October 2015 Early Retirement Progress

We contributed $5,062.46 this month to our retirement accounts, and we gained $26,776.07 in investment value this month.

We’re back in positive investment gains territory (by like 6k), and we contributed a lot this month.  Mostly from an extra $250 I put in my Roth to keep it above the 10k minimum for FSTVX.  I’m almost positive we’ll be within the MAGI limits this year, but that decision could be expensive if Dad gets a significant bonus pushing us over the limits (and rumors are going around that his company did well, so we might get a large bonus 🙁 ).  I’m hoping our HSA, 529 and 403(b) contributions bring us down at least into the phase-out range.

Dad’s retirement plan is changing next year, and we’ll be able to put even more money aside.  Right now, it’s three tiered, 2% mandatory with 5% “match”, up to 10% with a 3.33% match, then up to IRS limits with no match.  The new plan is two tiered: 3% mandatory with 3% “match”, up to IRS limits, with a 1 to 1 match up to 6%.  So, instead of 2% +18k + 8.33% match, we’ll be contributing 3%+18k+9% match.  I estimate we’ll be putting about 2k extra per year into his 403(b)/401(a) plans because of the changes  (mandatory contributions don’t count against the IRS limit of 18k).

With HSA contribution changes, we’ll also be putting more in there next year.  I suspect we’ll be able to hit our 2016 70k goal easily and perhaps a 75k goal – since we’re (hopefully) not moving again, our expenses will stabilize.  We want to put a deck and patio on the house next summer, then we’ll be more aggressively saving towards retirement again.  The HSA is one of the few ways we can avoid PA state taxes on some of our income, so I’m aggressively taking advantage of it.

Not sure I want to contribute to a Roth or the taxable account with extra funds.  With the Roth, we have to keep the funds basically in cash (or invested in our taxable account via dollar cost averaging) until we do taxes and know if we’ll be able to contribute or not.  There are no restrictions on the taxable account vs the Roth, it’s our money to do with as we please.

2015 Totals

In 2015, so far, we’ve contributed $55,516.56 (79.31% of our goal of 70k), and we’ve gained 6763.36 in investment value (28.33% of our planned total).

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