Alright here's my most important advice for you guys. Open a seperate account (CD, IRA or whatever), put $50 a month in. In 10 years when you settle on a house, you'll thank me for it. In mean time, do NOT touch it. EVER. Unless it's for medical reasons.

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Alright here's my most important advice for you guys. Open a seperate account (CD, IRA or whatever), put $50 a month in. In 10 years when you settle on a house, you'll thank me for it. In mean time, do NOT touch it. EVER. Unless it's for medical reasons.</div>

[Imakeholesinu]

<div style='font: 10pt Impact; text-align: left; '>If I had a job and could quit drinking, I'd do it.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Good advice. I'd recommend an IRA over a CD since the interest rates will be better(in general) and it compounds without interest. Can't touch it till retiring time though (at least, not without penalties).</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>I mentioned CD coz I know some of these guys are gonna have one of those days where they just HAVE to pull some money out. At least, with a CD, they can withdraw from it in a year's time with no penalty.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Thats not true, you can take tax exempt withdrawals from an IRA for educational purposes or for first time home buying.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Well, for a ROTH IRA i mean. The money invested in a ROTH is not tax deductible but it is tax exempt when withdrawn for educational, first time home buying, or retirement (59.5).

Traditional IRA's are deductible when invested but always considered income, thus taxed, when taken out.

ROTH's are better, they're fairly new, started around 1989 i think.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>That's what monthly RRSP contributions are for</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>ROTH's are in fact, NOT better because the money you put in is not tax deductible. I'd only invest in one after I'd exhausted my tax-exempt options (like traditional IRA's). Plus you get all the benefits you mentioned with a traditional IRA.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>The bad thing about CDs is that they tie your money up and you can get a better rate from a completely liquid money market account...</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>BTW, almost everything I know about personal finance is in "Personal Finance for Dummies" by Eric Tyson. One of the best book purchases I've ever made...Talking to you guys, I almost feel qualified enough to become an account manager. :)</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>What's an RRSP? Is that some kind of Canadian crazy talk?</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Canadians contribute to Really Retarded Stupid Persons (RRSP). In American, we them them Mongoloids. I was bitten by one.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>That's what you get for grabbing at chocolate milk. Maybe you should've spent that money on your CD instead. :)</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>If you invest 3k a year in a traditional IRA for 20 years you you have, in total, deducted 60k from your taxable income.

With a ROTH, however, when you retire at 59 1/2 and empty your account you'll have paid tax on that 60k but will have 500k to 1 mill in tax exempt imcome.

Which one is better again? :)</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>That mongoloid ran off with my chocolate milk like a drunken penguin. His arms were all over the place like he was trying to balance his fat self. *rubs forearm*</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Uh...the better one is the one that buys the most hookers. ROTH is one cool dude.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Registered Retirement Savings Plan</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I'm sure it's better than Social Security.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Your going to have to explain that math again, Flip. How does 60k = 1mil?</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>and i see that i was a little off, 20 years isnt enough time for a million, but 30 years would have been close.

Anyways, i forget the mathamatical formula, but using any retirement calculator on the web you can see that for 20 years in which you invest 3k a year (plus reinvesting the interest accumulated, that is assumed) at an expected rate of 12.5% the end result would be around $250,000. For 30 years its around $900,000! Digging up 3k a year for returns like that is totally worth it.

Go find a retirement calculator and plug in these:

Retirement age- 60
Current age- 40 (thus 20 years)
Annual contribution- 3,000
Expected rate of return- 12.5%</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I did...Deductible IRA was the best option at $1.2 million. ROTH IRA (and taxable IRA) was only $802K.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>those numbers are for the 20 year scenario i put in the bottom of my previous message? Seems a little high and doesnt make much sense.

I found one that says both balances will be 257,700 with the ROTH Tax Savings at 175,000 and the Traditional Tax Savings at 148,000 with assuming your in the 25% tax bracket.

I dunno, i guess both have their benefits and disadvantages for particular people.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Only 802K, geez Id hate to try and live on only 802K when I retire.</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>If the inflation in Kentucky is as expensive as the Washington DC area, then yeah, it would be difficult.</div>

[Shellie]

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Cost of Living is very cheap here.</div>

[Shellie]

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Cost of Living is very cheap here, and if you go just outside of Louisville, its even cheaper.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I used the calc on fool.com.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Otherwise, always take advantage of tax friendly options before the IRA. Also, you're ignoring the fact that your taxed money in the shielded account is working towards making you more money (while not being taxed) AND every dollar you put in now, will be worth more than the dollar you pull out decades down the road due to depreciation.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Well if RRSP is anything like the US Social Security system, then you'd probably better get ready for a life of living in a card board box...In fact, SS as we know it will probably be phased out at some point since it's impossible to support...</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>So what's Sine worried about? I heard trailer homes in Kentucky are like $40 for an 2 bedroom, no bathroom trailer. 8^)</div>

[Shellie]

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Hah, too bad he has a gf that has higher standards than that.</div>