Focused on beefing up my Roth IRA for this year as my next mini goal. My default contribution is $100/month, which doesn’t come close to the $5500 yearly contribution limit. I don’t have any retirement matching or benefits at work. While I would ideally love to get to at least $3000 for this year, this may be a stretch after sending any extra money to that student loan for so many months.
Recently got a check for $200 from a one-time side project, so I sent that in. I thought about holding off because the market is so high right now, but I’m not planning to touch my retirement for 30 years, so ultimately trying to “time” investments at this point probably doesn’t make sense. Also expecting about $160 or so after tax from some overtime earlier this month, but these payments can be slow, so I’ll wait until it shows up in my direct deposit before counting it.
It’s funny how much more emotionally satisfying it is for me to see debt drop than retirement contributions go up, but that’s why managing money requires discipline!
Saving for retirement
November 5th, 2017 at 01:29 am
November 5th, 2017 at 01:18 pm 1509887884
How much more do you have left of the student debt?
November 5th, 2017 at 01:29 pm 1509888547
I have a mortgage worth of student loan debt (from grad school), currently in IBR, which is why it's not a good idea to put retirement savings on hold until it is gone. One of my loans was relatively small and had the highest interest rate, which is why I tackled that first. The income trajectory for my career is that salaries usually double to triple after you become more experienced, so most people do pay off their student loans successsfully- I believe the default rate is less than 1%.
November 5th, 2017 at 04:21 pm 1509898895
November 5th, 2017 at 04:26 pm 1509899194
Possibly consider putting up SL figures on the side bar for SA responders to offer suggestions that might help.
November 5th, 2017 at 06:07 pm 1509905258
November 5th, 2017 at 09:04 pm 1509915860