butterwm
07-31-2006, 08:53 PM
I wanted to throw out a retirement plan option and get some opinions on what everyone thinks is the way to go. My wife and I have spent the past 5 years working very hard on becoming debt free and we basically accomplished that this year. We have no credit card debt and only have a house payment and the typical ulitilties/car insurance bills. We have managed to accumulate a safe amount in savings ($10,000 CD and $6,000 in savings) and are looking into investment options. The only drawback is that we will be going down to a single income next month for the birth of our child.
We have decided that we want to start putting $400 a month/$4,800 annually towards a retirement plan. We are just having a hard time deciding between a Roth IRA or the TSP. Since I am active duty military, I don't have the advatage of employer matching which would make this decision a no brainer. Reading the posts in this forum, it seems like a lot of people once they retire/seperate roll their TSP into an IRA. If you guys were in my situation, would you go with the TSP with no matching benefits or just right to the IRA and then once I can afford to max it look at the TSP?
We have decided that we want to start putting $400 a month/$4,800 annually towards a retirement plan. We are just having a hard time deciding between a Roth IRA or the TSP. Since I am active duty military, I don't have the advatage of employer matching which would make this decision a no brainer. Reading the posts in this forum, it seems like a lot of people once they retire/seperate roll their TSP into an IRA. If you guys were in my situation, would you go with the TSP with no matching benefits or just right to the IRA and then once I can afford to max it look at the TSP?