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Originally Posted by Hifred
We have about the same split as you do and it is working well for us too. The issue we faced as educators is we had a 403B and a 457 which work on pretax dollars. So the interest and monies earned get taxed upon withdrawal. We have been slowly moving some of those monies into a Roth so that future earnings will grow tax free. We had an accountant do a comparison and the taxes really do take a chunk out of your earnings. We are at a 22% bracket and when we have to do RMD's we will be in the 24% bracket so we are just going to roll money over so that we don't end up in the 32% tax bracket. Also as we age it is almost certain that one of us will die before the other. To maintain our standard of living I being the wife will probably need to pay for house maintenance and all the things I don't know how to do that my husband does like clean the sprinkler heads etc. He will have to do stuff that I do that he doesn't know how. However, I would have half as much to live off of because as a widow I only will receive half of his pension. If I don't change over to a Roth then I will be taxed at the single rate not the married filing joint rate on the extra 50% that I need to make up withdrawing from his 403B. There is so much stuff to think about. I wish I knew of an honest financial planner but most I have spoken to give me advice that I don't believe is in my best interest. So far we have been doing things with the help of an accountant who I ask questions and he runs the numbers. I don't let anyone invest for me. I do it myself.
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If you are retired, I would suggest that you transfer all of the money in your 403B account into a Vanguard or Fidelity traditional IRA. The fees will be lower, you will have more choices for investments, and they will assist you with many aspects of the investments. I prefer Vanguard, but Fidelity has a office at Lake Sumter where you can see a live person. 403B accounts are notorious for having excessive management fees, and some of them have even been sued because of the high fees. Vanguard or Fidelity will handle all of the paperwork to do a direct transfer.