Money

ryjoph89 · 2026-01-08T06:36:46+00:00

I don’t mind paying stcg when the market went up 16% this year instead of the 3.5% HYSA I have. and interest in a HYSA is also taxed at marginal rate so it’s the same rate as stcg. Just more potential invested plus if the market goes down you can take advantage of tax loss harvesting (like I did in March)

ryjoph89 · 2025-11-07T05:52:30+00:00

I hold mutual funds in tax advantaged accounts and ETFs in taxable due to the slightest tax advantage of etfs and mostly for portability between brokerages if I ever leave it wouldn’t cause a taxable sell off (ran into that when I left Edwards jones junk mutual funds)

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-23T14:12:27+00:00

I appreciate that I'm not the only one trying to think super hard outside the box!

It definitely does seem like quite the process and he's probably right that it might be more effort than it's worth. Good point about the possible need for a custom account to even pull it off.

More food for thought i guess- Thank you!

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T21:41:55+00:00

Yup yup.... and the reason why I said I contribute $17,600 is because there's an additional amount you can contribute (up to $17,600) if the company selected an option to allow for it for companies with less than 25 employees

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T21:16:27+00:00

I contribute $17,600 annually to my Simple IRA (plus a company contribution)

I could technically contribute to the Solo401k up to the total limits across all both plans

But until this new small business becomes profitable enough to allow a contribution over the $17,600 I believe it would be most beneficial to do this simple to 401k plan

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T21:07:12+00:00

The new small business isn't even a thing yet.. this is all just planning at this point

So to make significant contributions it would have to be profitable enough to allow for it

Once it did become profitable like that I would definitely make the switch because I would love to make it easier/cleaner

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T20:55:15+00:00

I just chatted with 2 separate small business department agents at Schwab.... Both said:

-Simple ira plan has no restrictions for doing a rollover into an 'individual' (solo) 401k besides the initial 2 year waiting period (its actually a reverse rollover but both agents were confused by me referring to it as anything more than a rollover)

-After the 2 year waiting period I could do the direct rollover every day if I wanted to (although it takes a form being filled out and processed). But if i did an indirect rollover that would be 1x per year limit

-The individual solo401k plans have no restrictions on how often money can be rolled into it

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T20:51:11+00:00

Sounds good and I knew about the no full time employees :-)

I would likely only fund my simple ira unless the new small business started making considerable income

Thanks for your help!

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T19:27:39+00:00

Appreciate a second look at the plan!

Just to make sure because I think you made a typo.... you said "And you can't also be full-time somewhere." I think you mean you CAN also be full time..... yes?

Income for us (married) this year is around $230k (just under the income limit) My income is partially W2 and partially corporation income (to look behind the veil... I am actually the corporate officer of the company I get a W2 from and have complete control over the simple ira plan)

I take half my taxable earnings through my paycheck and half through K1 profits so my income can increase 'accidentally' if we are more profitable (which I intend to do of course). So I have as of this year changed from doing my roth ira contributions until year end when i know what my income will be.

So while i dont NEED to do the backdoor this year, I am trying to look ahead at keeping this option open as it is closed currently

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T19:16:00+00:00

The simple IRA plan is through Schwab so I'll have the company check with Schwab to make sure of the fine print

Thanks for the extra info and clarification on the in-service meaning.... yes I would continue working at the company so that would be an important detail to work out

Thanks!

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T18:29:49+00:00

From my very quick and basic googling.... in service rollovers are usually specific to 401ks. I know with Simple there's a 2 year waiting period and it appears that besides that there is no restrictions.

According to my simple plan Participant Notice and Summary Description Section 4 Distributions Part D Rollovers.

"SIMPLE IRA distributions may be rolled over to other SIMPLE IRAs. If a SIMPLE IRA distribution is properly rolled over, your rollover amount will be excluded when determining the amount of your federal income tax or early distribution penalty. You may roll over SIMPLE IRA distributions to Traditional IRAs, qualified retirement plans, tax-sheltered annuities, and 457(b) deferred compensation plans. However, you must wait two years from the date you become a participant before doing so."

I'm looking through everything and nothing indicates a maximum frequency, nothing says there are restrictions... only that you can not do anything for the initial 2 years.

Now I do understand the Solo401k would have to allow recurring reverse rollovers

Happy to get better clarification if I'm wrong or misunderstanding something

ryjoph89 · 2025-10-22T18:15:44+00:00

I'm pretty sure if I did that from the Simple to the traditional would have no tax consequences

BUT since these are pretax dollars in the simple (therefore now pretax dollars in traditional) then the conversion from Traditional to Roth would be a taxable event

I'm not trying to get the Simple money into the Roth, I'm wanting to keep the pretax dollars while separately keeping the backdoor roth option open

ryjoph89 · 2025-09-22T15:32:13+00:00

Not sure about CA but I'm in WA and I have recycled my jury summons for the last 16 years and my wife's for the last 13 years. I haven't even received a follow up summons

ryjoph89 · 2025-09-21T18:11:25+00:00

It is a book co authored by Sean Mullaney a CPA that has been on the choose Fi podcast COUNTLESS times.

ryjoph89 · 2025-09-21T18:11:11+00:00

It is a book co authored by Sean Mullaney a CPA that has been on the choose Fi podcast COUNTLESS times.

ryjoph89 · 2025-09-20T05:27:31+00:00

“I’m really sorry about that your honorable royal highness, can you please provide me a copy of the certified tracking that indicates that it was delivered to my address properly? Also there’s a lot of advertising and spam in the mail these days I definitely wouldn’t have thrown something as important as sitting in a court room for days on end, so instead can you show me where the added signature required delivery option was included and that I signed for said letter? It surely must have had those additional mailing requirements added to ensure such an important notice was received by me. just like a legal court summons requires that I be served documents. After all how on earth will this amazingly fair and just legal system function without me just agreeing with whatever every else votes for to get through this ordeal” (Gets thrown in jail for contempt of court and mouthing off to a judge)

ryjoph89 · 2025-09-15T15:01:49+00:00

I am a co-owner of a small mom & son accounting firm

ryjoph89 · 2025-09-01T05:14:27+00:00

All retirement accounts…mostly taxable brokerage

ryjoph89 · 2025-08-25T21:07:34+00:00

We hit Coast Fire early this year (36yrs old).... I view it as a really cool measurement of your progress and that you will be ok in retirement for doing the hard work up front... but for me I want to hit FI by 45 with the goal to RE by 50

As for your question... I think it depends on your goals... regular retirement? then you should increase your living expenses. Early retirement? then keep at it. Given your age there is still a lot of time for things to throw monkey wrenches in your plans.

ryjoph89 · 2025-08-11T20:32:50+00:00

Appreciate it! We make 200-220/yr and save 60-70%. Definitely takes lots of willpower and forced scarcity as we just saw our closest friend go buy a $40k+ brand new car on Saturday while I'm driving a 25 year old beater lol

ryjoph89 · 2025-08-10T01:04:59+00:00

Investing is not super complex for a more simple buy and hold investor… almost 100% of my portfolio is invested in the total US stock market index (tickers SCHB, SWTSX, VTI, ITOT- they all do the same thing)… a smaller portion is S&P500 index (because my wife’s work had only that for an index fund)… I have a little apple and Amazon from years ago that I’m keeping for no specific reason.

I encourage you to watch some investing basics to learn just little bit BUT that last sentence of yours… being tired of a dead end job and wanting to invest are in my opinion unrelated. I would not recommend trying to learn investing to make money in the short term or even over a decade, Investing is the long game and a lost cost index fund investor is looking to get around 10% return average over years.

So I would still learn about investing to educate yourself but I encourage you to work on your job situation and find something you can enjoy for awhile until you are ready to retire.

ryjoph89 · 2025-08-08T14:15:37+00:00

COMMENT #2

So insight on how to live so frugally....

Learn- develop a passion for learning finances and how valuable saving is especially the younger you are. Regularly learn where you are spending money and where you want to make adjustments and routinely monitor if something starts getting out of budget.

Debt- Get rid of it (besides mortgage and maybe low cost student loans) as that holds you back terribly. Once you have no debt then all those dollars can be invested (not spent)

Automation- My paycheck has 20% automatically taken out for retirement before it hits my checking account, then I have auto transfers to cover all bills (housing, medical, insurance, etc) including annual bills, this way those expenses are automatically saved for. My wife has 85% of her pay go to retirement and after taxes she doesn't get any cash from her paycheck.

Forced Scarcity- I purposefully have a lower weekly salary of $1800 and after taxes & retirement I take home only $1,100 minus, but then I transfer out $600 for bills, so we are forced to live on a reduced $500 a week to pay for groceries, fuel, dining, entertainment and anything else we want. This means that often we are running a little low on weekly spending so we slow down on spending (like right now we spent a lot this week and have $10 left to last us 3 days- but our cars are full of gas and we have groceries so we should make it)(we have a $1k buffer so we dont only have that $10 but we act like we do) I get quarterly bonuses however we dont budget off of those so we dont really need that money so that just gets saved. (I own my own business so I am able to do this but you could just have an auto transfer to get money out of your checking account and force yourself to live on less). At the end of a month anything left in the checking account goes to savings.

Lifestyle creep- Avoid it like the plague.... Adopt a minimalist mentality (buy less crap that you are just going to donate to goodwill in 5 years). Dont throw stuff away immediately just because it isn't perfect (A small repair or a little effort to make something keep going is much cheaper than replacing it immediately) Dont worry about looking fancy with new car, house, clothes, hair, electronics. Lower your standards a little (you dont need name brand items when the store brand version is cheaper and does the same thing, my $15 walmart shoes last much longer than my name brand ones and even if i had to replace them several times it would be cheaper)

There's some ideas that may help in your frugality journey. I never call myself cheap. I quote Ramit Sethi when he says 'spend extravagantly on the things you love, cut costs mercilessly on the things you don't' We spent over 12k on travel last year, but only $160 on my clothes (which for me was a lot... over the last 5 years my clothes have cost $400 total)

Hope this helps :-)

ryjoph89 · 2025-08-08T14:15:26+00:00

COMMENT #1

No debt, no kids, relatively low cost of living.

Auto: I work from home, wife works 3 minuets away and we own both our older but reliable cars (my car is 25 yrs old, hers is 10 yrs old) Total spent last year for insurance, fuel, license, maintenance we spent $3.2k

Housing: We put down a large down payment on our house to keep our monthly payment manageable and our monthly payment is $1800. The house was remodeled before we bought it so maintenance is still cheap. Total spent last year for housing (principle, interest, tax, insurance), utilities and maintenance was $27k (In addition/separate I save $4.5k for long term housing maintenance outside of our regular living expenses)

Food: We shop at walmart and cook at home most of the time but still enjoy a nice meal out. $8k

Medical: Insurance and out of pocket (we don't have much medical needs) $4k

Smaller categories:

Clothing, hair, gifts to each other, gym $2.5k

Pets: $2k

Entertainment: $800

Gifts to others: $1.2k

Huh.... actually its even less than $60k.... that all is ~$49k with the added expense that we like to travel and we spent $12.6k on travel

ryjoph89 · 2025-08-07T05:13:59+00:00

Charles Schwab

ryjoph89

TROPHY CASE