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If you have a Discover More Card from the old $50 bonus, or any Discover card that has the earns their CashBack Bonus, you can donate your balance towards Haiti relief directly to the American Red Cross and Discover will match it 100% dollar-for-dollar, up to $1 million total.

15-Minute Resolution #1: Save More For Retirement
Do you feel you aren’t saving enough for retirement? Worse, do you feel like what you should be saving for retirement is some huge number you’ll never reach? I think such daunting numbers are what kept a lot of my younger co-workers out of the 401k plan completely. How about 1% then? Let’s see how much 1% is for a household with a single earner making $50,000 gross per year. For simplicity, let’s say they live in a state without income tax like Texas. If you are paid bi-weekly, putting away $500 pre-tax annually (1%) into a Traditional 401k amounts to an additional $19 reduction per paycheck. If you do live in a state with income tax, the actual paycheck difference will be even smaller. I know that even this may be hard for some families, but keep in mind this money is still yours and you’re just using the 401k or IRA container to save you taxes. Now, if you’re convinced that you can handle this (and I hope you are), then go right now and either fill out the proper form from Human Resources or go online and submit for a change. As for the investment choice, if you are undecided consider just going for the target-date option for now until you learn more. Most importantly, increase your contributions by 1% today! Now you can say in 2010 you started saving more for retirement. Fine Print I kept things simple above so you don’t get bogged down. You might be satisfied with your current contributions, or you might want to put away more than 1%. Even better, you might get a matching contribution from your company, which will boost your savings even further. On the other hand, what if my 401k has horrible investment options? Or what if you don’t have a 401k/403b at all? You can start an IRA with just a $50 per month commitment with a low-cost provider. What about Traditional vs. Roth? Check out this Video Post: Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA. You may find that if you haven’t maxed out your Roth IRA for 2009 or 2010, then you may want to do that instead of the 401k because Roth IRA contributions can be taken out at any time without penalty (but not earnings). See all the 2010 Instant New Year’s Resolutions here.

2010 Roth IRA Income Limits Effectively Removed
Okay, let’s try this again. There are no longer any income phase-outs on Roth IRA conversions from Traditional IRAs. As in previous years, individuals or couples with a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) over a certain limit are ineligible to contribute directly to a Roth IRA. In 2010, the phase-outs begin at $105,000 for single filers and $167,000 for those married filing jointly. However, with no conversion limitations, people with any income can simply contribute to a Traditional IRA and then convert that to a Roth IRA immediately afterwards. This is great news for those higher income earners who have been previously unable to contribute to a Roth IRA. In addition, if you have been contributing to a non-deductible Traditional IRA in previous years, you can now finally convert those already-taxed funds into a Roth IRA, which is almost as good as retroactively contributing to a Roth IRA. You’ll only have to pay taxes on any gains you earned on the contributions, not the actual contributions themselves since they were already taxed before. (With the recent market performance, that isn’t much of a problem for most of us…) One additional wrinkle is that if you have a mix of pre-tax and post-tax contributions inside all of your combined Traditional IRA funds, you cannot convert them separately. For example, if you have a mix of 50% pre-tax and 50% already-taxed funds, then any converted amount will be assumed to be 50% pre-tax and 50% post-tax. You can’t just convert the post-tax part. This could be one reason not to roll over all pre-tax 401k funds into a Traditional IRA whenever possible. More info: IRS Publication 590, “What’s New for 2010″

Support Haiti Recovery Effort Through Microlending
I received this e-mail today from Microplace, which provides loans to low-income entrepreneurs around the world. I think it’s a great idea, although of course you should remember that you are lending money and it may or may not be repaid. You may consider augmenting your charitable contributions with this type of investment. Haiti earthquake increases need for microfinance to support rebuilding Dear Jonathan, A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit Haiti on Tuesday near the capital, Port-au-Prince, and is feared to have killed thousands. This disaster requires both immediate emergency relief and longer term rebuilding efforts. Microfinance will support the financing needs that inevitably arise from this type of catastrophe as Haitians look to rebuild their country. You can help today by investing on MicroPlace in Fonkoze, the largest microfinance institution in Haiti. Even better, I see that Microplace is still running their Buy-1-Get-1-Free promotion, where if you buy a $20 gift certificate towards any fund, you get another one for free. That’s $40 of microlending funds for only $20. To find the Fonkoze Haiti fund, click on Find a Gift Now, and use the Geographic filter > Latin America > Haiti.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Social Security News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.