with a roth ira, there are no required minimum distributions during your life, and the roth ira funds pass income tax free to your beneficiaries. and then the beneficiaries, your roth beneficiaries, can stretch those distributions-- remember, if they're named on the roth ira beneficiary form, they can stretch it over their lifetimes. so the only thing that's better than a stretch ira is a tax-free stretch roth ira, where they'll never pay taxes for 30, 40, 50 years. another good thing about roth iras is, it comes with do-overs. not many tax provisions come with second chances or do-overs, but this one does. in fact, it's called a roth recharacterization. you can undo it. if you do a roth conversion, you have until october 15th of the year after the conversion to change your mind for any reason at all. maybe the investment didn't do well. so what? you can change your mind. it's like getting to bet on a horse after the race is over. who wouldn't sign up for that? and even after that, after certain time limitations, if you want to reconvert, you can do that. also, everyone qualifies for

you want to encourage getting all moneys in roth iras, roth 401(k)s at work. and with a roth conversion, there's no risk. it's one of the great second chances we have in the tax code. in fact, you get do-overs. it's called a roth recharacterization. let's say you converted your ira to a roth ira in 2009. if you convert in 2009, you have until october 15, 2010, to change your mind for any reason you want. it's like getting to bet on a horse after the race is over. and during your lifetime, you never have to take the money out, not like a traditional ira or a 401(k) where you have to start pulling money out after 70 1/2. real wealth builds fastest when it's not eroded by the government. but i said there were two ways. the second way is life insurance. life insurance is the single biggest benefit in the tax code, the ability to put small amounts of money in and have many times, many multiples of that, come out tax-free forever. switching from taxable accounts to tax-free accounts. life insurance is incredible. most people don't use it, but they should, because it

they have no-fee roth iras which means you don't have annual fees.vestments you make within the roth whether it's a stock or mutual fund there may be commissions tied to the transactions. what you want to look for specifically are no load mutual funds. those eliminate those commission fees. >> anything? >> it's easy to do online. a lot of people think it will be difficult. they need to go to the bank. but it's important to note that the no-fee iras are online, easy to set up and figure out investments targeted to when you will retire. >> briefly i will say fight the inertia. listen to these guys. >> it will matter in the end. >> it's worth it. >> thank you very much for your question. we'll try to get to more next time. coming up, a reminder. catch dylan weekdays at 4:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. up next, much more of the winter storm that's making travel a but fit thrsmessages. ♪ mmmmm... ( crash ) when you add velveeta to spicy rotel tomatoes and green chiles, you've got a queso so good, it'll blow 'em away. - ( crash ) - man, that's good! velveeta &

the roth ira and other ideas started at the ncpa. $225 billion in personal savings has been taxed once and will never be taxed again as a result more than 23 million families are now managing some of their own health care dollars and lowering health-care costs in the process by having a health savings account. because of other reforms that started here, half of all future enrollees in 41 k plans will be automatically enrolled with a diversified portfolio that will give them safer and better returns for their retirement and 78 million baby boomers will be able to work beyond their retirement age without being penalized by social security. in this information, you can sign up for daily policy digest and also for the john goodman healthcare blog. that is the only place where all these good ideas are vetted and debated and discussed. the ncpa organized a collaborative effort that brought together policy experts from many others think tanks. they had a standing-room-only capitol hill briefing moments before the house was going to vote on reforms to the reasons health care law. several of th

realize our combined income is getting close to the phase-out limit of what we can contribute to my roth iraest in the roth and my company doesn't offer a 401-k. where should i invest for retirement without paying a penalty at tax time? >> a traditional ira is a good option if you don't qualify for the roth. the roth has advantages when you take out the money you don't pay taxes on it and you also can leave it in there for your heirs. but the traditional ira is fine. the money can continue to grow tax deferred. you will take a tax deduction up front which may be appreciated at this point. the most important thing is that you contribute as much as you can. so you want to max out his accounts at work, max out your ability to put the money into a traditional ira and just continue doing it every year. >> all right, shannon. thank you so much for getting up early. we'll stay on the west coast and go to the phone. we have tracy from corcoran, california. hi, good morning. >> caller: good morning. my husband is disabled and received a fixed income. i work part-time. we purchased a home a little ove

open an ira or a roth ira and tell your brokerage firm automatically, every time i get paid take $192t you to the maximum $5,000 contribution. get it in there and out of my hands so i won't spend it. >> it's not about depriving yourself. it's about giving yourself money later on. it's really a way to think positively about it. >> absolutely. this is a good thing. you need the money for later. if you do it this way, you're not going to feel deprived because you are never going to feel you had the money in the first place. >> and basically to cover your fixed costs in retirement. >> you get down the road. you have done what we said. you have a nice nest egg. you want to convert it into a paycheck. the way we do this is with an immediate annuity. you take a chunk of money, just enough to cover the fixed costs so the rest of the money can stay in the account and continue to grow. you turn it into a paycheck. >> from a bank? >> life insurance companies will do it. but immediate annuities are a lower fee than other types. you can often take the money in your retirement account and annuitize