MAN this is gonna be awesome for one of you out there!! In preparation for the awesomest movement yet – The Roth IRA Movement – coming up on March 27th, and created by my boy Jeff (aka Mini “Rock”) from Good Financial Cents, we’re banning together with the new IRAmarket.com service to give one lucky person $5,000 to max out their ROTH IRA this year! Or $6,000 if you’re 50 y/o and up!
For those who don’t read Jeff’s blog, this whole thing started when he went back to his alma mater to teach a class on good financial management, and *not a single person* knew what a ROTH IRA was. Which is crazy!! Especially considering how awesome they are, and how much all of us love ’em ;) So he started this Roth IRA Movement which goes like this,
“On March 27, 2012, we’re going to have over
50125 bloggers talk about why the Roth IRA is important, why they love it, and why every young investor needs to know more about it.”
Bam! For anyone reading financial blogs that day, it’ll be hard to miss this thing ;) Which is exactly the point. ROTH IRAs are important!! And so awesome that the gov’t puts a ban on how much you can invest in them! Haha… they like to be able to tax your profits, but with these guys everything grows inside of them TAX-FREE – you only get “dinged” in the beginning as you have to put in out-of-pocket money (that’s already been taxed) each time. Until you earn too much to even qualify!
And so today a handful of us blogger friends join together, along with IRA Market, and we help spread the love by giving one of our lucky readers the $5 Grand in question :) So big ups to Good Financial Cents, PT Money, Cash Money Life, Christian PF, and Generation X Finance too for being a part of it!
A Little About IRAmarket
IRAmarket.com is a new service that helps you compare banks’ and brokers’ IRAs. In addition to profiling 20 of the leading IRA providers, IRAmarket helps you see all the current offers for opening an IRA or rolling over an old 401k or 403b to an IRA. Offers include cash bonuses from companies like Schwab, E*TRADE and Scottrade, and free trades offers from Fidelity, Wells Fargo and USAA (Woo!).
IRAmarket’s mission is to help Americans save more for their future. Articles and tools on the site help you learn about the cost of 401k plans, and how you may be able to save more by rolling over to an IRA. You can use IRAmarket.com’s cost estimator to see how much a company’s IRA may cost depending on what you invest in and how much you trade. In the future, IRAmarket will be adding features to make it easier to compare fees, open IRAs and roll over 401ks.
As part of its contribution to the #RothIRAMovement, IRAmarket is sponsoring a “Win $5k for Your IRA” contest to raise awareness about IRAs and the upcoming April 17th deadline for 2011 IRA contributions. You can enter the contest through April 8th for a chance to win the maximum IRA contribution of $5,000 or $6,000 if you’re age 50 or older. After you enter, you can share the contest with friends and family for additional chances to win a matching prize.
How To Enter The Giveaway!
Like and/or follow some of our co-sponsors, and then hit the big green button at the end! It’ll take you to IRAMarket’s Facebook page (which you also have to “like”) and then you’ll be able to register there. Pretty easy stuff :) And you have until April 8, 2012 to enter. (If you’re reading this in RSS, you may have to click over to the post to see the graphic)
GOOD LUCK everyone!! Someone from our blogs will win big, and I VERY VERY VERY much hope it’s one of you guys :) And even if you don’t get the free money, I really hope you consider opening up a ROTH IRA and at least start contributing a few bucks towards it… Even just $25/mo will get you rolling in until you can increase it down the road… it’s pretty sexy stuff! Have a great day, everyone!
***GIVEAWAY NOW OVER***
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**Giveaway is only open to those of the US who are 18 and up.
(Photo permission by J. Jeff Rose)
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Any chance I can sneak this into my TFSA instead? Eh? Eh?
Okay :(
Wow. This is awesome. Definately one of the bigger giveaways you’ve done. $5000 would hextuple my IRA value!
This is an awesome contest… Too bad I don’t use twitter or facebook…. guess I’ll just have to fund my ROTH on my own.
Good Luck to everyone and I hope someone here wins!
Very nice giveaway guys! As usual the good contests aren’t open to us Canadians. Still, I’m going to tweet this in hopes that an American friend wins.
Hey guys, I’m gonna check now and see if it’s open to residents of Canada – give me a few :) I’m not entirely sure yet… And yeah, that was the only tricky part with this, Brian, we had to find a way to connect all sites and social media was the best way :( Sorry man, but you know it’s not the last of them! :)
“Until you earn too much to even qualify!”
J$, you should do a piece on the “Backdoor Roth IRA”. Basically, because there are currently no income limits on the conversion of a TIRA to a Roth IRA, a person who earns too much to contribute directly to a Roth IRA can make a non-deductible contribution to a TIRA and then convert the funds into a Roth IRA. It’s definitely a good piece of information to have, particularly for those whose income puts them close to the limit or over for contributing to a Roth IRA.
CONFIRMED: This sweepstakes is only open to those residents of the US who are 18 years and up. Due to sweepstakes rules and other laws :( Sorry guys… I’ll have to do another Canada-only giveaway soon to make up for it ;)
@Matthew – Ooooh you are good! I might have to leave that up to the more “professional” bloggers though as I don’t know the ins and outs of all these enough to write smartly on them ;) But I’ll try and find a good article from another blogger friend and link back to it — thanks for the tip, man.
Cant wait to be part of the #RothIRAMovement
This is great initiative to spread awareness. Roth IRA are great and p w of the first tips i give to recent grads. As they start out they are generally within limit and have a long hoizon to grow money tax free!
Holy guacamole, this is crazy awesome! Thanks for hosting the giveaway; I’m excited to be part of the movement, too :)
Awesome contest J$. I don’t think the money has to go towards a roth IRA, just saw on the top of the contest page it has “Pay down debt” “Start rainy day fund” “Save for retirement in an IRA”. If I win **fingers crossed* it’ll probably be put right onto my camper loan. Then I’d have almost no debt other than the house. This is a good way to get the word out about saving for retirement though. Love the Roth IRA, I should convert my 401 to a roth 401, but I like having the tax savings for now.
Did someone say 5 G’s??!! Awesome giveaway baby!!! :-)
@Brian. It’s almost signing up just for a chance, eh? Cheaper than buying a lotto ticket. :)
@ Matthew @J$ If you’re looking for a Backdoor Roth IRA post, here’s one for you: http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/roth-ira-conversion-traditional-401k-2010/. It’s a bit older, but same rules apply. Plus, I make a reference to the Violent Femmes in the post. Can’t beat that!
@Debtn Taxes You’re absolutely right. While they are trying to promote the IRA message, the money can go towards any financial goal you choose. Maybe buy J$ some diapers for the new baby? :)
@Christoper @ The Happy Homeowner. Proud that you’re apart of the #RothIRAMovement!!!
I’d like to sign up to post about the Roth IRA on the 27th as well. Is there a place where as the bloggers who are posting about Roths are listed. I would like to include that on my blog as well.
@ Ginger
Just leave a comment here: http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/lets-start-a-movement/
or contact me on my site http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/client/contact/ and I’ll be happy to get you added to the list. Welcome to the Roth IRA party!!!
Oooh la la – Jeff, can I have you here every day helping out with comments? haha.. you are GOOD! Thanks so much :)
According to the official rules linked above, you should be able to enter without having facebook / social media accounts (Web Site Method of Entry), but I can not find a way to do this on the iramarket.com site….
This is an awesome opportunity! Thanks! I am also taking part in the ROTH IRA movement :) Hopefully, we will turn Americans into savers :)
If you can’t like or follow our co-sponsors, please consider subscribing to their email newsletters or feeds. Send me an email at facebook@iramarket.com with your first name and last name; tel number is optional and let us know if you’d like to receive our monthly email. Also confirm that you are 18 or older and have read the rules (linked at the bottom of the post). We’ll send you an email confirming your entry. Sorry, US residents 18+ only (darn lawyers).
Thanks J$. Good Luck everyone.
J$! I tried to enter, but I can’t find the application page. I “liked” you and the iramarket page. This contest is making me feel stupid :( Help?
Oh no – sorry! Once you’ve “liked” IRAmarket’s page, the directions should be right there on their facebook page. Ask you to enter you name/etc – do you see that? If not, let me know what you see and I’ll pass it along to the folks to make sure nothing funky is going on :) Sorry for all the hassle! It will all be worth it if you win, haha…
Oh, it worked! Yay…I’m not stupid! (I was worried for a minute…) I was trying to access it from my blog’s facebook page, and that’s why it wasn’t working. THANK YOU!! :))
D’oh! Haha… good to know! Now hurry up and enter before you forget ;)
I entered but am wondering if maybe I have my retirement going in too many directions. We pay into railroad retirement for my spouse and myself, we each have 401ks, and have done the IRA thing the last couple of years. Should I be focusing on maxing out my IRA first, then 401k?
J. Money what’s good? Just entered the contest, that’ll give me a boost after a bad 4th quarter of investing last year :(
@Jessica – I think it depends on a lot of things, but mainly whether your employers MATCH your 401k contributions. Cuz if they do, then it’s hands down a smart move to keep investing at least up to what they’re matching cuz it’s guaranteed money right off the bat! :) If they don’t, or you want to put in more than they match, then your average finance guru will probably say to invest the rest into an IRA since you have more control over the funds/etc. But either way you go you’ll be on the right track – the fact you’re investing *somewhere* is very very good :) So keep it up!
@Blue Spyder – Oh man, sorry to hear that :( I’ve had a few duds too over the past 12 months, but we do whatever we can to keep on getting better! :) Winning this prize would certainly help jump start that too!
Glad you all are talking about the Roth IRA! Ive seriously looked into them a few times.. my CPA says I need to get one or ‘look into getting one’ but never knew ‘what was the points’ ;)
Would love that $5k to help me get started ;)
-Derek
That would certainly make it easier, huh? :)
***GIVEAWAY NOW OVER***