[rpazyaquian]

What's your investment strategy? I recently started a Roth IRA and started maxing it out each year, but I don't know what else to do with my savings (that are extra over my ~6mo salary buffer + emergency fund, I mean). Dumping it all into something like VTSAX is something I've thought about for a while, but I'm not sure how well it works for long-term investment/"making my money work for me".

[sokoloff]

This is my go-to post on advice for US taxpayers: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/investment-...

(I didn't write it, but I generally agree with it and I like that it's very concise, fairly approachable, and you can readily act on the advice.)

[thaumasiotes]

> I recently started a Roth IRA and started maxing it out each year

Huh? There's no limit on how much you can put into a Roth IRA each year, as far as I've ever heard.

http://www.rothira.com/what-is-a-backdoor-roth-ira

[Y7ZCQtNo39]

Mega backdoor Roth is capped at $35000 (highly unusual to be able to fully fund this amount, since it requires a 401(k) that is structured to support it).

Backdoor Roth / direct contribution is capped at $5500 a year.

So in a perfectly optimal world of all the right situations, you could put up to $40,500/yr into a Roth IRA.

Currently, I'm getting about $15k into my Roth IRA annually (got lucky with the properly structured 401(k) plan at work) and I feel pretty fortunate about that.

[rpazyaquian]

The IRS website says its $5500 contribution max per year. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employ...

[sokoloff]

Yes, but read the "mega backdoor Roth" technique. It allows many people to effectively contribute much larger sums into Roth IRAs, even though there is a $5500 "front door" limit.

If you have a low current marginal rate and a lot of money to stash away for retirement (that might be a semi-uncommon combination), it's absolutely something to look into. I have a high marginal rate, so I haven't done it.

[rpazyaquian]

So it's basically opening a Trad IRA, putting money into it, then immediately rolling it into a Roth IRA? I thought the contribution limit was across all IRAs you own, so you still wouldn't be able to put any extra into the IRAs in general?

This is complicated and weird. I might hold off until I understand it better.

[sokoloff]

Mega backdoor Roth primer is here: http://www.madfientist.com/after-tax-contributions/

Don't get hung up/paralyzed into doing nothing for fear that something slightly better might be available if you did hundreds of hours of research. The most important thing is to get started, IMO.

[pilom]

Just to be clear. The Mega backdoor Roth requires a 401k that allows After-Tax Contributions. Most won't let you do that. Their software will say "that contribution percentage you have selected will result in more than $18k/year in contributions and that isn't allowed" or you'll get to the end of the year and they'll just refund you the extra contributions. Which also doesn't help you.

[thaumasiotes]

That is a limit on the labels you can use on official forms as you move money around, not a limit on how much money you can move.

[avn2109]

Read https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002QX44IS

The sibling comment's Mr. MM recommendation is better than nothing but not as good as a real book IMHO.

[astrange]

This book is 3 words “buy Vanguard ETFs” in 300 pages.

[astrange]

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/investing

[sigstoat]

i haven't read the suggested bogleheads book, i expect it's good. but there's also a bogleheads wiki with a bunch of stuff for free. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

[rpazyaquian]

Looks like for the most part, it's "dump it all into VTSAX". That works for me.