Question re: spousal IRA?

[Anonymous]

I am a sahm and I am interested in opening a spousal IRA, I am very behind on retirement, so is spousal IRA the only kind of retirement plan I can open.....so that I can "catch up"?

[Anonymous]

You can open a saving account just about anywhere (bank, credit union, brokerage house.....). It doesn't have to be a government designated savings mechanism.

If you have maxed out on the IRA, open another account and save whatever a month more you would like to save.

[Anonymous]

For IRA, there's no catch up until age 50 when you can put on $1000 more (so $6,500 this year). You can still just save money anywhere.

[Anonymous]

This is your only tax sheltered option, but you can still save in other ways. Stocks, bonds, etc.

We max out DH's 401k, plus do his IRA and a spousal for me. We convert both to Roth immediately, and will continue to d so as long as we are allowed. (Roth means you use after tax money now, but pay no tax when you withdraw in retirement.)

[Anonymous]

Not OP but I have a similar question with a twist.

HHI - $310K

DH already max's out 401K. And he is taking advantage of catch-up contributions as well. Here's where I need advise though...

...Along with salary/bonus, DH also has the option to exercise stock that is awarded to him every year. Approx. $20K per year is vested. He currently has about $150K that will vest over the next 4 yrs in various "vested blocks". He will continue to get these blocks as long as he is employed with this company. So this will continue to grow, and by retirement it will be a very large amount of stock.

...I am 1099 and make about $40K per year. I do not currently put any money into IRA as I was under the impression that we were doing the max allowable with regards to actual tax-deferred investing.

Question - for those who have vested stock that is awarded, when you exercise it what do you do with the stock? Our advisor said something about a K1? We don't think its smart to leave it "un-exercised" as who knows what the markets will do. Since starting with the company 2 yrs ago, stock has increased by 61%, they are on the NYSE.

Question - what is best tax-deferred strategy for me? or can I do a Roth?

Goal is to decrease taxable income "to the max allowable".