Sean Pyles

So if she diligently did that over the next 15 years, she would have about $1.78 million.

Not bad.

If Denise only contributed the max of $24,500, she'd have about $1.58 million.

Still not a bad amount of money, but it's a $200,000 difference roughly.

So if you want to play with some of these numbers yourself, check out NerdWallet's investment calculator.

We will link to that in the show description.

Although if your income is too high to contribute to a Roth IRA, you could explore a backdoor Roth IRA.

That's a strategy where you contribute non-deductible funds into a traditional IRA and then convert them to a Roth.

There's often a tax bill involved, so just be prepared for that.

But you could potentially put $8,600 of non-deductible dollars into a traditional IRA that includes the standard limit and the catch-up too, then convert that to a Roth.

But beware of the pro rata rule.

We won't go too far down this rabbit hole because it's really technical, but you could potentially be on the hook for even more in taxes or a tax bill that you just weren't expecting if you didn't look into this rule beforehand.

I think it's a great way for the government to get their taxes now instead of later.

We can talk about that another time.

But I think this all goes to show that the priority here wasn't maybe giving people an option to save as much as they could for retirement.

It was really about the government getting their money now versus later.

That's all we have for this episode.

Remember, listener, that we're here to answer your money questions.

So turn to the nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373.

That's 901-730-NERD.