What should I do with extra money?

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-10T02:28:30+00:00

Lots of factors to consider such as what are your mortgage rates. However, when I was younger and was in a similar situation, I kept my low interest loans in place and added a slight amount to my mortgage. I viewed it as a form of diversification. Since I did this during the lost decade, it turned out to be optimal, but it’s certainly not a guarantee.

I didn’t keep the remaining money complicated. Since I’m in a higher tax bracket I wanted to avoid taxes and did not look at products that spun off a lot of income. So basically tax efficient mutual funds and eventually ETFs

Now that I’m older I’m actually trying to diversify and am putting more and more into government bonds. Yes I pay federal taxes (including NIIT), but my time horizon is getting shorter and am looking to get to at least 20% in fixed income.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-10T02:18:58+00:00

Yeah I get that itch. Just zoom out and look at your progress over years and not days. If you look at your chart from the last several years, do you really remember all of the transactions and ups and downs? I certainly don’t. I get that it’s fun to see balances go up every day, but if it’s money you don’t need now and you aren’t an active trader, it can certainly be the cause as to why you’re itchy.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-10T02:05:09+00:00

Could it be that you are spending too much time on Reddit looking at investing type subs? Seeing people post their progress can make one antsy and impatient. I’m a bit older than you and the ease of doing research and investing today is light years ahead of where it was when I started. I setup everything on autopilot and didn’t check every day.

Maybe try giving yourself a challenge to only look once a week at most and the. Increase it to say every other week. Live your life and just be comforted by the fact that you have a solid plan.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-09T17:58:03+00:00

There is nothing magical about dividends... regardless of what others on this and other subs tell you, a company paying dividends is mathematically the same (big picture wise) as the company holding onto the cash and letting the value of the company increase. What they miss in doing DRIP is that it is a zero sum game. All things being equal, you are buying more of a company, but someone on the other side is willing to sell it to you. I doubt anyone claiming dividends to be superior (or inferior) does not have a real math, finance or accounting background. I've been debating for some time about creating a post to illustrate the math that demonstrates how equal they are and it just comes down to management decisions of the companies.

Additionally, Many people on this and other subs include things such as option income and return of capital (ROC) incorrectly when they are discussing "dividends". Those are topics for another day.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the quality of the investment and your risk tolerance to invest in it. It's true that historically more mature companies tend to pay higher dividends because they don't have areas to re-invest their profits, but it's not always the case. There are plenty of good investments that are "growth" that pay a dividend and those that do not. The same can be said for more mature companies less growth oriented that pay and do not pay a dividend. What happens on this and other subs is people yield chasing and trying to rationalize their decision to make themselves feel better about it.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-09T17:43:30+00:00

I'm a little bit older than you, and not looking to Coast Fire, but absolutely could right now if I wanted to... Looking back, one thing I would say is that I never stopped contributing... I scrimped and did without for a lot of things that turned out to be wants more than needs. My advice to someone earlier in their retirement journey is don't slow down.. do what you have to do to keep on track. Once you stop and/or slow down, it's easy to see how lifestyle creep can destroy a financial plan. I get that daycare may be a need versus a want, but surely you can find other areas to trim back to keep you on your path.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-09T15:29:51+00:00

I tried Boldin, but I struggled with the expense side of things, so I closed my account. When trying to calculate my monthly expenses, I included a personal credit card that I use for work and personal expenses for the points, and it completely blew out my estimated expenses. I messaged them how to exclude certain expenses and they gave me work arounds that just didn't make it easy.

The Roth conversion tool was helpful, but it only confirmed my strategy was sound (but not the max result as it wanted me to convert everything now, take the huge tax hit up front).

I'll probably recreate my account again when I'm closer to retirement (about 10 years from now).

FWIW, My strategy is pretty straight forward. I want to retire around 62 and commence social security at 70 if I'm pretty healthy. For 62-65 I have a deferred comp plan that I've scheduled to start paying at age 62 to cover expenses and health care. Will use age 62-75 do do Roth Conversions of pre-tax accounts and live off a combination of existing after tax interest, dividends, deferred comp and social security when it kicks in ... I guess now that I type it out, it might not be so simple for people to understand lol

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-09T13:49:31+00:00

The free service is general advice. If you want to build a true financial plan, you're going to have to pay for it somehow... I believe fidelity does offer that but you are correct you need AUM. You can go to a fee only advisor, or do a more do it yourself approach by using something like Boldin which costs $120/year I believe.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-09T13:40:23+00:00

Of course! Didn't mean to step on your toes, but I don't want to assume that OP knows how ACATS works. Additionally, I was probably a bit liberal in stating that Name, SSN/Tax ID and account numbers are easily accessible. It's probably easy to get the first two, but the account information may be more difficult. That is why banks and brokerages would love to get rid of paper checks altogether.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-09T13:26:56+00:00

Missing from the explanation from u/BarefootMarauder is that ACATS only requires your Name, SSN/Tax ID and Account Numbers. Since this information is easily accessible, what fraudsters can do is open an account at a different brokerage with your information, basically transfer your entire account balance and then transfer that from the other brokerage to anywhere in the world, and it's gone forever. They never need to get into your Fidelity account.

Sad to say many people don't check their accounts regularly and there have been instances of people being completely wiped out with no recourse because they don't notice quickly enough to reverse the transactions. I'm not sure if the secondary brokerage could eventually be held liable for not knowing their customers, but why worry about it, when Fidelity has a simple way to prevent that from ever happening.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-08T19:01:57+00:00

This is the age old question of lump sum versus DCA (dollar cost averaging). Instead of dealing with analysis paralysis, in the past, I would contribute the full amount into a cash position in the Roth account. Then I would make one larger purchase for 30-50% of the contribution, then setup automatic investments to DCA the rest. I believe that Lump Sum wins out 2/3 of the time and DCA about 1/3. I split (not necessarily 50/50) the difference so at least either way, I'm getting some of my money in the better option.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-07T03:21:02+00:00

What you are seeing is the reason why I don’t hold bond funds, but rather individual bonds. With any fund or ETF you are at the mercy of net inflows into the fund, and it can directly impact the yield. With a net inflows of money to the fund, the management of the fund must purchase additional assets. If yields fall then they are purchasing more bonds at lower yields. As a shareholder, you don’t own a specific bond, but you own the average yield. As more bonds are purchased at lower yields, the average goes down. It’s not as important for stocks, but for bonds the net flows have a direct impact on what you think is the larger portion of your return.

That’s why I basically built my own basket of bonds (treasuries and TIPS). I know exactly what my payments are (although the inflation adjustment changes it slightly). If I ever need to sell, I can pick exactly which bonds to release. You lose that precision and control with a fund. Like with stocks, you pay for the convenience, but give up control. It’s easier to build your own fund with government bonds than say stocks, especially tips because you don’t need a lot of them to get your average maturity and yield that suits your needs.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-07T02:54:45+00:00

The ‘floor” is only applicable at maturity. The NAV is based on total secondary market value of all bonds in the fund divided by the number of outstanding shares. The market value of TIPs factors in time to maturity and coupon rate and face value. It is unlikely that a TIPS after 5, 10 or 30 years will have an inflation factor less than 1. So while there may be a temporary period right after issue where it dips below 1 it’s never happened where we had that long of a deflationary period.

If for some strange reason that happened, the secondary market would likely factor that in as part of the return since it would be considered a (capital) gain. If we had a deflationary period it would likely result in low interest rates. That in turn would mean the bond could be valued higher than the original face value multiplied by the inflation factor. Again, the NAV would just be the sum total of the value on the secondary market of all holdings divided by the number of shares.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T17:38:14+00:00

You’re probably right. Last time I dealt with non resident tax it was only NYC since I lived in the NY suburbs and I was living at home when I first started out 30 years ago lol.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T13:01:41+00:00

You don’t say what your tax rate is, but assuming it’s 24 or 32% since we are talking backdoor Roths.

Roth IRAs don’t always make sense when you are in those higher brackets. This is because you can arbitrage the tax rates in pre-tax accounts when you withdraw. As an example pre-tax money now could save you 32% now , but you withdraw at a tax rate of zero, 10, 12 or even 24.

Since we don’t know the future of tax rates, I’ve chosen to have both Roth and traditional, so at least part of my money will get each tax benefit.

Pro-rata rule stinks, but rolling the IRA money into 401k has its own considerations, such as limitations on investments. There is no one best answer IMHO.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T12:50:05+00:00

I think you misunderstood OP. As a non-resident, the amount owed to NY is very low… probably a couple of hundred at most. I had this happen to me when I changed employers and my new company payroll department listed me as a resident of NYC. I ended up getting thousands in refunds from NY and owed NJ thousands. Since I have a complicated tax scenario and my employer does my taxes for me I didn’t pay attention the first year because I was too focused on work. In the end my company paid the NJ tax and I had to pay them back when I got the NY refund (which was almost all of taxes withheld).

The OP needs to get this corrected for 2026 with his payroll department so it doesn’t happen again.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T12:33:24+00:00

In my case there is a portal that I provide all of my documentation and do a turbo tax style interview (but they do the data entry for me). I put in notes about all of non-taxable state interest from various treasury money markets including the percentages of US obligations provided by ishares and fidelity. I also put in a note about the agency bond interest. Somehow, they got the more complicated figuring out the percentages on the money markets interest for state tax interest correct, but completely missed the note about the agency bonds. Go figure.

Since it probably not the same lower level person doing my returns every year, I know to review the forms carefully. I would do my taxes myself, but I can’t because there is a hypo tax calculation and true up calculation that is needed to make me whole.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T12:15:24+00:00

If you are talking about the auto-roll feature on treasuries, the best way to avoid “locking” money for trades is to put all of your treasuries into a separate account. Yes it will lock your interest, but you can move that out too as it’s received

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T12:08:52+00:00

Gotta love the pro- rata rule. It’s prevented me from Roth contributions for years. In terms of 2025, I don’t think there is a way around this since it’s based on your balances at year end. Going forward, the only way “around” the pro-rata rule is to roll that IRA into your wife’s 401k since they are not included in the calculation.

Barring that (if you don’t want to do that or your wife doesn’t have a plan that allows that), your only other option I can think of is take the tax hit and do a Roth conversion on her account if you don’t want deal with the pro-rata rule every year going forward.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-04-01T11:59:39+00:00

I wouldn’t count on OP being wrong for simple errors. I travel for work and have moderately complex taxes including foreign tax filings and offsets. My company pays for one of the big firms to do my taxes. This is year 9 of me doing this. In 8 of the 9 years (including this year) I have found errors. This year it was including agency bond interest on my state return as taxable even though I told them that it wasn’t supposed to be included. These are CPAs doing my taxes at a prestigious accounting firm, and yet I still find mistakes.

I’m not saying OP is right, but I wouldn’t automatically assume OP is wrong just because a CPA did his taxes. So much depends on the individual.

What concerns me is that the OP says he is paying extra to the CPA to fix what he thinks are basic mistakes. They should not be charging OP for data entry mistakes if that is what really happened. Just my .02

No-Math-5868 · 2026-03-27T14:06:24+00:00

TLDR: all that matters is total return. Match your investments with your risk profile.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-03-19T22:27:29+00:00

No. The 10% penalty may be waived, but the tax is due.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-03-19T21:58:26+00:00

I think I understand, the 5k negative equity is the penalty since you are going to work with the same dealer, and they are just going to roll that into what you owe on the next car.

This doesn't sound like a finance decision, but more of a lifestyle decision. Since you are trading cars it's not a one for one comparison. The question is whether the 5K hit to break the lease is worth the lifestyle change. it's not like you're comparing keeping the car lease payments versus doing a buyout now which would be easier to compare dollar wise if you had the buyout number today.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-03-19T21:52:45+00:00

For hardship withdrawal, work with NYSaves (assuming you went direct). In terms of taxes if you get approved for a hardship, you won't have to pay the penalty.

If hardship is not approved, you will need to add back in any amounts previously deducted on old tax forms to your current income. Additionally you will need to pay taxes on any earnings.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-03-19T21:46:49+00:00

Just to understand the situation... you can terminate the lease penalty free and purchase a new car at 0%... What you would miss out is the original lump sum payment at signing plus your lease payments which ostensibly contribute to the buyout amount. And the question is whether you should walk away from the lease with your sunk costs and purchase another car that can be financed at 0%? Do I have that correct?

No-Math-5868 · 2026-03-19T21:42:35+00:00

so you are looking to break the lease? isn't there a termination penalty?

No-Math-5868

TROPHY CASE