This. We maxed out our 401ks since the day we were eligible, including 50+ catchups, because we could. Looking back, we wee deferring 28-39% federal taxes and paying something around 24% now on conversions.No, they (we) didn't oversave; they (we) fell in love with every tax-deferral opportunity that came along. And in our defense that was sort of the prevailing thinking of the era when we began investing, and some of us were slow to adapt when changes came long.+1 These threads on RMD taxes come up a lot here. The root "problem" (and it really is a first world problem) is that they over-saved to begin with. They probably worked years past the point they didn't financially need to anymore so now they have more money than they know how to spend. It may be an annoyance but it was their choice to work/save so much to begin with.
I'm sure we could have retired sooner with some higher level of risk, but we wanted to get our daughter out of college and age 57 seemed early enough.
Statistics: Posted by murrays — Wed Feb 07, 2024 12:11 pm — Replies 43 — Views 2806