The classic answer is municipal bonds, preferably through a diversified mutual fund or ETF. A municipal money market mutual fund would work best as a cash equivalent. Since your state does not have an income tax, you can choose a nationally-diversified fund rather than one focused on a specific state.

You'll want to run the numbers to see whether the (typically lower) returns on the municipal fund give a higher after-tax yield than paying federal taxes on other options. But I imagine a 35% federal rate is high enough that you'll benefit from a municipal bond fund.

Since you already use Fidelity: https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/fidelity-funds/municipal-money-market

An indirect rollover is when you take possession of the money outside of a retirement account in between moving it from one custodian to another.

For example: you withdraw the money from your IRA to a bank account, then send that money to a different IRA. Or maybe you get a check that is payable to you, which counts as you "taking possession" even if you pass it to the new IRA rather than cashing it yourself.

This is different from a direct rollover. There are no limits on direct rollovers. A direct rollover could be:

• An "in kind" rollover, where the actual securities owned in your first IRA are transferred directly into the second IRA.
• Your old IRA provider sends you a check made payable to the new IRA provider. For example, "TO: Fidelity Investments FBO Livids-Pomegranate" (FBO means "For the Benefit Of").

A Roth conversion is another type of "direct" transfer between IRAs, and as such is also not subject to the once-per-12-months rule.

Imagine that you never spend the $10k disbursed by the loan. Then for every dollar of principal that you repay via payroll deduction, you transfer a dollar from the original loan amount into the bank account where your paychecks are deposited.

How would that above scenario look different from one where you could instead make loan repayments from the original principal rather than payroll deduction? It wouldn't. Your bank account would have the same ending balance, and you'd see the same amount of taxes being withheld (and ultimately taxed) from each paycheck.

How can you be double-taxed if the money used to repay the principal is never once taxed until you withdraw it in retirement?

Yes I don't think there would be any double taxation for a loan from a Roth account.

How are you putting them in as "post-tax" dollars if you are literally using the same pretax dollars that were dispersed as the original loan principal? When are they ever taxed, other than when withdrawn in retirement?

This is a common misconception. There is no double-taxation of the money used to repay the principal.

The simplest way to prove this to yourself is to imagine paying back a 0% interest 401(k) loan from the same dollars that are initially disbursed by the loan. Those dollars were not taxed going into the 401(k), they were not taxed when they came out as a loan, and they are not taxed going back into the 401(k). So where is the double taxation?

Since dollars are fungible, the same conclusion above can be applied to any other dollars which pay back 401(k) principal.

You are double-taxed on the interest paid to a pretax 401(k) loan. But because the actual interest goes back into your balance, that extra taxation becomes the only effective "cost" of a pretax 401(k) loan. This tends to not be a big cost as far as loans go. For example, the double-taxation of a 8.5% loan from a pretax account by someone with a 27% marginal tax rate works out to an effective interest rate of 2.3%. That's not terrible.

You can absolutely ask, politely. They very well may waive the fee, especially if you've been a customer for a long time. But of course they have no obligation to waive the fee.

Every asset class you just mentioned is already included in OP's two funds. OP is plenty diversified.

An IRA is a type of account. Think of it as a box or wrapper, inside which you can own different investments. An IRA provides special tax benefits to investments owned within it, but there can also be tax penalties when money is withdrawn from the IRA "early".

You said that you own variable annuities within your IRAs. Variable annuities are hybrid insurance/investment products which sometimes have fees when you cash out (or "surrender") them early.

So there are two steps to getting cash from your IRAs, both of which will incur taxes or fees:

1. Surrender the variable annuities owned within your IRAs. You may pay surrender fees to do so. After surrendering the annuities, you will be left with cash (dollars) inside of the IRAs.
2. Withdraw those dollars from the IRAs. This will incur income taxes and possibly an "early withdrawal penalty" as well.

If these steps can executed separately, then your best strategy is to surrender one or both of the annuities, but then only withdraw cash from the IRAs as you need it. This will minimize the taxes you pay for removing your money from your IRAs.

As others have mentioned, you are allowed to withdraw your Roth IRA contributions without incurring taxes or penalties. Assuming you need to take money from these accounts, the best order may be:

1. Surrender annuity in Roth IRA, withdraw up to the dollar amount which you have contributed to this Roth IRA (actually any/all Roth IRAs) in the past.
2. Surrender the annuity in the Traditional IRA, then continue withdrawing as needed from the Traditional IRA.
3. Only withdraw "earnings" from your Roth IRA if/when you have completely removed the money in your Traditional IRA.

Can I assume that your IRA is not held at one of our preferred brokerages (Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard)? If not, I'd suggest moving whatever IRA funds you don't withdraw to IRAs at one of those providers, and then invest in low-cost index funds in the future: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/iras/

Good luck!

1. It's easy to do, especially if you file taxes with tax software.
2. Even if the law is changed to prevent the backdoor Roth technique in the future, all that will do is prevent you from making additional indirect Roth IRA contributions in the future. The income limits for contributions do not affect money which was legally put into a Roth IRA in previous years.

To elaborate on the other reply (which is correct):

FAFSA computes an "expected family contribution" amount which it uses to judge eligibility for aid (particularly grant-based aid). Parents are expected to contribute 12% of their "discretionary net worth" to that amount. Dependent students are expected to contribute 20% of their total net worth to the family's expected contribution. This is where the advice to keep college savings out of the student's names comes from. (I pulled those percentages from here: https://fsapartners.ed.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/2020-08/2122EFCFormulaGuide.pdf)

However, most 529 accounts are owned by the parents. The child is just the "beneficiary". So FAFSA treats 529 accounts just like bank accounts, general investment accounts, and any other non-retirement account.

More significantly: your income has a bigger effect on your expected financial contribution than your assets. In order to build a large enough college fund that it can disqualify your child from receiving grant-based financial aid, you realistically need an income which alone is high enough to disqualify your child from receiving that aid.

Yes, the drop in value is because interest rates have risen. To resell the brokered CD, you have to offer someone a better deal than they can get buying a new brokered CD with a similar maturity date. Effectively, you have to sell the CD at enough of a discount so that they "break even" as compared to new CDs with higher interest rates.

The closer the CD is to maturing, the less of an impact that interest rates will have on its resale value (the value reported by the brokerage). A one-percent difference in interest rates matters a lot more when there is a year of interest remaining versus just one month remaining. As such, the price of the brokered CD will not trend down to $0, but should instead gradually trend back towards its face value (how much it pays out at maturity).