Caught myself double saving for retirement for 4 years before I noticed

I was putting 12% into my 401k at work and also stuffing $300 a month into a Roth IRA. Turns out my wife was doing the exact same thing on her end with a separate account she thought was our joint one. We only caught it when I asked our CPA Tom for a tax review after filing in Chicago last spring. Has anyone else ended up with duplicate accounts by accident or am I the only one who missed this for 48 months?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordanblack2h ago

Dang, is it really that big of a deal though? You had too much money going into retirement accounts for a few years. That's like complaining your car is too clean. Plus, you caught it before it actually hurt anything, right? I mean, those RMDs everyone panics about only matter if you have a fortune saved up, and most of us aren't exactly in that boat. Seems like a good problem to have, honestly.

the_xena1h ago

Right, complaining about too much retirement savings is like complaining your fridge is too full of steak lol. But honestly, I'd probably panic and start buying gold coins or something stupid if I ended up with a surprise pile of cash like that. At least you caught it before RMDs could turn into a real headache, that's the real win. Plus now you get to pretend you're a financial genius who planned it all along. Pure luck if you ask me, but I'd take that kind of luck any day.

carter.casey4h ago

Double saving actually isn't the worst problem in the world since you're both now sitting on way more retirement cash than you planned for. At least you caught it before retirement age and can funnel that extra money into a joint taxable account instead of dealing with RMDs hitting harder later. Between the market returns on those extra contributions and the tax breaks you got, this mistake probably netted you a solid chunk of change.