2018 is well underway. Last year, M and I had a good amount of tax advantaged retirement “pots” available to us along with some employer match and contributions:
- My 403(b) + generous employer match + contribution
- My 457(b)
- My cash balance plan
- My backdoor Roth IRA
- My solo-401(k)
- His 403(b)
- His Roth IRA
- His solo-401(k)
The pots totaled close to $90,000 of tax advantaged space – not bad! With
our move I lost some unvested money in the 403(b) and completely lost the cash balance plan. At the same time, I took advantage of the ability to contribute to a
Mega-Backdoor Roth IRA and was able to contribute about $8,000 into that.
Now we have new jobs and slightly different available pots this year:
- My 401(k) + employer match
- My solo-401(k)
- My backdoor Roth IRA
- My HSA
- His 401(k) + employer match
- His Roth IRA (may need to backdoor it this year)
- His family HSA
- Our taxable account
Our pots this year total around $80,000 + additional into a taxable account this year. We hope to bring our total 2018 savings to > $100,000.
You'll notice that we now have access to a health savings account (HSA) plan via a high deductible health plan (HDHP). M's job allows unmarried partners to hop onto benefits at very affordable premiums. It was a no brainer to sign up our whole family. Since we are not married, we are able to take advantage of
two HSAs – individual ($3,450) for me and family ($6,900) for him. We do not intend to actually use it for deductibles. We will be using it as a
Stealth IRA or use it for medical expenses in “retirement.”
Our asset allocation will remain the same as
last year:
- 68% US stocks
- 17% Large cap growth, 17% Large cap value
- 17% Small cap growth, 17% Small cap value
- 24% International stocks
- 12% Large cap developed countries
- 12% Diversified emerging markets
- 8% US REITs
Most of our accounts are with TD Ameritrade. You may have heard that they updated their
commision-free ETF list and removed all the Vanguard ETFs. Bummer. So our FA has developed this new portfolio that closely mirrors the prior portfolio:

We will be opening our taxable account at Vanguard.
What do you think? Comment below!]]>