Put money into your Roth IRA regardless of the market. Your annual contribution limit is likely to be $5,500 like most folks. Keep it in cash if you're worried. Just consider: if you max out your contributions over the next 40 years of your life, the most you can ever contribute to your Roth IRA is about $220,000. That's it.
Roth IRA restricts contribution based on income. Furthermore, the contribution limits are a small fraction of what they are for employer-based retirement accounts, not enough to build a real retirement.
A not small number of high-income Americans don’t qualify for anything but a traditional IRA, which has paltry limits.
I was a bit miffed to learn that the max contribution for an IRA and Roth IRA combined is only $5,500. I did some reading and understand the point of it but I would much prefer to be in control of my own money and where it is invested than some of the limited options given through an employer's 401k.
I didn't realize my Roth IRA contributions limits are curtailed starting at ~$125k income.
My income is around that, although I guess I wouldn't hit the limit due to maxing my 401K.
What would happen if I contributed too much to an IRA one year? Would I have to pay a penalty during tax season? Would I get the difference back in cash?
If it isn't only a rich people thing, then how do people amass hundreds of millions and even billions in Roth IRA accounts? Those numbers far exceed, by many orders of magnitude, the contribution limits and assumptions of 10% growth over decades.
That's a tax deduction limit not an IRA contribution limit. You make an after-tax IRA contribution (up to the IRA contribution limit of $6K/year in 2019) not subject to any income limit and then convert to Roth IRA.
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