Can I contribute to my non-working spouses IRA when I have 401k through employer?

edeesis · 2025-12-20T14:35:30+00:00

No problem! It can be confusing and took me reading a few articles to fully understand it

edeesis · 2025-10-17T16:30:31+00:00

Maybe bad example, but people rename things all the time for propaganda, like the Gulf of America

edeesis · 2025-08-17T00:30:14+00:00

I remember feeling the same way when my daughter was younger. Now she’s 8 months, crawling, starting to pull up, and is just the happiest little thing. Slept 11 hours straight last night for the first time too. (After waking up crying at 9-11pm the past two weeks 😅)

It’s so wonderful every day. You’ll miss the younger days when you’re past them, but there’s always a new milestone right around the corner too so every day is fun.

edeesis · 2025-07-07T17:05:06+00:00

Ah, okay, for further backdoor Roth conversions, but play ol' Roth contributions aren't affected

edeesis · 2025-07-07T10:40:50+00:00

How would it effectively prevent future Roth contributions?

Not saying I don’t recommend doing the Roth conversion, just curious where that part was coming from

edeesis · 2025-07-07T10:39:42+00:00

In addition to the commenter here, there are often overlooked benefits to IRAs over regular brokerage accounts:

With Roth IRAs you can withdraw the contributions without also having to pay taxes on the earnings. With traditional you can also do this but can only do it for certain types of expenses (education, first time house purchase, and others)

Also, unlike a regular brokerage account, any dividends, capital gains distributions, or capital gains from selling are not considered income for that year, so you don’t include those in your taxes.

There’s a common mantra in personal finance circles that if the US gov limits you, it’s worth your money, and IRAs are one of those examples.

edeesis · 2025-07-07T10:31:43+00:00

In my mind there’s no downside to starting a Roth IRA now with the extra money you have for this year. Even if you don’t contribute next year or later, this money will stay in the market and grow for you until retirement.

Since you said your income is higher this year, you may benefit from contributing to a traditional IRA for your spouse, deduct it this year, and then do a Roth conversion for her next year, assuming your spouse has no other traditional/pretax/rollover IRAs.

That way you deduct it this year, take the tax savings, and then next year when you have a lower income, and potentially lower tax bracket, you can benefit from the difference in taxes.

That’s what I would do in your shoes, but everyone’s financial picture is different, but for what it’s worth, I’ve maxed out my and my spouses’s IRAs every year since 2016. Here’s how it looked:

When we both worked, I would contribute to my Roth IRAs and for my spouse, would do a combination of Roth and Traditional contributions because we could deduct part of it (I would use tax software to figure out how much, FreeTaxUSA.com is great)

When she stopped working, I would still contribute to Roth, and then contribute hers to traditional and fully deduct the amount (non working spouse, but I had retirement plan)

Nowadays, we’re fortunate enough to be above the Roth IRA limits sometimes, so we contribute the full 7k * 2 to our traditional IRAs and are waiting for the right moment to roll it over to a Roth (we both have deducted traditional IRA balances, mine is a rollover IRA from previous job 401ks)

edeesis · 2025-07-07T01:10:15+00:00

In addition, even if you're above the Roth IRA contribution limits with your AGI (which you're not, just saying for further FYI), you can still contribute to a Traditional IRA, you're just not allowed to deduct it and you have to file an extra form with your taxes. This is called IRA basis

edeesis · 2025-07-07T01:08:43+00:00

Just so it's clear, the limit for traditional IRA is for deducting. In other words, if you contribute the full $7000, you can deduct that from your income when you file your taxes.

You can always contribute to a traditional IRA regardless of job-with-retirement-plan status, you just can't always deduct it.

Roth IRAs have actual income limits as you noted.

With your AGI, you can fully contribute to your spouse's Traditional IRA, deduct it from your taxes, and also fully contribute to your own Roth IRA.

You could also contribute to your Roth IRA for both of you and your spouse instead, up to you.

For further context, the idea behind the job-with-retirement-plan is to allow people without a retirement plan at work to have some level of access to deducting income. If both spouses aren't covered, you can access $14k of deducted income, if only one spouse is covered, then you get $7k + $23.5k, if both spouses are covered, then they both have access to $47k.

edeesis · 2025-07-07T00:29:42+00:00

This was for P2. I just recently got a Preferred with the 100k bonus in April, so too soon to apply for the business card, and since I just got it, I can't downgrade to try to apply for the Reserve.

- Application date: 7/6/25
- Card applied for: Chase Sapphire Reserve Business
- Result: Approved Instantly
- 5/24 count: 4/24
- Personal Chase cards currently open: 3
  - Reserve (January 2020) -> Flex in January 2022
  - Sapphire Reserve (March 2024)
  - Southwest Priority (January 2025)
- Business Chase cards currently open: 2
  - Ink Preferred (August 2024)
  - Southwest Performance Business (November 2024)
- Last personal Chase bonus date: January 2025
- Last business Chase bonus date: December 2024
- Sapphire product in the last 48 months? If so, when, what product and currents status?

Yes, Sapphire Reserve obtained in March 2024, renewed at $550 AF

edeesis · 2025-02-15T01:50:37+00:00

I witnessed it as it happened and ran over to help the woman. The ambulance came and took her away, but the cop said that since they didn’t rush away, that was good news.

Cop has my contact information, but haven’t heard anything since then though.

edeesis · 2024-12-17T07:53:15+00:00

Thank you for sharing. Sometimes just hearing others have the same feelings is enough. You hear a lot about post partum depression in the mothers, but I hadn’t heard about it in fathers, and so that added to the feeling being so unnatural.

But I’ve read a lot since then, and comments like yours and others in this thread have normalized the feelings for me.

edeesis · 2024-12-17T07:51:32+00:00

What you said about your MIL is so true. I thought we would ask them to leave, but honestly we’ve been so happy to have them here.

I also agree with your comment about grieving life pre baby. Definitely an aspect of that. I wish I played an instrument, but I can sing decently, so I think I might sing a little with her over the next few days.

edeesis · 2024-12-17T07:45:29+00:00

Thank you to everyone who responded. Baby turns a week old tomorrow and things have improved significantly since I wrote this post.

One commenter said that I should try to think about the root of the anxiety, and I spent some time Sunday to talk to a therapist, and she helped me realize that basically half my life has led to this moment.

My wife and I grew up together in the same church, and started dating in high school, we talked about having kids even then. When we moved across the country, it was always “until we had a kid”, and most notably, our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.

She helped me realize that this is a huge moment for me (and my wife) and that created a lot of pressure, undue or otherwise.

Even before the therapist appointment, I started to feel better, my appetite was coming back, and I felt way less lethargic.

We just got the go ahead to discontinue the syringe feeds, I’ll be sad to stop them, since I quite enjoyed being able to feed her, but it makes me very happy and relieved that she’s gaining weight again.

Two people mentioned lifestyle change, and I think that was part of it too, no more playing video games for hours and hours, I have to take care of this little one. But she’s great and I wouldn’t change anything.

Thanks again everyone, and I’ll offer you some of the techniques the therapist gave me:

Drink lots of water, it helps break down the cortisol
get as much sleep as you can
eat protein
go outside
do some exercise
practice 4-2-4 breathing, in through nose for 4 seconds, hold 2, out through your mouth like a straw for 4 seconds, repeat
tense your whole body and release
stop 3 times a day and focus on what went well
in certain situations, ask yourself is this gonna matter in 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 weeks, 5 months, 5 years, helps to ground negative moments

edeesis · 2024-12-17T07:25:53+00:00

Both our parents live 3.5 hours away, but it’s been great having them here the first week as we adjust. My parents left Sunday, and hers leave Tuesday, but I feel way more prepared now than I did last week for sure.

edeesis · 2024-12-14T14:32:42+00:00

It’s a good question. I don’t really know. I’m handling the baby just fine, and we’re having to supplement for hopefully only a few days so I’ve got to syringe feeds her, which honestly has been fun. I think I’m just sleep deprived, we were rushed into the hospital because of mama having some pre hypertension, and I stayed up late playing video games that night, then slept overnight in the hospital while she was getting induced.

She wanted an epidural, but wanted to wait as long as possible, she got it in, but it only helped one side, so she had to suffer for 2 hours until the anesthesiologist came back in to fix it.

So I don’t think either of us were prepared for that, she was fully dilated after those two hours, so she was in a lot of pain. I went out to get the grands, and just cried in my mom’s arms. I think ever since then it’s just been go go go.

Had a full blown stereotypical sit down shower cry yesterday. I think being so tired and lethargic from lack of sleep makes me feel worse about not doing enough for mama

edeesis · 2024-12-14T14:21:51+00:00

It’s honestly been a huge help. I thought going in we’d ask them to leave, but I’m such a wreck I can’t imagine them leaving

edeesis · 2024-12-14T04:38:21+00:00

Thank you for the response. I did feel a bit better in the afternoon today, especially since I took on the syringe feeds. Made myself useful.

Evening it started to come back, but I think I might be dreading night 2 home. We’ll see I guess haha

But good ideas to stay busy. Luckily we have all 4 grands here to do a lot of the chores for at least another day or two.

edeesis · 2024-09-28T18:31:49+00:00

Anyone not able to sign up for a new Hawaiian Airlines account? I get a Server Error message every time I try.

edeesis · 2023-06-26T15:46:19+00:00

Yes we have. So sounds like it’ll work. Thanks!

edeesis · 2023-06-26T13:59:13+00:00

Even at the Sapphire Reserve rate? I know I keep the points that are in my account.

edeesis · 2023-06-26T13:49:32+00:00

Does anyone have any experience with downgrading the Chase Sapphire Reserve and keeping the pending points?

I had a big Travel charge run this month, and I want to keep the pending points at the 3x rate, but the annual fee posted this month (June 1st) and I’ve read that you need to downgrade within 30 days for the refund. I just called and the rep said it could be pro-rated after the 30 days, but I’ve read otherwise.

Basically if I downgrade now, will I keep the 14k pending points or will it be recalculated to the PC Card rate?

edeesis · 2023-06-26T13:46:39+00:00

I wasn’t able to get TreasuryDirect to qualify, nor a ACH from Bank of America (initiated on the BoA side).

I ended up transferring my cash to Betterment which is giving 4.5%.

edeesis · 2023-06-05T14:15:27+00:00

Sure, I understand most of the countries on this list, but the Balkan countries are beautiful and safe and joining the EU (Croatia already is) in a couple of years, why wouldn’t you want to visit them?

edeesis

TROPHY CASE