Roth vs. Traditional
Episode 583 released yesterday and in it I mentioned that assuming tax rates are the same going in and going out, you will have the exact same net worth regardless of whether you contribute to a Roth or a Traditional account (IRA, 401k, etc.).
Here’s the step-by-step example:
Contribution:
You want to take $5,000 of your income and contribute it to a retirement account.
Traditional: This income is not taxed, so you get to contribute the full $5,000 which invests and compounds.
Roth: The income is taxed in the current year and let’s say you’re squarely in the 22% bracket, so you pay $1,100 in tax on that $5k and you therefore invest $3,900
Total Tax Paid on Contribution: Traditional = $0. Roth = $1,100
Balance at Year 40 (assuming 8% annual growth rate):
Traditional: $5,000 invested grows to $121,366.93
Roth: $3,900 invested grows to $94,666.20
Withdrawal:
Traditional: Assuming you pay the same 22% tax rate on your $121,366.93, you pay $26,700.72 in Federal tax on withdrawal. This leaves you with a net worth of this investment of $94,666.21.
Roth: You already paid tax on contribution, so your entire balance of $94,666.20 is yours to keep.
Bottom Line:
You have the same net worth in the Roth vs. Traditional horse race assuming the exact same income tax rate.
There’s no difference!
Sure, it might “feel” better to only pay $1,100 in tax on the Roth contribution instead of paying $26,700.72 in tax on withdrawing your money in the Traditional account, but critically you have the same net worth.
So, Roth vs. Traditional is simply a bet on income taxes.
My strong expectation is that the FI Community will win dramatically using Traditional accounts because we’ll only be pulling out enough each year to cover our expenses and there’s a massive standard deduction that lowers that income and then the lower tax brackets (currently 10% and 12%) will further lower the effective tax rate on our withdrawals.
Email Security Tip
I recently had someone try to hack into an email address that I use for a number of my financial accounts.
This was a brute force attack and pretty unsophisticated, and my two-factor authentication (2FA) was up to the task this time.
That said, it scared me pretty good.
Our email accounts are maybe the biggest points of failure in our online security systems since many of us don’t use 2FA and sometimes have weak or reused passwords.
Keep in mind that if someone has access to your email address, they can pretty easily reset the password on your essential financial (and other) accounts that use that email address as the contact address.
I reached out to my friend Tom, a former FBI Special Agent and expert in cyber security (and two time podcast guest on Episodes 515 and 397) to ask him what I should consider doing.
He reiterated that the gold standard for 2FA is a physical device called a Yubikey, and that I should use this wherever possible.
As far as email addresses on your essential accounts go, here’s what he said:
“I use a specific Proton Mail email address for all of my financial stuff. Nothing else uses that email. And for both that email and my Gmail, I have them tied to my Yubikey. And then I have an old email that I use for unimportant things.”
Take action securing your financial life today – this is truly critical!
Favorite Investment Writing of 2025
Each December, Nick Maggiulli (guest on Episode 404 of ChooseFI) puts out a list of his “Favorite Investment Writing” articles from that year, and I’m consistently blown away by the quality of the list.
Here’s the entire list of his 15 favorite investment articles of 2025, and here are the five that jumped out to me:
- ‘When Will Housing Prices Fall?’ by Ben Carlson
- ‘Pure Independence’ by Morgan Housel
- ‘What Now? An Investor’s To-Do List for Chaotic Markets’ by Christine Benz
- ‘How Does the Stock Market Bottom’ by Michael Batnick
- ‘Who’s Getting Rich Off Your Attention?’ by Kyla Scanlon
ChooseFI Updates:
- Get email notifications of local events: If you haven’t joined your ChooseFI Local Group on our site, now’s the time! Create a free account here, and you’ll get email notifications of all local events in your area.
- Book Club: Ginger just told me she's doing a book club episode with Liz from 'Liz Gets Loaded' and we wanted to pass along the book so you can get involved: 'Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism' by Fumio Sasaki. They are going to record in early March, so now's the time to grab it from your library and get back to us with your thoughts/comments/questions (just hit reply to any of my newsletters).
- Episode Discussion: Just a reminder that you can now join the discussion and give us your thoughts on each podcast episode. Log into your ChooseFI account and the most recent episode will appear at the top of the first page. Here's the link to Episode 583.
- ChooseFI App Is Now Live on iOS & Android! We now have an official ChooseFI app in both the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store! Join your ChooseFI local community, contribute to the podcast, post your questions and wins, and much more! Download for iOS here and Android here.
- Travel Rewards Credit Cards: I keep my Top Ten Recommended Cards page constantly updated, so it should always be your first source for travel rewards cards. Update: The #4 card in my list just increased the bonus offer! This is a fantastic option if you're looking for points that are transferable or can be used in a flexible manner to reimburse travel expenses.
(Note: We earn a commission if you sign up for credit cards through our site. I don’t advertise on the podcast or in the newsletter. Your support using these card links makes that possible. Thank you!)
ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week
I finally switched my cellphone service to a prepaid plan saving $62 a month! I was so reluctant to switch and put it off for two years. I am embarrassed to admit it took my husband and friend holding me accountable to finally take action. I was too nervous to switch carriers in terms of coverage, which is silly. Come to find out my own service provider already had a prepaid plan so my fear of changing carriers was completely unfounded. Kicking myself for not taking action sooner but grateful for accountability partners and getting it done!
— Lindsay
After attending a CampFI last year and having a great conversation, I realized that I had been putting off the hard work of determining the cause of a chronic health issue.
While not the most fun, I've determined the root cause with my doctor and am having surgery to fix the issue. Luckily, I'll be able to leverage short-term disability to take the time that I need to recover fully and at 100% pay (3 months long). It's like a mini-retirement with the side benefit of getting back to better health!
— Elliot
I decided to lean into the FIRE and told my job I was retiring early this month! I first discovered the concept in 2018, and the ChooseFI podcast not long after, and I've been following The Simple Path to Wealth since. I already had normal retirement savings, but I'm still thrilled that it took only 8 years from the discovery of this path to making the RE leap.
— Jen
My 1% better for this week. I had almost $5,000 dollars of dental and orthodontal expenses in about 2 weeks time (down payment on braces for my son and a root canal/crown for me). What's worse is that I had forgotten to open-enroll for my health FSA last fall, and so had to pay all of these expenses out-of-pocket and after tax!
Rather than mope about it I decided to use this as a learning opportunity to look at health savings accounts (HSAs). It turns out my employer has a great high-deductible health plan (only a $3,300 deductible) AND they contribute HALF of that amount into an HSA right off the bat--effectively reducing the deductible to $1,650.
What's more is that if I also contribute the nearly $200 reduction in monthly premiums into my HSA I'll actually be making money that I can keep (and invest) tax free for the rest of my life. You can bet I'll be switching to an HSA this fall during open enrollment. That sour lemon taste in my mouth left by the dentist has turned into some very sweet lemonade.
— Paul
In 2023-2024 we earned the 60k point bonus on a rewards card and the 100k point bonus on another rewards card. In addition, all our monthly expenses were being charged to the card and earned us thousands of more points.
We just completed a two month road trip around the US staying with family and in hotels. We were able to cover every night we spent in a hotel with the free Rewards Points! When I explained this to friends and family they could not believe that we weren’t spending a cent on hotels!
Bonus: My five year old daughter’s favorite part of the trip was playing in all the hotel swimming pools!
— Hillary
My wife and I have been praying since last year that we would see a new opportunity with her career with a work from home option. She currently makes a commute of about 45 minutes one way into her job in downtown Austin. She was presented an opportunity to work fully remote with a significant pay raise plus bonus. The main driver for all of this is we have three kids and we want to both spend more time with them when they are young. Working remote will give us that flexibility.
This was right around the time that we just paid off our mortgage! On top of that she has enough vacation time that we will be able to max her 457b plan and a large chunk of a 401k plan she has at her current employer. Which works out nice because she will need to wait six months until she can start her new 401k contributions.
I felt that this was, both of us, designing a life that would work well for us moving forward. We feel very grateful and glad I can share this with a community that understands these kind of victories.
— Chris
