Chatty945

Chatty945 t1_iu7lmry wrote

It sounds like you have a good plan and are executing it well. My only advice is to check that your husbands 401k/457b does not have a roth option. If it does, you may want to take the tax hit at 12% to let that money grow tax free for retirement, in addition to the current Roth IRAs.

Some back of napkin math; Assumtions

  • assumes a Roth 401k/457b is an option with husbands employer

  • $0 starting point with your accounts

  • Retire at age 67 (37 years of growth)

  • 7% annual return

  • using the income scenario you specified

  • 4% withdrawl in retirement

If you can contribute the 22% 401k contribution into a roth it saves you from paying taxes on income from the 401k. At a 4% withdrawl (roughly 250k before taxes) you would pay 33k in taxes (22% bracket for married filing jointly) per year using the 2022 tax brackets from the 401k income. You would need to compare that to the taxes you would pay each year to do so, which is roughly $3,500 tax that you would pay on that income, which you currently do not pay because the 401k is pretax. You also have to consider if it afforable to absorb another $3,500 in annual taxes now to avoid paying them later. Of course the tax brackets will change in the future, and knowing if they will go up or down is anyones guess. I plan for higher taxses, and will be nicely surprised if they are the same or lower.

If you think 220k sound like a tremendous amount in retirement, it is a lot, but with 3% annuallized inflation it ammounts to roughly 65k in buying power as compared to the purchasing power of a dollar today. That 65k with a house paid off, and good planning should be more than enough replacement income for the income you have today. But it gives you a good idea where your trajectory is headed and how you can adjust through your earning years.

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