If I were in the Save and Invest phase of life, I’d contribute ONLY to Roth IRAs. This post shows that distributions from a traditional IRAs are taxed about 25% and maybe more. Effectively none is taxed at 10% or 12% as most people think.

When you are retired and receiving Social Security, the 10% and 12% marginal tax brackets on ordinary income are a myth. Most all of your distributions from your traditional IRAs – such as your RMD – are taxed at 18.5% or 22.2%. Very little is

Inflation was a hot topic the last two days. The last three months are running at an annual rate at more than 4% inflation. This post shows six graphs I use to follow the inflation trends. We get the last report for inflation for March

This was an interesting article at Morningstar: Should You Keep Foreign Stocks Out of Your IRA? Tax considerations suggest yes…. There is an added tax wrinkle with international stocks or funds, but I conclude the opposite: the tax considerations CLEARLY say it’s preferable to

I view the bonds we retirees hold as a form of insurance – downside protection. We need to sell from our portfolio each year for our spending. We don’t want to sell stocks when they’ve taken a deep dive. Selling stocks then for our spending

I’ve been encouraged about returns to date for this year and the outlook for our economy, but 2022 was a really bad year. Stocks and bonds combined for the roughly the fifth worst portfolio return in history. We rebounded in 2023 and are doing well

We’re within 3% of the inflation-adjusted peak for stocks in November 2021. This is a sharp change from my post at the two-year mark, when I concluded we had to see a real increase of 25% to get back to that peak. Wow. I’m

Two months ago, it looked like we were clearly headed to 2% inflation. November inflation, using the measure favored by the Federal Reserve was the lowest in four years. The inflation rate for January was issued yesterday and confirmed a reading earlier in the month.

I calculate that you gain at least 20% on the money you invest in retirement accounts relative to the same investment in a taxable investment account. I used a 25-year holding-period for your investment: if you are in the Save and Invest phase of life,

I subscribe to a stock market newsletter. This month it had an article with the same title as this post, Does it make sense to convert your IRA to Roth in Retirement? I found the article confusing and incorrect. The decision on Roth conversion is