5 Mistakes I'm Making With My Money, According to a Financial Planner

I recently talked to Jen Glantz, a personal finance columnist with Business Insider, to discuss observations about her personal finances and offer some initial recommendations for improvement. Jen has described these items as ‘mistakes,’ but I consider them ‘opportunities.’ And, here’s the truth … EVERYONE has opportunities to optimize their personal finances.

Here’s an excerpt from Jen’s article & a portfolio observation I have more often than not:

One thing Scherer said was missing from my portfolio was tax diversification. He explained that there are three tax buckets: taxable assets (such as money in a taxable brokerage account); tax-deferred (where the money is taxed down the line, like my SEP IRA); and tax-free (where the money isn't taxed, like a Roth IRA).

The challenges Scherer said I'd have with a Roth IRA is that I potentially make too much money to contribute to a Roth IRA, and I'm married filing separately from my spouse, so I don't qualify for the higher Roth IRA limit. However, he did mention a workaround. 

"You can still execute a backdoor Roth IRA strategy to get more investments into your 'tax-free' investment bucket," said Scherer. "To do so, you'd open a traditional IRA account and a Roth IRA account, then make 'nondeductible traditional IRA contributions' and convert the funds over to the Roth IRA."

You can check out the complete article HERE.