What Is A Roth RA?
In a nutshell, a Roth RA is an investment account, in which you can invest a certain amount of money into each year to prepare and save…
In a nutshell, a Roth RA is an investment account, in which you can invest a certain amount of money each year to prepare and save for your retirement years.
RA stands for Retirement Account
This account is critical to get a jump on, and by this I mean, this is the account you want to start investing in as EARLY as possible.
Why?
Compound interest: This either will work against you (debt) or work for you (savings and investing). Compound interest ensures your money works hard for you, instead of the opposite. The more time you let compound interest work for you (by investing early), the less harder you will have to work at saving, and the less money you will need to invest at the end of the day.
The ROTH RA yearly investment limit for 2019 is $6,000.00, which comes to $500 a month. Each year the investment limit increases to help adjust for inflation.
The reason I am not talking about a Traditional RA (pre-tax retirement account) in this article is because that account is money that is invested tax free, which means you will be taxed when you start withdrawing money from the account. The reason this is not optimal is because you have no clue what the tax laws or rates will be at that time you start withdrawing money. Also, it’s better to pay taxes now, then pay later; in this way, you know exactly the amount of money you will have due to your taxes being taken out on the front end.
You can start withdrawing any money from a ROTH RA penalty free at age 59 1/2.
The icing on the cake to this last comment right above is: any money you personally invest in a ROTH RA (money that is not there due to dividends, compound interest, and capital gains), you can withdraw from this account at any time without a penalty — in case of an emergency — free and clear.
You might think you have plenty of time in the world to start investing for retirement, or you might not think it’s consequential to start thinking about retirement until you are getting ready to retire, but you will LOVE, APPRECIATE, and be so GRATEFUL to yourself if you start saving now.