelity Funds site, and click on "Freedom Funds." Pick the one with the year closest to the year you expect to retire. If you don't want to worry about fundpicking at all, these are great "fire-and-forget" funds. They're managed to take some risks to make some money now, but they'll become less risky as you get closer to retirement age. This is the way to go if you just want your fund to make money for you on autopilot.
Then: Educate yourself. Do it now. Don't rely on scheisters and sharks to do it for you.
Here's a great place to start: Financial Planning for Dummies, by Eric Tyson.
It's a pretty basic book--but it's extremely readable and is the best 'ABC's of Personal Finance' book I've read. And I've actually read a lot of them. Tyson knows how to boil things down in ways that are easy for the novice to understand.
Fund junkies--you're on your own for now.
Email this link to them that need it!
Jason
In a nutshell, the government is offering a substantial match to low-income individuals who contribute to a retirement plan. Depending on your adjusted gross income, you may be eligible for up to a 50% match on the first $2,000 you contribute.
Here's where being a reservist or Guardsman comes into play: If you are in the reserves or Guard, and you were mobilized early last year, and sent to a combat zone, then in most cases everything you made in the combat zone does not count towards your AGI.
That means chances are great that even though you were making active duty wages last year, you'll still qualify for the low-income credit.
It's up to $1,000 in free money, people. Take the opportunity!
If you haven't contributed to a Roth IRA for 2003 yet, do it now! You only have until April 15th. After that you lose the opportunity forever.
Splash, out
Jason
PS: For Novice Investors Only
Now, I'm a soldier at heart, so unlike certain international terrorist organizations in 2001 I'm going to make my intel specific enough to be "actionable."
If you're a flat-out novice investor, just starting out, I encourage you to claim your free money by taking the following steps:
1.) Go to the TIAA-CREF website and open a Roth IRA for you and your spouse, if any. Contribute as much as you can without risking disaster if your car breaks down or something else unexpected happens. I'd start with the Equity Index Fund.
OR
Go to the Vanguard website, and select either the Total Stock Market Index or Vanguard 500. If you're over 40 or so, try the Vanguard Asset Allocation, which balances your holdings between stocks and bonds, and so is a bit less volatile.
I chose the above funds because they're middle-of-the road funds which are free to get into (no sales charges to commissioned agents) and they're very inexpensive to own relative to other funds.
OR
Go to the Fidelity Funds site, and click on "Freedom Funds." Pick the one with the year closest to the year you expect to retire. If you don't want to worry about fundpicking at all, these are great "fire-and-forget" funds. They're managed to take some risks to make some money now, but they'll become less risky as you get closer to retirement age. This is the way to go if you just want your fund to make money for you on autopilot.
Then: Educate yourself. Do it now. Don't rely on scheisters and sharks to do it for you.
Here's a great place to start: Financial Planning for Dummies, by Eric Tyson.
It's a pretty basic book--but it's extremely readable and is the best 'ABC's of Personal Finance' book I've read. And I've actually read a lot of them. Tyson knows how to boil things down in ways that are easy for the novice to understand.
Fund junkies--you're on your own for now.
Email this link to them that need it!
Jason
Comments:
Post a Comment
