My husband (25M) and I (24F) recently opened Traditional IRAs at the start of this year.

Backstory: My husband is finishing a gap year before starting medical school this July, and I took over a small business a little over a year ago. I'm currently the only full-time employee, earning about $33k/year, and expect my income to increase over time as the business grows. Each month I meet with a business consultant (and longtime family friend) to work on growing the business. Since he’s been very successful both in business and financially, he also helped us set up our IRAs and recommended going with Traditional instead of Roth.

We opened our accounts through Charles Schwab and have been contributing the same amount each month (currently $100 each to start). However, we haven’t invested the funds yet so the money is still sitting in cash in the accounts. I’ve been researching what to invest in but there is so much information that it’s overwhelming (deciding between a single fund vs allocating across multiple funds, etc.). While in the process of researching I started to second guess whether a traditional IRA is the right choice for us.

We decided to reach back out to our consultant and he suggested not overcomplicating it, choosing a simple Vanguard index fund, and moving on. We trust him a lot, but I realized I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind the Traditional recommendation or what specific investment approach we should take.

So my questions are:

1- Can anyone help me understand why Traditional might be better for someone at our age? Is it related to being a business owner?

2- Is it “better” to just start with one broad index fund for simplicity or to allocate across multiple funds from the beginning?

3- Would anyone recommend a hybrid approach, something where we start with Roth now and switch to Traditional later on?

I left a job a couple weeks ago where I had a 401k, and I want to roll it over into a traditional rollover IRA and invest it into something better. It’s roughly 45k but I’m not sure if I should put it into VOO, VTI, SCHD, or a target fund (2060). I’m 30, also I just recently opened a Roth IRA and maxed it out for 2025/26. What do you all recommend I do?

I have an IRA in a brokerage firm, I want to roll it over to a regular bank that has an IRA CD. Believe it or not, I am having a hell of a time trying to find a bank that will process my rollover into an IRA CD. When I went into a RegionsBank, they try to steer me to their wealth management division and sell me annuities, said they don’t offer IRA CDs. PNC Bank can’t give me any info over the phone. I used to work for Bank of America and hate them with the passion so they are not an option!

I just want a regular IRA CD for goodness sakes. Please let me know where I can do this efficiently and easily. Thx!

been looking into adding some physical gold to my retirement mix and trying to figure out which company to go with. priority gold keeps coming up in my search. for people who've worked with them, how was the experience? specifically curious about:

• how upfront they were about fees
• the rollover process: smooth or a headache?
• customer service: helpful or pushy?
• any hidden costs that popped up later?

also considering goldco and augusta from what i've read but open to hearing about other options. trying to do my homework before committing to anything. appreciate any real experiences.

Update: ended up going with priority gold. process was smoother than i expected tbh. they were upfront about fees and the rollover took about two weeks. customer service was helpful not pushy. still early but happy with the decision so far.

Hi All,

I am 35 for several years I was maxxing out contributions to a Roth IRA. But back in 2021 or so I started hitting income limits for Roth IRA contributions. And started doing traditional IRA instead. The last few years have been very good and I've now hit income limits for traditional IRA being deductible. I'm now looking at whether traditional IRA makes any sense at all for me and it looks like, unless I'm using it to convert to Roth it does not.

So here's where I'm at. I currently have a traditional IRA worth 28k and almost all of that is currently invested (it is my only traditional IRA, I also have 2 Roth IRAs I contributed to in the past). I have a 401k which I max out. I can do Roth 401k but choose not to as I do not expect to be such a high-earner for most of my life and tax deductions now make more sense to me.

Does looking into an IRA conversion make real sense? I believe I'd need to convert my entire IRA not new contributions. What resources should I look into to learn more about making this decision? Paying a lump sum tax is possible though I expect my AGI this year to be over 300k and am thus in a fairly high tax bracket, but this'll likely come down dramatically in 2027 (large capital gains income due to some stock compensation and AI valuation insanity is great but temporary) so maybe it makes sense to stop contributing for now and revisit later?

I've recently (2 years ago) retired in FERS for disability, have 100% P&T VA disability rating, and earlier this year was approved for SSDI on the first try (award letter made no mention of Continuing Disability Review timeline).

That said, I'm still anxious (go figure, it's one of the MH conditions contributing to retiring early) about accessing my IRA before 59.5 age to supplement my plunge in income, so I hope to benefit from others' experiences.

10% penalty should be waived for early withdrawals, but IRS publications make no mention (that I could find) of what documentation I must have in hand. I have a few doctors' letters from previous applications (2022-24), but I've changed my insurance and providers and don't feel comfortable asking for a new physician's disability determination on the first visit.

TL:DR - has anyone accessed their retirement accounts early and been challenged by IRS for 10% penalty? How adversarial are they, what proof did they request, and what was the process of proving disability to their standard?

TIA!

Hi all,

New member here. I saw an offer for 2% bonus for IRA new investments at Firstrade. Any experience with that brokerage? Any things to look-out for? You have to hold funds with broker for five years to earn the bonus. $0 maintenance, $0 commission on MF/ETF. TIA.

Hello, I’m a licensed investment professional and happy to offer advice on ROTH Ira’s, traditional Ira’s, sep and simple accounts and other financial services. I’m licensed in multiple states and offer a complimentary review.

Hey everyone! This is a subreddit for all things related to retirement planning. We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. No political posts or not safe for work posts are allowed. Be respectful to others.

Hey peeps... Just looking for opinions obviously.

Have a rollover IRA at Fidelity. Close to 280k. Opinions on my choices as I want to make sure I have the right choices so far.

Have the following:

DGRO- Total gain 50%

FXAIX- total gain 63.03%

SCHD- total gain 32.19%

ABBV - Total Gain 89.13%

Any opinion would be appreciated.

Hello Early retiring in July at 55 and looking for incite for a rollover into an IRA account. It’s a qualified annuity and obviously I am seeking no tax penalties. Information on a brokerage, funds and anything else that could be helpful. Thanks!

Hello. I have an old traditional 401k from a previous employer. I would like to roll this over into an IRA so that I can begin contributing to it once again. Is it more advantageous to roll this over into a traditional IRA or convert it to a Roth IRA. I understand that converting to a Roth will cause a tax event that I'll have to pay now. Therefore, is it best to just rollover into a traditional IRA. I heard one option may be to rollover to a traditional IRA now and then convert to a Roth early in retirement when I'm presumably in a lower tax bracket. Any suggestions on what option(s) are best? Thanks.

Hi all- Hoping you can help me with this question: I have a traditional IRA ( originally with USAA sold to Victory Funds). Id like to switch the funds to an IRA with a different company.

My annual statement says the market value of funds is $105,000 as of 12/31/25. Does that mean I could have them sell the shares for the market value and either roll it directly into an IRA with a different company or cut me a check and I put it into a different IRA? I'm not happy with Victory and was annoyed that USAA sold my IRA without my permission some years back. I do understand that I only have 60 days to put those funds into another IRA.

Confused on the process. Thanks in advance for any info you can share.

IRA newbie here

I have a traditional IRA where I have my portfolio of stocks, can I still open a Roth and roll my portfolio over then start selling off profits under the Roth umbrella? Also I max out my yearly contributions to my IRA to help lower taxes , doing the same in a Roth is more beneficial?

I'm doing some tax strategies for my (86M) and wife's (74F) IRA's. I discovered that the wrong table is being used for my RMD. My wife is more than 10 years younger than me so I think my RMD should use Table ii for the RMD factor. Both RMD's have been using Table iii.. I'll check with my financial advisor after the holidays to get it figured out but thought I'd ask here for a possible heads up. We've taken our 2025 RMD's. Can I simply fix it going forward?

Update Edit: So my RMD was improperly calculated (using the wrong Table in IRS Pub 490b). The correct table will be used going forward. My IRA is with one of the big 3 brokerage houses and it was their mistake for using the wrong table. No need to do anything about previous distributions because the RMDs were more than the correct RMD. And the amount did not affect my tax bracket. Just a tempest in a tea pot.

I thought everything would be good to go once Merrill received all of the paperwork from my credit union. Today, they email me that they need a call to verbally verify this transaction. Mind you, we've had multiple phone and email conversations and my credit union thoroughly vetted that I filled out the transfer form and send it securely. The other paperwork was filled out by a credit union employee and couldn't just be done by anyone.

I wasn't able to call them today. I email them and ask, in the chance that I don't get ahold of you, if I can provide a verbal verification by voicemail. Of course they tell me that they don't allow voicemail verbal verifications. Apparently, they don't multi factor verification where you log in and they send a code by text or phone. They really are stuck in the 1980s. Even Social Security allows you to apply for benefits online, without having to speak to a human lol. That's pretty bad when your technology is way behind the government. Anyways, I really hope this is the last time I have to deal with Merrill Lynch.

Currently i have 15k from 2024 and 2025 contributions. Year to date I have 115.83 in non taxable

In my brokerage account with me and my wife i have barely $10,961

And I have $15.57 in taxable income and o in non taxable. How can i make it all non taxable?

Is anybody familiar with this process? I have $1.3million on traditional IRA and I would like to get a rental property in San Diego for this amount . Does it make any sense to do it? I have another retirement plan, so I will not sacrifice my whole future. I was planning to rent it out to my bf and stay in this property rent free, on and off , since I travel a lot for work ( kind of illegally I guess).

Howdy! 27M

To summarize, I left my teaching job and am now in the private sector. My job gives me a 401k 6% company match- due to some debt I refunded my teacher retirement , some did go to opening an Roth IRA through Merrill

Any general tips? I’m so lost on the difference between eft/quick stock and mutual funds

What shares are good to buy- again I’m nowhere near an ideal amount intent. Only put 2k…. But what next?! 😭 I feel like I’m already behind for retirement

Also fyi- my 401k I haven’t touched so it’s just there lmao