As it turns out, 2019 was a pretty great year for front-loading my 403(b) account. My low-cost VIIIX (Vanguard Institutional Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares) fund generally tracks the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The S&P 500 returned just over 30% in 2019. Thus, VIIIX put up a very similar return for 2019. On 12/31/2018 VIIIX was worth $227.57 per share and by 12/31/2019 is was worth $290.25 per share. That’s a...
There is no telling what my Human Resource department thinks of me. They finally stopped asking questions about my erratic 403(b) retirement contribution requests and just process them now as is. I changed my contribution from 85% of my salary to my upper limit of 87% for several pay periods while I was front-loading. Then down to 19%. For yesterday’s check, I went all the way down to a 3% retirement contribution. It will likely...
I overheard someone in the cafeteria at work the other day saying they do not contribute to their retirement account. I could hardly believe my ears. This person seems to be experienced enough to know this inaction would cost them some serious money. Could it really be these concepts I consider in the realm of ‘common sense’ are not followed by the entire workforce? It is common for employers to match a certain percentage of...
So Max. how much cash is all this retirement contribution saving you? Well, tax-deferred retirement contributions technically don’t save any tax. It is deferring tax until a later date. The goal is to use the deferred tax dollars to make money. You would then realize this as income at a point in the future when you’re in a lower tax bracket. Or, even better, take it during a year you are on sabbatical and not even...
I got a complicated-looking letter from my retirement account administrator about a month ago. It was too long to understand and the only take away I got was my employer was no longer going to offer the Vanguard Index Fund (VINIX) I had selected as the landing place for my hard-earned cash. I immediately got irritated. After all, I have been front-loading thousands of dollars of every paycheck into this fund over the last few months.