Skip to main content

One More Week

You’re running out of time. Next Thursday is a very important day, and I’m not talking about me turning another year older, even though that’s exactly what will happen. This year I’m not even talking about filing personal (not business) income taxes since that deadline has been extended until May 17, 2021. I’m talking about the ability to contribute to your Roth IRA for the 2020 calendar year. Allow me to explain.

Disclaimer: I’m not telling you to run right out and do this if you are not in a position to do so. You should NOT put money away for retirement if you’re struggling to make a house or rent payment. I implore you to be responsible with your finances, and I’ve written many posts outlining how to do this in the fairly recent past. I invite you to peruse my blog library.

A Roth IRA is one of a few GREAT places to put money away for retirement. The best thing about this type of retirement account is that the money grows TAX FREE which means the government will never be able to take any of the growth away from you. Note that there are restrictions on contributions which I won’t go into detail about now. But, if you are in a position to contribute to a Roth, I encourage you to speak to a tax professional to find out IF you can for the year 2020 and HOW MUCH.

My urgency today is to remind you that you have until April 15 of any given year to contribute money to a Roth IRA for the previous year. Some may ask why one doesn’t just contribute during the actual year, and the simple answer is that sometimes one doesn’t know IF or HOW MUCH one CAN contribute until one’s tax return is filed. I am a prime example of that. I am self-employed and am over a certain age threshold so I need to file my taxes before I know how much I can put away for the future.

I’m just letting you know that if you are in the same position as me and want to put money away to grow TAX FREE (and who doesn’t?) you’d better hurry. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One More–Christmas Experiences Part II

Christmas is just a week away. Hopefully you’ve checked everything off your to-do list and can spend some quality time “experiencing” Christmas gifts with your family. Because, after all, your loved ones will be far more touched by how you made them feel than they will be with what you gave them. This week, I want to share with you my sister, Carey’s, family Christmas experience. “One Christmas, when my boys, now 18, 23 and 28, were little, we gave them an experience that is still talked about now. And it’s something so easily replicated that any family can do it, and it’s not too late to do it for Christmas (even ON Christmas) this year. We drove around our neighborhood and looked at all the homes decorated for the holiday. We took note of the addresses as we numbered them. We talked about what made each ornamented yards stand out. And at the end of the night, we voted for our favorite. I had my sons help me make some of our favorite holiday desserts and, in addition to taking p...

The One Nobody Wants to Talk About

A young, twenty-something wife and mother of three in my neighborhood lost her husband unexpectedly a few years ago. He died with no life insurance. It left the family financially devastated . She had to sell her house and move into her parent’s basement. A Go Fund Me account paid for her husband’s funeral. I have another friend who lost her husband to a horrible illness when they were in their early forties. This couple had planned ahead and made sure they had the right amounts of the right kinds of insurance in place, including life insurance on the major breadwinner of the family–my friend’s husband. A year or so after he passed, I asked her how she was doing financially. She said her husband had taken care of her financially in death just as well as he had in life. Life insurance is crucial for a specific portion of your life. Do not overlook this. There is more to losing a family member than the overwhelming grief of the loss itself. No one needs financial hardship heape...

Timing is Everything

I was told that a good time to buy a car is January or February. Why? I would guess it’s because many people are financially destitute right after Christmas (because they have not yet been introduced to my blog!) so car sales are down. I do think there is another reason. I think that most people have yet to file their taxes and receive their tax returns (a.k.a. overpayment that they loaned interest-free to the government ) with which they plan to make a down payment. Now it’s March, and many people have already filed their taxes and received said overpayment that we common-folk refer to as a return, and it’s burning a hole in their pockets. This can be good news for you if you have things you want to sell. Now is the time to capitalize on the extra influx of cash. What do you have around your house that you no longer use that you can sell? Speaking as someone who has done this very thing, I must warn you. Selling stuff you don’t need anymore and collecting the cash can be addicting...