TSP and Roth

[Anonymous]

Federal employee here, currently doing 15% TSP (not maximum yet), married
Do I need to max out my TSP ($22,500) in order to do backdoor Roth? or should I change my TSP to 5% then do the backdoor Roth? I am very confused. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

The received wisdom is usually:
1) TSP to employer match limit
2) max Roth
3) back to TSP until you've used up your available $$ or hit the max

This is because Roth donations give you flexibility (can pull contributions any time, can use for education or first time home purchase, it used to be true that there were often better investment options available than through the average employer-sponsored plan, etc) and you get some tax-status diversification too.

What should be mentioned IMO is that if that seems complicated and stressful and you won't be able to figure out how much more to put in your TSP to get to your "limit" of how much you can invest for retirement that year, I don't think it's a better strategy than just 15% in TSP and move on with your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The received wisdom is usually:
1) TSP to employer match limit
2) max Roth
3) back to TSP until you've used up your available $$ or hit the max

This is because Roth donations give you flexibility (can pull contributions any time, can use for education or first time home purchase, it used to be true that there were often better investment options available than through the average employer-sponsored plan, etc) and you get some tax-status diversification too.

What should be mentioned IMO is that if that seems complicated and stressful and you won't be able to figure out how much more to put in your TSP to get to your "limit" of how much you can invest for retirement that year, I don't think it's a better strategy than just 15% in TSP and move on with your life.

I don’t agree with this “received wisdom” and I think most often when I’ve seen it’s been when the person has poor (high fee) options in their 401k, which is not the case for TSP.

Regardless, IRA contributions are separate from TSP/401k with separate contribution limits so you can contribute in whatever order/combination you want

[Anonymous]

No, you don’t need to max TSP to do back door Roth.

[Anonymous]

Don’t they have a TSP Roth? Is there a match. Check. My husband, not fed, has a 401k Roth with employer match. It’s not common but the Feds might do it too

[Anonymous]

Do Roth 401k contributions.

[Anonymous]

They are not connected. You can do either or both to their limit in any order. You should be maxing both of these annually and living on what’s left over. Don’t scrimp on early money.

[Anonymous]

Between TSP, BDR and HSA I’m contributing $44K pretax annually now. That’s bare minimum as far as I’m concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Between TSP, BDR and HSA I’m contributing $44K pretax annually now. That’s bare minimum as far as I’m concerned.

Median income per Capita is about 50k, so 44k sounds about right for a bare minimum in TSP LOL