Tap Tap Tapping


I am tapping away at adding to our Retirement investment vehichles.

Scenario:

The Hubster has a 401-K - it's getting 9% contributions right now w/a 6% match from employer. Our contribution scheduled to go to 10% in January.

In addition for him we have another $50.00 a month going to his Roth IRA.

And he has a Rollover Traditional IRA that is static - meaning we aren't adding to it at this time and may in fact soon start drawing some out of it.

For me:

$36.00 to Emigrant monthly - building up to go into a non-retirement vehicle when I get enough saved up. I want this out from under the limited contributions area that IRAs and 401-Ks have. I am going to attempt to up this amount to $40 monthly next month - 36.00 is an odd figure based on an old income stream that has now finished, but I'm still trying to maintain putting this little bit back. Goal = increase to $40.00.

$60.00 monthly goes to my Spousal IRA.

Then we've also been putting $50 out of the family kitty into I-bonds, but that will be changing this month and I have to decide upon somewhere else to put this money since the interest rate has dropped.

I was also taking half of my grocery money for the last year and putting it into I-bonds (I want to eat when I get old). They are nice and liquid and in small enough amounts to prove useful in a tight. Now that interest rates have dropped then I'm going to have to do something else!

And an additional $50 has been going into small CD's at ING while they were offering good rates. We have them laddered at 1 a month in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and are working at getting 4 years ones in place.

We also have our regular 10% savings that we are adding to our Long Term Investment Seed money. When we find an opportunity or one of our IRAs mutual funds are offering a decent sale - we buy it on the cheap. Have also used this in the past to buy Tax Lien Certificates to good affect.

Then we have some - usually 3-5% - that goes into our Short Term Goal money that we use to do whatever 'goofy' thing we want like updating computers, replacing a countertop, etc.

Tapping how? Tapping in that I'm just doing a little bit at a time - you know like you guys did in metal shop in high school. A bit here. A bit there. And soon you have a masterpiece. There aren't any vast sums here to invest at the moment. Bit by bit we will hopefully have some additional to rely upon other than just SS.

Tap, Tap, Tap!!