Need advice catching up on retirement savings at age 50

OK good now we have something to go on. Spend less than you make and save all you can.

Here then are a couple of kinds of vehicles to work on, with a view of paying less to the gestapo.

The first is to open yourself up a Solo 401-K. Only recently discovered it myself after departing from “employee” type status. With that 401-K, first you can dump possibly as much as 26k yourself each year. And your company can “match” a whole lot more than any regular company would ever match in a 401k. This all defers, not avoids, taxation. So you get a bucket of so-called “qualified” (un-taxed) money. When you hit a ripe age, you get hit with required minimum distributions, and everything you take out is ordinary so-called “income.”

That sounds bad, but you can work on that too; see my “un-tax your IRA” topic for more discussion. If you are not charitable, that won’t help because it amounts to giving away the un-taxed money.

Another vehicle to work on is the HSA. The requirements are several, including usage of a “high-deductible” health plan, NOT be enrolled in any medicare, and all money in it must be spent on appropriate medical expenses. You will need a good custodian, and I don’t have one to recommend.

Finally, on the subject of investment houses… Some like Fidelity and Vanguard. I have knocked heads with both over different issues and don’t like either. I do like Schwab, which is considered a “discount” broker, but they do have some vehicles including robo-advisor plans. With a reasonable stash, you will probably get an advisor, and I consider them to be generally decent.

Also from personal experience I will mention Edward Jones. I think each office is a franchise so they might vary a lot from office to office, and I know they can be very helpful. I think they are more a hands-on type house, but don’t know for sure as I only have a small-ish inherited account and they are so terrified of Wuhan Flu that they won’t see me. Maybe now that the Plan-Demic is over they will.

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