Sorry for how long and probably boring this turned out. And I apologize for any formatting issues since I just typed this all up on my phone on my lunch break. And I don't have anyone in my personal life who I can ask for financial advice. Big shout out to everyone in this community, I owe you guys a lot.
So here's the deal. About 9 months ago I landed a killer apprenticeship with outstanding pay and benefits (considering I didn't go to college) but the retirement plan here seems to be different than everything I've read on here.
As an apprentice here, I'm making $22/hour, and another $9/hour which is directly put into a annuity account - and after I'm vested in 4 years my pension pay will also start which will be an additional $5/hour into a pension account. Not to mention I don't pay a dime for my very good health care and dental since it's all negotiated in the contract between the company I work for and my local.
Also, since I work a weird schedule (Friday-Tuesday) every Sunday for me is called a "premium day" so essentially it's overtime built right into my 40 hour work week that isn't costing me anyting. Additionally, the annuity pay also scales 1.5x for all premium/overtime I work; and also for all holidays I work is 2.5x and it is also proportionate for that. As if this isn't confusing enough, as an apprentice I have full control of how much overtime I work and can take on as much as I want and it's written off as "training."
And in addition to that, once I hit the one year mark at my position I will be getting a promotion & raise up to $40/hour and all of my other benefits will stay the same.
Now here are my real concerns:
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Does anyone have any insight or experience with these kinds of retirement funds in my situation?
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I plan to fully fund a 2016 IRA account before the April 15th(?) cutoff but I'm not sure if I'll go with traditional or Roth since I see the benefits to both. Is there any reason why I can't have a traditional and a Roth? Since my company doesn't really have a 401k type plan since we have the annuity & pension I want to make sure I have a nice nest egg to retire with.
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I recently closed a condo on the cheaper side at ~150k to avoid high rent costs in my area and to at least build some equity. My interest rate is a 30yr fixed rate at 3.229% but after my promotion I plan to pay it off as if it were a 15yr as well as make additional payments with extra money laying around. Is this a good plan financially for someone my age if I can manage it?
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(Last one, promise.) Due to me recently buying this condo I did have to use a big chunk of my savings. So now I have just around 9k in liquid cash in between my checking and savings accounts. Would it be unwise to take $5,500 of that to fully fund my Roth or tradional IRA before I hit the deadline in April?
Also keep in mind that I have no other debt besides my mortgage loan and my payment is ~$1100/month which is also including the $195/month HOA fee.
So all in all my monthly expenses average out to about $1800-$2100 depending on the month according to Mint. But with the occasional impulse buy or splurge purchase sometimes pushing more than that $2100 a month but I'm trying very hard to be more vigilant on excess spending.
I can add a more in depth breakdown of the current state of all my accounts if it's needed later on.
Cheers
Submitted January 02, 2017 at 11:57AM by GoodKid_mAAdWorld http://ift.tt/2hKxPVU
