http://www.simianlogicstudios.com/2007/11/26/napa-thanksgiving-and-a-new-theme/ indie game developer, web tinkerer, and transplanted Southerner living in Silicon Valley Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:52:05 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.simianlogicstudios.com/2007/11/26/napa-thanksgiving-and-a-new-theme/comment-page-1/#comment-16 To Roth or not to Roth? Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:28:23 +0000 http://simianlogic3d.com/blog/2007/11/26/napa-thanksgiving-and-a-new-theme/#comment-16 [...] Then my next issue: management fees.  Somewhere in the paperwork I filled out, I remember reading  that they charge you $30 a year to manage your retirement account (though, as far as I can tell, it’s still up to me to make all my own trades and pay trading fees of $4.50 until my balance hits $2500).  The yearly fee hits in February, and if you fund your account after February they charge you immediately.  It’s now December.  I called their customer support (and, to their credit, actually got a real person within 5 minutes) and asked if this fee was pro-rated or I was really going to be charged $30 so they could manage the couple of hundred or so dollars I’m likely to put in before February.  Their response: full $30.  I asked them if it was a specific date in February (I’d hate to put money in Feb 1st only to get charged again Feb 10th) or if I could safely put money into the account any time in the month.  He didn’t know.  He said it was usually a certain week in February, so if I wanted to be absolutely sure it was best to wait until March 1st. So I’ve got a Roth IRA now.  I’m just not going to put any money into it until March. That’s not so bad, I guess.  I’ll just have to do a good job of mentally earmarking money in my checking account as “IRA money” and not “shiny new toy” money.  The game I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post got a really great sponsorship offer, so once I polish it up to their specs and finalize the deal I should have a pretty nice chunk of change to act as seed money (though I still don’t see myself maxing it out for 2007).      [...] [...] Then my next issue: management fees.  Somewhere in the paperwork I filled out, I remember reading  that they charge you $30 a year to manage your retirement account (though, as far as I can tell, it’s still up to me to make all my own trades and pay trading fees of $4.50 until my balance hits $2500).  The yearly fee hits in February, and if you fund your account after February they charge you immediately.  It’s now December.  I called their customer support (and, to their credit, actually got a real person within 5 minutes) and asked if this fee was pro-rated or I was really going to be charged $30 so they could manage the couple of hundred or so dollars I’m likely to put in before February.  Their response: full $30.  I asked them if it was a specific date in February (I’d hate to put money in Feb 1st only to get charged again Feb 10th) or if I could safely put money into the account any time in the month.  He didn’t know.  He said it was usually a certain week in February, so if I wanted to be absolutely sure it was best to wait until March 1st. So I’ve got a Roth IRA now.  I’m just not going to put any money into it until March. That’s not so bad, I guess.  I’ll just have to do a good job of mentally earmarking money in my checking account as “IRA money” and not “shiny new toy” money.  The game I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post got a really great sponsorship offer, so once I polish it up to their specs and finalize the deal I should have a pretty nice chunk of change to act as seed money (though I still don’t see myself maxing it out for 2007).      [...]

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