Monday, August 12, 2019
howeenterprise.com
Using your IRA to buy your first home Hey Taylor - I’m looking into buying my first house and understand I can use IRA funds for the purchase without being penalized. How hard or Taylor Kovar easy is it to make this withdrawal? - Spencer
made exclusively because you don’t have to pay a penalty. The thought makes me shudder.
3. Are you sure? Retirement money is not something to be messed with. If you don’t have it when you need it, there’s no quick fix. One of the biggest problems with using your IRA savings is the mental acknowledgment that the money can be used. There will always be bills to pay and things to buy, and the only thing keeping you from putting retirement funds toward other needs is Hey Spencer - How mad will you understanding that you have to be if I say it’s both hard and easy? save that money for later. If you In theory, as long as you meet the start bending the rules, even with requirements, you’ll get a check for the best intentions, you could head the requested amount and the IRS down a path that puts you in a will leave you and your money tough spot later on. alone. There are a few details, however, that make it all a little The IRS allows for a few trickier than that. exceptions as a means of helping people in dire situations. If you 1. The limit is $10,000. If you had head to GoFarWithKovar.com, been thinking you could buy an you can see a piece I wrote about entire house using what’s in your most of the other penalty-free IRA, I’m sorry to be the bearer of options. As you think about what bad news. The amount you can to do, remember that the rules withdraw caps at $10,000, meaning exist to help you out when you are you really should only use these in a bind, so just be careful not to funds as a sweetener for your take action unless it's truly mortgage terms. If you’re in a necessary. Good luck, Spencer! position where you really need that $10,000 to make buying a house Taylor Kovar, CEO of Kovar feasible, I wonder how long it will Capital. Read more about take you to recoup the losses from Taylor at GoFarWithKovar.com your retirement fund. While a house should go up in value, it’s Disclaimer: Information mostly just a money drain while it’s presented is for educational your primary residence. Make sure purposes only and is not an offer you put a lot of thought into where or solicitation for the sale or that $10K actually has the most purchase of any specific value. securities, investments, or investment strategies. 2. You have to spend it within 120 Investments involve risk and, days. Buying a house, especially unless otherwise stated, are not when it’s your first, can take a lot guaranteed. Be sure to first longer than expected. 120 days consult with a qualified financial might feel like a lot of time, but it’s adviser and/or tax professional gone in the blink of an eye when before implementing any real estate is involved, and it’s gone strategy discussed herein. To even faster if something falls submit a question to be through and you have to start over. answered in this column, please If something goes wrong and you send it via email to don’t have proof of purchase within Question@GoFarWithKovar.com, or the allotted time, you run the risk of via USPS to Taylor Kovar, 415 S IRS backlash and a potential 1st St, Suite 300, Lufkin, TX penalty. Imagine paying the penalty 75901. on an IRA withdrawal that you
Feed My Sheep monthly report
86 total number of families were served during July (not including supplemental snacks)
Adults (18-59): 125
Total number of your clients that fit into the following age groups
98 percent of the food you use comes from the North Texas Food Bank.
Children (17 & under): 130
Seniors (60+): 69
Page #15
Living with children Short questions professionals and the media that I’ve been asked good mommies pay as much of late (mostly by attention to their children as they journalists) and possibly can. It’s a fact, the more proportionately attention a parent pays a child the short answers: less attention the child will pay the parent; at the least, the child will only pay attention when he wants Q: Is there a something. single most important thing parents should be Q: What are your thoughts teaching during concerning children and smart devices? John Rosemond their children’s preschool years? A: I know successful adults who do not have smart phones. No A: The most important thing parent has ever been able to give parents should teach is proper me a good reason why a child – by manners. The second and third which I mean someone who is not most important things are proper emancipated and paying his or her manners. “Please,” “Thank you,” “You’re welcome,” “Excuse me,” own bills – should have a smart phone. Let’s face it, parents are “I’m sorry,” proper mealtime buying their children smart phones behavior (including eating what everyone else at the table is eating), because they’re (a) afraid of their children and (b) want their not interrupting adult children to like them. conversations, establishing and maintaining eye contact with Q: What are they afraid of? people who are talking to you, drinking without slurping…those sorts of fundamental courtesies that A: They’re afraid their children won’t like them. form the backbone of civilized social behavior. Q: Why is that? Q: You didn’t mention anything A: Since the 1960s – when nearly about academic teaching, like everything about America went ABCs. Was that a purposeful topsy-turvy – parents have been omission? led to believe that good parenting is all about having a wonderful A: There is no established relationship with one’s kids. As a correlation between academic result, parental leadership – which learning that takes place prior to first grade and achievement in the eventually produces a good third grade. They are certainly well- relationship – has gone by the intentioned, but parents are wasting wayside. That’s why the emotional their time teaching or having some resilience of children has declined dramatically over the last fifty third party – a preschool, for example – teach academic material years. Children who think they’re running the show are not well off prior to first grade. Most baby at all. They’re fundamentally boomers, including yours truly, didn’t even learn their ABCs until insecure, which is why colleges now have “safe spaces.” If I was first grade, yet when matched demographically, we outperformed sending a child to college today, I would refuse to pay for any today’s kids at every grade level college that had a safe space. while sitting, mind you, in what There’s something fundamentally today would be considered wrong with adults who cater to criminally overcrowded children in that sort of way, classrooms. causing them to remain children for who knows how long. Q: To what do you attribute that? Family psychologist John A: We baby boomers came to Rosemond: johnrosemond.com, school having learned to give our undivided attention to female adults parentguru.com. and do what female adults told us to do, which included an arcane thing called daily chores. John Rosemond has worked with Q: Today’s kids aren’t learning to families, children, and parents since 1971 in the field of family pay attention to women? psychology. In 1971, John earned A: Relatively speaking, absolutely his masters in psychology from not, the reason being that since the Western Illinois University and late 1960s, women have been led to was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi believe by mental health National Honor Society.
