Why You Should Consider a Roth IRA

Joe & Big Al give you a grand look on how to keep your retirement life simple. Find out why you should consider a Roth IRA and how you can convert money into this type of retirement account. Joe and Al also discuss the benefits of consolidation.

2:53 “Planning for retirement is complicated and confusing; it’s overwhelming because you don’t know where to start and so many things are out of your control…the statistics for people who don’t have a plan is staggering”

4:40 “As stocks go down, that’s when you’re paying for that premium”

7:13 “What are some fears of consolidating your assets?”

7:30 “If I own mutual funds or stocks and my money’s sitting at Charles Schwab for instance, if Charles Schwab goes out of business, I still own those stocks. With consolidating your assets, sometimes people think that if that custodian has financial issues, then it’s going to hurt their dollar. That’s not true”

10:56 “If you have a 401(k) plan, there are pros and cons of rolling that into an IRA”

12:00 “Looking at fees is one thing but consolidation is something completely different; now you can control the risk, rebalance, tax manage…there are a lot more strategies you can do once you consolidate”

15:00 “By consolidating, you have a lot more control when you look at the bigger picture”

16:59 “Focusing on a small handful of simple strategies can yield big results”

19:23 “Here’s how to protect yourself: if you have longer term bonds, look at the bonds and the risk that you’re taking, because it works like a teeter-totter. The longer the term, the more swing you’re going to receive in your bond price as interest rates go up”

22:15 “Focus on what you can control, like how much risk you are taking in your portfolio, or how much fees you’re paying on your investments”

24:26 “Planning for retirement is no vacation; a minimal investment in time right now could prove to be a life-changing event”

24:44 “The beneficiary form on your retirement account is probably one of the most important things, and it’s most often overlooked”

25:59 “We believe that the Roth IRA is one of the best gifts the IRS has ever given us, so what we try to do with our clients is to get as much money into an Roth IRA as feasibly possible with the least amount of tax possible”

28:08 “A Roth IRA is a retirement account that grows tax-free; the way to get a lot of money into a Roth IRA is to take money out of your IRA and convert it to a Roth anytime you want to at any age. The problem is you have to pay tax on the conversion, so you do need to figure out your tax bracket”

34:00 “This is the time of year you’ve got to be doing this because you have to do your Roth conversion by year end. You don’t want to convert just any amount; you want to do some tax projections”