Maximum Yearly Contributions to Both TSP IRA & Outside Roth- Separate & Independent?

FYI. My DD Class of 2019 has done all of what has been mentioned. Started a ROTH IRA in her 1st year at the Academy through Wealthfront and has done quite well with the return on that investment. As you may know the stock market has done very well over the near term and has been at record levels.

Anyways, my DD uses Wealthfront for her ROTH IRA which is a robo-advisor outfit (there are other's out there) and was picked because it manages an investor's investments up to a certain level for free which is nice (even without the free mgt. we found the fee to quite low comparatively speaking) and the acct. gets actively managed by the algorithm. The additional nice thing is that investors can get additional monies managed for free by inviting others to invest by providing a special link by e-mail to their contacts as they wish. At least in the past, by using the link it would get the new investor as well as the referring investor an additional $5,000 managed for free - I don't

If anyone has interest in Wealthfront for their cadet/mid (take a look - I found it to be reasonable & actually opened an investement acct. there so my DD could get some additional funds managed for free) - let me know and I can have my DD send an invite which will provide the link and help them both out a bit.

I will echo all that has been said and by starting early my DD is way ahead of where I was at her age and if she can stay the course as others have suggested should be in great shape down the line and would enourage all to start early and max out what your wherewithall allows!
 
Increasing percentage of pay into retirement for military strategy:

Every time congress authorizes a pay raise increase your contribution by 1-2%, depending on the raise amount.

As an O1 I started at 10% contribution, every time we were authorized a 2% pay raise I increased my contribution by 1%. If it was a 3% raise, I increased it by 2% (usually). You are already living on the prior pay level, you still realize a pay increase, but get to increase your contribution with really no “pain”.

Before you know it you are saving 15-20% of your pay.
 
Oddly, the AF doesn't pay out the full, Congressionally authorized flight pay amount. ...really sending mixed signals to set up an aircrew retention crisis task force but refuse to pay an already approved amount of flight pay ($100/mo lost out :scratch:)

Yea, the Army hasn't figured this one out either...


To add, one of the pieces of advice I took and ran with that has definitely helped in addition to the putting away pay raises as they come because you're already used to living without it is doing the same for the amount of money paid towards the cow loan. For my class the monthly payment came roughly out to the same bump as O2 to O3 if you took the maximum loan amount. Putting that directly into TSP or an IRA after having lived without it for 5 years means you have a nice chunk of money going into savings that you weren't ever accounting for in quality of life.
 
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