I have two investment vehicles established for retirement, My Roth IRA and my 401K. I don’t play favorites with these two accounts and if it was within my control, I would contribute to them equally (unfortunately the federal government puts a cap on Roth contributions). If you follow my net worth updates at all, you’ll notice both accounts perform pretty similarly. When my Roth goes up, so does my 401K. When my Roth goes down, my 401K follows suit (although to a lesser degree since the employer match helps mitigate my losses).

Don’t tell Girl Ninja, but I am madly, deeply, and passionately in love with my retirement accounts. If all goes according to plan, they will literally make me a millionaire. Ah yes, one day I’ll be sipping a non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiri on the beaches of the Washington coast with my beautiful wife (can’t travel too far otherwise we won’t stay millionaires very long).

Am I the only person kind of excited about being super old?

Even though I have equal affection for my two retirement accounts, if the you-know-what hits the fan, I’d definitely treat them differently. That my friends is called a double standard.

Girl Ninja and I have saved up some pretty serious cash over the last year and a half, so barring some major medical catastrophe, we shouldn’t have a need to dip in to our emergency fund. One day, however, we will have bought a home and Girl Ninja will likely be a full-time mom. In a few years, we probably won’t have the cash reserves we have now.

So what happens if an emergency comes along that exceeds what we have set aside (currently $10,000) for rainy days? I’ll tell you what. I’d raid my Roth IRA like a college student raids his parent’s fridge.

I like to think of my Roth as a quasi-savings account. You put money in to it (with after tax dollars) and can take those contributions out at any time without penalty. That perk alone makes it the freakin’ Swiss Army knife of the financial sector. It combines a savings account, retirement account, and emergency fund in to one sexy product. Tell me that doesn’t get you all hot-and-bothered?!!? If I pulled my from my 401K, however, we’d be faced with tax obligations AND a ten percent early withdrawal penalty. Definitely not sexy.

Have you ever thought about treating a Roth IRA like a quasi-savings account? If needed, would you pull from a Roth or 401k first? Anyone else want to make sweet, sweet financial love to their Roth IRA?

p.s. don’t pull from your retirement accounts for things like new cars, kitchen renovations, or buying a house. The point of saving for retirement is saving for retirement, not buying shiny things that give you artificial happiness.

Keeping it simple today because we had a crazy night yesterday (we had 20 high school freshmen over for an epic game night). Let’s jump right in to it shall we?

I’ve always believed investing should be kept simple. In fact, I probably keep things too simple. Since I am young, I have chosen to invest 100% of my retirement portfolio in stocks. The stock markets historical long-term performance is too good to deny. As a result, I’ve personally decided to invest in index funds. I invest in small, mid, and large mutual funds as well as an international funds (VTSMX, VGTSX, NAESX for those that care about the ticker symbol). I’ve contributed to the exact same funds since 2007, when I opened my Roth IRA.

This strategy keeps investing– something I’m not particularly interested in– easy. And for me, easy is crucial.

That said, I’ve been reading a ton about people investing in gold, commodities, and the like. Some people who were primarily all stocks, have jump shipped and are looking for alternative places to grow their money, while others are putting more money than ever before in the stock market because they believe it is on sale.

There is no right or wrong way to invest (this isn’t entirely true, but you get what I’m saying). Everyone has an opinion and I want to hear yours. I don’t want the comments to turn in to a pitch on why you think someone should or shouldn’t buy gold (that would be boring!). Instead, I just want to know “Has the recession caused you to change your investing strategy?” Have you become more conservative? More risky? Or are you like myself and haven’t changed a darn thing?

p.s. if you don’t invest your money in something, you are failing at life.

I opened up my first checking/savings account with Washington Mutual when I was 16. I loved WaMu and was not happy when Chase acquired them a couple years ago. I was a die hard WaMu fan, but had absolutely no loyalties to Chase, especially once they tried changing the terms of my checking account requirements. As my good friend Snoop Dogg would say “I dropped them like they’re hot.”

I’m kind of an account whore as Girl Ninja and I have a Credit Card with Bank of America, a Credit Card with Chase, a Checking/Savings account with Wells Fargo, and a Savings account with ING Direct. Needless to say, we get around

When I think about all of the different financial institutions I’ve banked with over the years, few have really impressed me. ING and Wells, however, have been pretty awesome.

ING is the Coolest. Bank. Ever. No joke. They’re hilarious. They have clever marketing campaigns and are always challenging their customers to save. In fact, one of their slogans is “‘No ones ever had savers remorse.”  They have a decent APY for their online savings account and are very customer friendly. I’ve used them for my primary savings account for a little over two years and couldn’t be happier.

I’ve had my Roth IRA through Wells Fargo since 2007, but didn’t open a checking account with them until 2010. While I wouldn’t necessarily say Wells is great for everyone, they DO offer a Portfolio Management Account  (PMA) to customers that meet certain minimum requirements. If you are able to qualify for a PMA account, I challenge you to find a bank that offers something better. 100 commission free online trades, no brokerage account annual fee, interest bearing checking, free ATM withdrawals (from other banks too), free checking, free saving, unlimited free custom checks, personalized debit cards. The list goes on and on. I switched from Chase to Wells and couldn’t be happier.

All right so now that I’ve shared why I love ING and Wells, it’s your turn to share who you bank with and why you love them. If you are a creature of habit and only bank with your bank because you have been with them for “X” years, maybe it’s time you start looking for something new. Life’s too short to have a mediocre bank.

For three years now I’ve had a crazy love affair with my Roth IRA. It’s consistently been my favorite investment vehicle for serious wealth building. The long term tax benefit and the wonders of compound interest will surely give all PF lovers a warm fuzzy feeling inside. At least, it use to give me that feeling. I’m not so sure that’s the case for me this year.

Thus far, I’ve put a whopping zero dollars in to my Roth IRA. Why the lack of contribution you ask? A few reasons…

I punched debt in the face, literally. I started 2010 off with $16,193 of student loan debt. By June, I had that sucker paid in full. That means, for the first half of 2010, I was putting the majority of my money towards debt and not in to savings. Less money in savings equals less money to contribute to a Roth IRA

I was also preparing for a major life event, getting married! I was responsible for about $5,000 of wedding costs. Saving for the MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF MY LIFE definitely put a damper on having the liquidity to contribute to my Roth IRA. Don’t get me wrong though, it was worth it

Punching debt and saving for a wedding  is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to the REAL reason I’ve avoided my Roth IRA like plague, I’ve got to fess up… I’m a big wussy! Seriously, I don’t know what it is, but for the first time ever, I’ve thought NOT investing in my Roth might be a smarter option THAN investing.

I think I’m particularly freaked out because…

1) We only have $20,000 in the bank, $10K of which is earmarked for our E-fund. If I made the maximum 2010 contribution of $5,000, we’d be left with about $5K of discretionary savings. That’s definitely on the low side if you ask me. I’d be much more comfortable if we had about $30K total in the bank.

2) Lackluster performance over the last three years. I started contributing to my Roth IRA in 2007, immediately after graduating college. While I know compound interest favors early investing, I’m a little upset by my gains. I know, I know, three years isn’t enough time to let my Roth IRA work it’s magic, but seeing a negative ROI month after month starts to wear on me. Bah humbug.

3) The stock market is up like 16% since July. I don’t like the idea of buying when the markets are at one of their highest points in the last two years. I’m just not convinced we’ve seen all the potential drama. Many say a second recession is inevitable. If I had the liquidity to buy in 8 months ago (when the markets were going down), life would be sweet. Buffet said it best “Buy when everyone else is selling” Or in other words, DON’T buy when everyone else is buying…like right now!

I have until April 2011 to decide what I should do with this $5,000. I seriously don’t know what I’m going to do and would love your input.

Anyone else that hasn’t yet made your 2010 Roth contributions a little unsure of what to do? I think what I really need is some encouragement from those that advocate FOR investing. I know any short term loss will be followed by a long term gain, I’m just a little freaked out right now. How do you stick to your goals when you get a little uneasy?

Just about every personal finance guru has an opinion on how much you should contribute to retirement. Their suggestions usually falls between 10% and 20% of your gross income. For as long as I’ve been at this personal finance thing (since 2007), I’ve decided 15% is my lucky number.

Here’s what my retirement contributions looked like for 2009…

401K: 5% of gross income

Roth IRA: $5,000 (which was 10% of gross income).

Boom. Done. It really was that easy. Between a 5% 401K contribution and maxing out my Roth IRA, I met my 15% goal. There’s something missing though, I also get up to 5% of my 401K contributions matched. So what that really means was I had a total of 20% of my gross income invested for retirement in 2009.

Do you see the issue? Did I unintentionally invest more than I wanted? It’s definitely possible, so I need your help. How do you answer the following question…

Do you count your employer match as part of your total investment contribution?

What satisfies the 15% goal? Is it simply what I contribute, or should I be considering the match as well? When you look at my 2009 contributions above, do you consider that a 15% or a 20% investment?

When I asked this question on twitter, I got a 50/50 split. Half said they count the match towards their goal, while the other half said they pretend like the match doesn’t exist.