The Personal Finance Podcast - 10 Home Renovations That Are Worth The MONEY! - Money Q&A
Episode Date: April 8, 2024In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we are going to do a Money Q&A about the 10 home renovations that are worth the money. Today we are going to answer these questions: Question 1: Th...e 10 Home Renovations Worth the money! Question 2: Best Retirement Accounts if you are Self-Employed Question 3: How to Calculate Savings Rate with Employer Contributions. How Andrew Can Help You: Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Monarch Money: Get an extended 30 day free trial at monarchmoney/pfp Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Delete Me: Use Promo Code PFP20 for 20% off! Go to UPLIFTDesk.com/PFP for 5% off your order. Links Mentioned in This Episode: Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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On this episode of the personal finance podcast, 10 home renovations that are worth the money
and 10 home renovations that may not be worth the money.
What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew founder of MasterMoney.com.
And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to dive into a money Q&A
about the 10 home renovations that are worth the money.
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Now today on Money Q&A, we're going to dive into three different questions that we got in.
I think are really, really important to understand.
The first one is we're going to talk through home renovations because a lot of people are trying to decide,
well, which home renovation is worth my time, my energy, and my dollars,
and which one may not be as worth it for the return that I'm going to get back.
So we're going to talk about the top 10 home renovations on interior projects.
We're going to talk about the top 10 home renovations on exterior projects because I think you have to separate the two.
And then we're also going to dive into the worst home renovations for most people and how it doesn't really increase the value of your home whatsoever.
Then we're going to dive into a question about savings rate and we're going to lay out somebody's personal situation.
We're going to talk through what is their savings rate.
We're going to talk through is the employer contribution should those count?
Number of different questions associated with that.
And then lastly, what are some of the best retirement accounts for folks who are self-employed?
And so that is one that we get a lot of questions on.
This is one that I had to actually go and dive through when I'm.
I started my entrepreneurship journey to figure out what the best options for me were.
So I know all about this stuff because I did so much heavy research when I went through that
process. So those are the three questions we are diving into today. So without further ado,
let's get into it. All right. So the first question that we're going to be diving into is I'm
considering remodeling parts of my home. And one of the biggest things I want to understand is do you know
if there are any home renovations that are much more worth it than others. I'm trying to make the right
decisions with my specific budget. Now, I love this question. And if you've ever followed us on
social media, I actually talk about this a lot on social media because I think it's really important
for a lot of people to know which home renovations are actually going to help increase their
home's value and where they're actually going to get somewhat of their money back. And then which home
renovations, they're not going to get much back at all, if anything back, based on those home
renovations. The reason why I like talking about this a lot is a lot of people think that if they
just renovate their home and they do specific things, they're just going to get their money back in
the end. This is absolutely not true. In fact, home renovations can be a major money pit for a lot of
people. Now, there are other reasons that are not financial to renovate your home. A, it could make
you happier by improving your space. This is a reason why I renovate my home all the time is because
it makes me happier by renovating my space. So that would be a great reason to do. It would be a great reason to
it. Maybe you are renovating the space so it just looks nicer when you have people over, which means
you are going to develop more friendships because you're more willing to have people over. That's another
great reason to renovate a space. Maybe you're renovating an outdoor space so that you actually
want to be outside more, which has a ton of tremendous health benefits. Well, that's another great
reason to renovate a space. Maybe it helps reduce your stress if you don't have a messy or non-renovated
home. And so that's another reason to renovate your space. There's so many different reasons.
that I could think of, but financial is typically not one of them unless you're renovating very
specific areas of a house. Usually when you're sinking your dollars into a house, it is not something
that's really going to increase your return on investment. You're just trying to recoup as much
as possible, and you'll see why as we go through this today. And also, what we're going to do is I'm going to
divide this into interior projects. And I'm going to give you the top 10 on interior projects. I'm going to
give you the top 10 on exterior projects. And then we're going to go through the worst home renovations
based on insurance claims actually, which I think is very interesting as well.
So for the top 10 home renovations, we got this data from the NAR, the National Association of Realtors,
and they do a home renovation study every couple of years.
And this data came directly from that study of which home renovations and home remodeling projects
actually make the most sense.
So this is going to be one where I'll go from 10 to 1 for the interior and then we'll go to 10 to 1 for
the exterior and talk through each one of these.
So for cost recovery on interior projects, the 10th best is to add a new primary bedroom suite to your house.
And your cost recovery on average is going to be about 56%.
So what does that mean?
What that means is that you go and you put a brand new primary bedroom suite on your house
and you spend $100,000 to do this.
And I'm making the math easy for myself.
Well, if you spend $100,000 to do this, when you go and resell your house,
you're going to get $56,000 of that back, meaning that you spent $44,000 on that brand new
primary bedroom suite.
All right.
The next one is number nine is add a new bathroom.
That is 63% cost recovery to add a new bathroom.
And so bathrooms, kitchens, those kind of upgrades are what we traditionally will think,
hey, if you renovate your bathroom, if you add a bathroom, this is going to add value to your home.
Now, let me give an example of this because when we built our house, we had the option with
the builder.
we did it with a built like a traditional builder. We didn't do it with like hiring a GC and going through
the entire process. We did it with like a bigger home builder. But when we built our house,
one of the options was to add a bathroom upstairs for $4,000. So in that scenario, my cost recovery
is going to be significantly higher than actually adding a brand new bathroom later on down the line
because bedrooms and bathrooms actually matter when you have your house. And specifically,
the cost recovery there is 63%. A kitchen upgrade is 67%. And so kitchen upgrade is the next one
down the line. Now, you may be saying to yourself, yeah, but if I have a really outdated kitchen
and I completely renovate this kitchen, that could increase the amount that I sell the house for
significantly. And you could be absolutely right. But what a lot of people do is they over-renovate
on some of this stuff. And so they get themselves into less cost recovery on average than they would
if they just did the stuff that actually matters, that makes it sell more so. So we, for example,
when it comes to a kitchen, I'm going to do higher finishes than I would on other areas. And just because I'm
in the kitchen a lot. Your boy likes to eat. Your boy's got to have some of those gains. And so I'm in the
kitchen a lot. And it's part of the central room in our house. So I'm willing to put more dollars in
there because it makes me happy. Another one. Bathroom renovation is the next one. 71% cost
recovery. So if you have an outdated bathroom and you've got a bathroom that just has really old
green tile or something like that, well, maybe that's coming back in style. I don't really know.
But maybe you have an outdated bathroom. You renovate that bathroom. Then your cost recovery is that 71%. Typically,
that's a good move in most situations. Complete kitchen renovation. So this is a renovation where
you're fully gutting the whole thing and then putting all brand new stuff in. That's a 75% cost recovery.
An attic conversion to living area. So I've never lived in a house where you can convert an attic
to a living area. But if you have a house where you can add a bedroom where the ceilings are high
enough, then that would be an attic conversion to living area. That's another 75% cost recovery.
A closet renovation is the next one. So closet renovations are one that I have.
not done a ton of, but I could see how this would help specifically somewhere like in the master
bedroom for example. Closet renovation is 83% cost recovery. That one surprised me a little bit.
I think that's an interesting one. Basement conversion to living area. This is one. I don't understand
why more people don't do this. Now, I don't live in a state. I live in Florida. If we had basements in
Florida, they'd be flooded every single week. But when it comes to basement conversion to living area,
My dream is to have a man cave in a basement, and I can't have that in Florida.
But my dream would be to have a giant man cave in a basement where I have all these TV screens.
Maybe I'll have a podcast studio down there.
Maybe your boy's going to have a full-on gym down there.
I'm just going to dream on with you guys right here.
But I don't understand why more people don't do basement conversions, because it is basically making another massive space.
And I know it's expensive, but it makes another massive space in your house.
And you can actually recoup 86%.
I think you could sell a house much, much easier by doing that.
that basement conversion and it looks like you're going to recruit the majority of your money back
if it makes you happy if it doesn't make you happier you don't have the funds that's a whole different
thing and don't go into debt to do some of this stuff an insulation upgrade that's an interesting one
hundred percent recoup of costs so this is the first one that we're going to get all our money back
is an insulation upgrade so if you live in an older home maybe it's built in the 50s 60 70s 80s 80s
and you have that old insulation they have updated insulation that can really make a huge difference
they have foam spray insulation now that basically turns into the
a hard brick. And that stuff really helps reduce your energy costs. This is a great way to reduce
your energy bill if it's really, really high, is to look for some of those insulation upgrades.
I think that's a great option for a lot of people. It's not super cheap to do this, but you can also
do it yourself as well. And by doing an insulation upgrade, A, you're going to reduce your
recurring monthly costs. And B, it looks like you're going to actually recruit about 100% based on
this study. Now, the next two are going to be interesting ones. So the next one is new wood flooring.
you recruit 118%. Now the question is, what if I'm going to live there for five years? I put new
wood floors in. I'm going to live there for five years. I'm going to beat them up a little bit.
Then what happens? Well, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen in a second because new wood
flooring is 118 percent. A lot of people care about floors. Obviously, it changes the entire look of a
home or a room. And so you definitely want to make sure that you have nice floors there and maintain
those floors. But it begs the question, if I'm there for five years, what happens? Well, here it is.
number one, the number one cost recovery on interior projects is hardwood flooring refinishing.
It's 147% cost recovery to refinish your hardwood floor.
So before you sell a house, this is a no-brainer to me if this data is spot on,
meaning that you go in there and have somebody refinish your hardwood floors before
you sell the house.
They look brand spank and new.
That is something where it's going to actually make you money.
You're going to have a return on investment of 47% based on doing that.
So that is the interior projects that I would look and consider.
You can check out this study.
We'll try to link it up down below in the show notes as well.
And now let's look at cost recovery for exterior remodeling projects
because a lot of people go out of pocket on a lot of this stuff.
And so we're going to look at those as well.
So first, we have eight on this list.
So this list has eight different items.
The first one is a fiberglass front door.
I just did a video on this actually.
So a fiberglass front door.
And then number seven is a steel front door.
So both are front door related.
and both of those fiberglass, 60% cost recovery,
and the steel front door, 63% cost recovery.
So if you have an old front door or you haven't renovated
and it doesn't look very good,
one thing you can do is either replace the door
and it's pretty expensive to replace a door.
There are thousands of dollars typically now if you get a good one
and or you can also refinish that door.
If it has a nice texture, it looks nice,
then you can also refinish that front door
for a lot less cost,
and you could probably recoup more money on that.
The next one is Woodwindows,
a 63% cost recovery and vinyl windows are going to be a 67% cost recovery. So windows obviously
matter A when it comes to your heating and cooling bills, that's going to reduce those bills
significantly. Insulation windows, making sure everything is sealed, brand new, especially if you
have really, really old windows. That's going to be a big one for sure. Here in Florida,
we have stuff like impact windows, which can help you when hurricanes come. You don't have to
board up your windows. You can actually have these windows on your house that allow you to
take really high impact wins and handle that kind of stuff. So that's another great one.
And then the next one is vinyl siding. So vinyl siding is an 82% cost recovery. Fiber cement
siding is an 86% cost recovery. A garage door is a 100% cost recovery. And a roof is a 100%
cost recovery. So garage door is a no brand. Or you can get a new garage door put on for a two car
garage for like $12,400 bucks last time I looked, specifically in my area at least. And so a garage
door is one that definitely is worth the time and energy. And then the roof. The roof is a very
expensive home renovation. This is what we call a capital expenditure, meaning that you should be
saving for some of these capital expenditures if you own a home and just a small little fun within
your high yield savings account. It's definitely going to be something that is worth the time and
energy to do so. And so what I do is I just automatically save into a savings bucket every single
month for capital expenditures, things like roofing, things like new air conditioner, things like
when you got to paint the house. Those types of things are big, big,
and those are going to be things that you definitely want to make sure that you are doing
when it comes to renovating your house and making sure these home renovations are actually something
that you're getting a return on investment. Now, when it comes to roofing, it depends on the size
of your house and it depends on the type of roof that you have on your house. But this can cost
anywhere from $7,000 all the way up to $30,000, $50,000, depending on the type of your roof and
even more if you have a big, big, big house. So this is something you definitely don't want to skimp on.
and when it comes to roofing,
if you have a house that you're about to sell
and it needs a new roof,
working out some sort of deal with the roof
or might be a good course of action
and or you can negotiate the price of your house
based on what that quote comes in on a brand new roof also.
So that's another option for you as you go through this.
And right now, if you're in a seller's market,
then the second option may be better
is just negotiating the new roof
and maybe negotiating 50% or something like that.
It depends on what you want to do.
So that is the,
the home renovations that are actually worth the money, exterior and interior.
Now let's go look at the worst home renovations, according to a bunch of different studies that
came out here.
And so we're going to go through these.
So garage addition is one.
And you're going to see a lot of these are additions, which is interesting.
But a garage edition only returns about 60% of the investment and is really, really costly
to do so.
A family room addition.
The average cost of a family room addition is $85,000, but it typically only recoupes
about $54,000. A bathroom addition. On average, cost about $41,000, but you only recruit about $22,000.
A backup power generator. You have an average loss of about $9,000. An outdoor kitchen. Now, let's
have a conversation about an outdoor kitchen because your boys been looking at outdoor kitchens
left and right as of late. This is one where, hey, if it increases your happiness, it may be worth
doing, but it only returns about a 64% of their cost typically. Sunrooms are the next one, 55% long.
A home office remodel, average is about a 55% loss as well. A master suite addition can lead to
$40,000 loss on average. And in-ground pools, which your boy just put one in a couple of years ago,
usually only add about 8% of the resale value of the home. Now, that's the national average.
Here in Florida, if you have a pool, I mean, it's almost a must. People are looking exclusively
for pools because six months out of the year, it is almost unbearable to be outside.
And that is the worst ROI on home improvement projects. So,
listen, I hope this kind of helps you guys think through that process because you definitely
want to do your research before you do home renovations. Now, again, sometimes it's worth the time
of the energy to do that renovation. A lot of times for me, I'm going to do it anyway. Even if it's
something I want to do, I'm going to do it. But it's worth knowing the math behind it and maybe
adjusting your budget or adjusting the way you're going to do the project based on understanding
this stuff. So always do your research before you do some of these remodeling projects and see how much
cost am I going to actually recoup? And how should I think about doing this? Because the last thing you
want to do is go into debt for some of this stuff, especially if you're not going to recoup the
cost. You need to pay for this stuff in cash. This is not something you need to go into debt for because
this is not an investment. This is something you definitely need to make sure that you save up the cash
before you actually do some of this stuff because the ROI is not there when it comes to home
remodeling. It is just not there. Your dollars would be much better served, even in a high-yield
savings account than it would be actually putting those dollars into some of this stuff unless
it's just something you want to do.
So you want to see this money as money gone for the most part,
but you're going to enjoy it in that home.
Unless you are flipping a house or something like that,
that's a different story.
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All right, so question number two is going to be about savings rate.
And when we talk through savings rate, this is a really important concept to understand.
we actually get this question a lot too.
And so I think it's really important to kind of go through this.
So I have a question about savings rate.
Currently, I work for a university and contribute 8% and the university contributes 12% towards
my retirement.
Well, first of all, that is absolutely incredible that they contribute 12% towards
retirement.
I would take advantage of that for as long as I possibly could.
And so from a personal side, my take home is about $6,700.
And I save about $2,500.
That's an amazing savings rate.
So congratulations for that as well.
And I contribute to a Roth and my wife's IRA, which we brought over from her previous job
and a taxable brokerage account.
The rest of my pay is expenses.
My question is, how do I calculate savings rate?
Do I include the contribution made by my employer as part of my savings rate?
Or keep that separate.
I would like to retire early, but do not want to go to the point where we wouldn't enjoy life
by taking trips, et cetera.
Okay.
So this is a really, really good question.
And first of all, congratulations.
for being so amazing with your finances thus far. Your savings rate is absolutely amazing.
And I think that is something you definitely need to hear because I think that's absolutely
amazing what you're doing there. Now, without your employer contributions, your savings rate
already is right around 37 percent, a little, actually a little higher than 37 percent.
Now, the way I would look at savings rate for most people is, A, yes, your 401K contributions
do count towards your savings rate. Absolutely. This is money that you are putting towards savings.
and so you can count those. Now for some of you, you may be saying to yourself, yeah, but I'm going to get taxed on that money later on when I pull it out based on whatever those dollar amounts are. And sure, that is something that absolutely will happen. So if you want to count this as a bonus, if you don't want to count it towards your savings rate, you're more than welcome to do so. But I would count it as my savings rate for a lot of people who are working really, really hard to try to get their savings rate up. In addition, does your employer match count? Yes, your employer match does count towards your savings rate as well. But this is something.
that you want to make sure that your employer match is fully vested before you count it towards
your savings rate. So say, for example, you have an employer and you have to work there for five
years for it to be fully vested. So in year one, you get 25% vested, meaning that they will only
allow you to keep 25% of that contribution if you leave the company. Now, if you stay with the
company, then your vesting schedule keeps increasing over time. So let's say in year two, you get up to
50% vested. In year three, you get to 75% vested. In year four, you get to a 75% vested. In year four,
you get to 100% vested, and then year five, it just continues on and on and on from there.
And so what you want to look at here is that if you're fully vested, then you can definitely
count that towards your saving rate. If you're not fully vested, then you just count
the percentage that you are vested towards your savings rate and the rest would not be
calculated. Now, in a situation like this, this is an amazing perk that they're adding that
12% in for you. I think that is so incredibly powerful for long run. I mean, that is millions of dollars
if you do this for a very long period of time. And so that is really, really good.
your personal savings that you're contributing over, that is an amazing savings rate. And you must live
on way less than you make, obviously, because of that. So you are really, really doing a great job.
You're at 37% prior to even adding that other stuff. And so I think you are really, really going to
be able to retire quickly just based on these numbers here. Now, should you sacrifice stuff now and being
happy now? No, absolutely not. I think that's something that we talk about a lot in this podcast.
Most people know where I stand on that. I think you should be able to enjoy those of
vacations. You should enjoy, you know, buying the fancy sweater if you want to buy a fancy sweater.
You should be able to enjoy buying those brand new shoes if you want to buy those brand new shoes,
especially at a savings rate this high. Make sure you enjoy life as well. And I absolutely love
how you're putting this together. Now, a lot of people, their biggest goal is to be able to retire early.
And so if that's you, if your biggest goal is a retire early and that's what's going to make you
the happiest, then taking those dollars and putting them towards retirement or putting them
towards your real estate investments, whatever you like to do,
those are going to be some really, really high value dollars over time that can grow really,
really quickly. So I commend you for this savings rate. I think that's absolutely amazing.
But yes, I would actually add in those retirement account numbers. I would add in the actual
savings rate as well to get your total savings rate overall, specifically if you're vested.
That's really, really important. Now, you can also figure out what the tax rate potentially could be
in the future. It's kind of hard to guess, but you could guess to me. You could throw out a number,
you know, 20, 25% and say, hey, my tax rate's going to be at 25%.
I want to reduce that out of my 401k contributions if you're worried about the tax
implications. You can do that too if you want, if you want to get complicated. But overall,
I think this is an amazing progress that you have and you're going to be very, very wealthy
over time. So congratulations. An amazing job.
All right. So the next question is regarding the best retirement accounts if you're self-employed.
And this is one that we probably need to do an entire full episode on this because we get this
question so much. But this is one definitely, definitely, definitely we're going to dive into a
little bit here today as well. Now, we did this on a previous money Q&A kind of talking through
a couple of options, but I want to talk through all the ones that I would consider here as we go
through this. So I am a 28-year-old who's been four-year-old and struggling with what my next step
for retirement should be. First of all, congratulations for being self-employed for four years.
Most people don't even make it that long, so that's absolutely amazing. I have no 401k.
Other than a Roth IRA, what would my next step be? A CEP or traditional
IRA, what's better? Just an idea for a podcast episode. This is absolutely amazing. So here's what we're
going to do. We're going to go through some of your options that you have available to you and how I would
think through this. Now, you already have a Roth IRA, which most self-employed people should consider
the Roth IRA. I think it's a fantastic option for most people. If you make too much money, then you
can do a backdoor Roth IRA, meaning that you put money into a traditional IRA, and then you do the
backdoor Roth IRA. If you convert it to the Roth IRA after you put it in a traditional IRA, so that is one
great option for a lot of people if you make too much money. But there are also a couple other
options out there that may be a little confusing. So there's also the traditional IRA where we just
talked about that. It works very similar to a 401k in terms of its rules where you contribute money
and that money is a tax deduction. And then the money grows. And then when you pull the money out,
you pay taxes and the money when you pull the money out. That's on a traditional IRA. And so you also
have that option to you always if you don't want to look at these two other options. Now there's
the SEP IRA. So the SEP IRA. So the SEP
IRA is one that is a little more complicated than all of the others. And it stands for simplified
employee pension IRA and is a great option for a lot of folks who are self-employed. I have a
SEP IRA. I utilize it. It is something that definitely is a great option. And you can contribute up
25% of your net employment income or a maximum limit set by the IRS, whichever is less. I think this
year it's $69,000. Let me see what it is this year for $2,000.
$29,000 for $2,024. And so that is what the number is for a step IRA. That's the max you can put in there.
But it has to either be 25% of your net employment income or $69,000, whichever is less. So if you make $100,000, you can only put $25,000 or less into that account in terms of what you can contribute.
You cannot put the $69,000 in there even though you want to. You can't do that.
I, one year I put like an extra $100 into it by accident. And I had to go through all this
paperwork. It was a huge headache. So you definitely don't want to do that. So the step by IRA is a
complicated account for sure. You definitely want your account in kind of handling some of those numbers
when you go through this. But the contributions are tax deductible and it lowers obviously your
taxable income. And you get the tax to deferred growth with taxes paid on withdrawal to some
retirement. So it works very similar to a 401k. But the rules on how you can contribute to it are much,
much more annoying in my opinion. And so that's one thing that you can look at. You also have solo
401ks and solo Roth 401ks. Now, the solo 401k is the one I contribute to the most. Actually, it's my
Roth 401K that I contribute to the most. And so the way that these work is that the solo 401K
works like a 401K. The solo Roth 401k works like a Roth 401k. And so the solo 401K is only for
business owners that have no employees other than a spouse. So we have a
specific business that has no employees, and so I can utilize the solo 401K based on that.
So what this does is it allows both employer as the business owner and employee as the worker
contributions offering a higher potential contribution limit. So the total contribution limit is the
sum of the employee elective deferrals and the employer non-elective contributions with a
maximum limit set by the IRS. And so the number is exactly the same as a set by IRA for the
solo 4-1K, it's $69,000 that you can get into that account as well. And so that is one that
I definitely try to hit every single year is try to max that bad boy out because it is really,
really powerful. You can get more dollars in there than somebody who's working like at a traditional
nine to five typically. And so one of the biggest pros is it's really high contribution limits that
allow for some of these contributions to be a portion that really, really matter. So you can do this
with a Roth or a solo 401K. This is the Roth hack is using a solo. But there are some paperwork issues
that you have as well when you go through this. So here's kind of my order. And again, I get to
answering your question here. My order is, A, I like obviously the Roth IRA first. The Roth IRA
is just one that I just like to have. But then at the same time, at the same level, I like the Roth
Solo 401k if you have no employees. If you have employees, then I like the Roth Sep IRA.
Then coming down the line is the Solo 401k or the SEP IRA. I prefer the solo 401k over the SEP,
just because the SEP is a little bit annoying on the contribution limits based on 25% of revenue.
So it's important to understand that it's just a little more annoying to me personally at least.
And you can read the rules and see which ones may kind of fit your style more.
But I just don't like the SEP as much as I like the solo in that scenario.
Then the traditional IRA falls into next.
And some of you may need a traditional IRA to do a backdoor Roth anyway.
So if you do, you're going to need both.
And that may just be because your income limits are too high.
So the way that you want to think through this is what,
my tax situation first, meaning what do I need a deduction from? Do I need a deduction up front here
because I'm making too much money? Well, then maybe you want to go with the traditional 401k
or the traditional solo 401k and that may be an option or a CEP IRA, maybe another great option.
Do I think I'm going to make more money in the future and I am willing to take some of that
tax hit now so that I can have tax-free growth over time, then that's what the Roth is for.
And I know when you do the math, if you look at the Roth, the majority of your wealth built in a
Roth is going to come from the growth of your money, which is the real reason why I like Roth so much.
Sure, my income is high, but I also know that the growth of your money is going to be the majority
when it comes to these. So I am willing to sometimes take a tax hit if I have to in order to contribute
to some of these and really, really make a big difference in terms of the long run of how much money
I have in that retirement account. So really, really important to make sure you make the right
decision on those. And I think they're great options. And we'll do an entire episode because we can
dive way, way deeper into these so that we can really, really get into some of these.
So great question. I really appreciate you bringing it up, and I hope that helps.
Now, listen, if you guys have any questions, make sure you reach out to us.
And if you sign up for the Master Money newsletter, you can actually just reply directly to me
there. And I read all of those. Sometimes I don't get to replying to all of them, but I read
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a lot of times those emails will end up on this show. And it is something that we definitely
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It is always linked up down in the show notes below so that you could check that out as well.
And thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. And what you're doing is you're investing in
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so they know too that they can build
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have a great week and we'll see you on the next
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