You’re on the other side of the state line from me, correct? Because KS is $3k/year/beneficiary for an individual and $6k for married filing jointly.

From my MO side friends, I thought their limits were $8k total for an individual and $16k for MFJ, but I might not be remembering correctly.

Company match has to be pre-tax category.


Right or wrong, DH and I put all of our 401k contributions in the Roth 401k in an attempt to balance things out. Not sure we’ll ever catch up the Roth 401k to the regular 401k for us each, but I wanted options in retirement from where we were going to pull money.

LOL - sitting in my hotel room on mute on a work call, I just put the plane tickets on hold for Grand Canyon over spring break! :-) 

And I'm trying to look at Yellowstone in park lodging availability over the summer because we're pretty flexible on dates, but my crappy hotel wifi and that website aren't cooperating, so I'll try again this weekend when I'm home. ;-)

I'm motivated to book some travel!

I realized I hadn't posted my October 2021 update, so here it is:


ASSETS:

Checking/Savings: $158,393
House: $512.7k
Retirement: $1.98M
Brokerage: $5.7k
529s: $76.1k
Company Stock: $214.5k

DEBTS:
Company Stock Loan (to shareholder I'm buying stock from, at 0.52% for 7 years): $175k 

Total NW: $2,772,659


As usual, the list above excludes our cars, which are worth around $30k combined, but I leave them out because we're unlikely to sell, and need them to get to/from work, kids schools, etc. in the land of suburbia.

If you've followed my other thread, company stock loan + the company stock above are getting wiped out at the end of this month or beginning of next, and I have to figure out where to put the cash I'm going to receive. 

We paid off our house 5-ish years ago, so we’re completely debt-free.

I’m not necessarily opposed to helping the kids with a down payment in the future, but not sure how DH feels about that. And it *seems* so far off, though the fact that my oldest starts college in 9 years means it might not be as far as off as I’d like to think. 😉

Who knows. DH is 5 years older and says he wants to retire by 60. Not sure if I will want to them or not, but no would like the option. That said, since he’ll be able to withdraw from his 529 at that age, we’d be fine.

I want to leave some money to my kids, but also fully intend to enjoy retirement and want to continue to travel as long as we’re able.

I haven’t seen the ibonds thread - I’ll go take a look.

Long story short - I finally made shareholder at my firm, and 11 months later, the shareholder group just voted to become an ESOP, so I'll be selling my shares. My initial investment will be up about $25/share (the exact number depends on cashflow and a couple of other things when the transaction actually occurs, but that's close enough). Less what I owe the former shareholder I bought my shares from, I will get a check for about $103k (and then have to subtract taxes - I think it's just capital gains taxes).

I won't see this type of return again in the future as we're going to an ESOP. Instead, I'll get ESOP shares to cash out at retirement, and I will see a larger annual bonus, though that is subject to higher taxes than my distributions based on my shares would have been. 

I already max out my 401k, as does DH (neither of us qualify for the catch-up contributions). We do a backdoor Roth every year already for each of us. In the 401k accounts, we have close to 8 times our household income, so it feels like we're on track there. I haven't finished funding the kids' 529s for the year, but have money earmarked for that (we typically put in $6k each as that's the max we can claim on our state taxes). My 9yo has $46k and my 5yo has $29k. 

Our EF is already over-funded. No new cars are needed. I have no interest in a vacation home. No debt other than my stock loan which will get paid off before I receive the check. 

Is one piece of the answer I should just do the things and not worry about them? For instance, DS is a 4th grader and has the free national park pass this year, which he thinks is really cool, and he wants to go to the Grand Canyon. I keep looking at flights for spring break, and they're close to double what they 'normally' are - we have 2 airlines with direct flights there, so typically can get them around $250-300, and now they're closer to $500. The part of me that grew up with parents pinching every penny to make ends meet doesn't want to overpay for flights, but then the other part of me says we can afford it, and we'd all enjoy the trip, so just do it.

The other piece is that I probably need to start an after-tax investing account. I have almost nothing in after tax, and it seems like maybe that is overdue? I also have the option (not with this money, but money in the future in general from my job) to do after-tax investing in my 401k account. Is that something I should consider?

Let me know if there's anything else I should consider, or other questions someone has. I'm in Toronto for work for a couple of days and mostly just using wifi, so my responses may be delayed. 

PDQ the entire thread (pieces are fine) - I may delete anything I think is too much of an identifying detail later.

Same! C likes basketball, so he did that last winter and spring, and is signed up for winter again. He no longer wants to do baseball or soccer, so I put him in golf this summer and fall, but golf isn’t much exercise. And he generally complains every time we go on a family walk (he can walk or ride his bike). He has been playing a ton on nicer days in the backyards of us and two neighbors - open backyards between us and the kids all run around back there, so I’ll take it!

M just finished soccer for the season. I need to figure out if she’d rather try basketball (she’s so short I’m not sure she can remotely make a basket even with the smaller goal for kindergarten kids) or gymnastics/tumbling this winter. She’s so tired still at the end of the day, I’m definitely limiting her extracurriculars. That said, she’s my outside kiddo, so she’s outside playing in the yard/swing set and/or with neighbors frequently so I’m not too worried.

Last week I started and finished People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. It definitely had a predictable ending, but it was a cute, lighthearted read that I still enjoyed.

Hope the appointment for your daughter goes well today, azucena!!

I’m sorry, taz. I would also be angry and hurt.

I just finished The Gown by Jennifer Robson and really enjoyed. It was a historical fiction book about embroiderers who helped creat Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth’s wedding gown. Thanks t goes back and forth between a few viewpoints, including a modern day one of one of the ladies’ granddaughters, but I thought it was well done.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/39893613

Our snow days days were also supposed to be virtual learning days. Of course, due to rolling blackouts, the too weather days we had (which were really due to cold, not snow), ended up being weather days instead of virtual days because they couldn’t guarantee every kid would have power when needed to zoom in. Oh, the irony….

My employer doesn’t actually match 401k funds until February or March the next year, so it doesn’t matter when I max. They will true up for everyone. I assume that also means that if someone stops contributing partway through the year and hasn’t maxed, they’ll get less match than the percentages would indicate from when they were contributing, but I’ve never asked and don’t need to test that theory.