Bill listened to our episode with Bill Bengen, father of the 4% rule, and he wants to know if there was a way for him to figure out how much money he should be keeping in cash.

Heather inherited an IRA but MUST empty it within ten years but she doesnt need it right now. What should she do??

Sheryl gets stock from her company, and she would usually sell itbut the stock value has decreased. And now, she isnt sure what she should do.

Julie and her husband have access to an HSA for ONE MONTH. Can they max it out before they lose access to it?

In todays episode, former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these tough questions.

Do you have a question on business, money, trade-offs, financial independence strategies, travel, or investing? Leave it here and well answer them in a future episode.

Enjoy!

Bill asks (at 2:57 minutes): I listened to your episode about the 4% rule, found it very informative.

I have one question about something he said that you didnt go into: he said that hes only 15% invested in stocks right now.

Is there a formula or a method used to determine how much to invest versus keeping cash?

Heather asks (at 9:22 minutes): Im 45 years old and I just inherited a traditional IRA with approximately $30,000 in it.

I have to take the distributions over the next 10 years to empty the account and will owe taxes on it, even though Im not retired and dont really need the money.

However, I do appreciate the gesture and want to invest the money wisely.

What type of asset allocation would you recommend for an account that has to be emptied in 10 years? If I didnt have to take distributions, I would probably put it all into an S&P 500 index fund.

Sheryl asks (at 22:02 minutes): Like many tech employees, I receive a large portion of my compensation in the form of restricted stock units. Also, like many tech companies, our tech company stock has decreased recently.

I was treating my RSUs as income and selling them immediately to either buy diversified stock or to pay for large household items. But with the recent plunge, my company has decreased a larger amount than the S&P 500.

Ive been considering whether I should hold onto this stock to see if there would be any recovery.

For context, the amount that has vested is less than 5% of my investment portfolio, and so I could think of this as my speculative portion of investments, given I dont have any other speculative type assets.

Does it ever make sense to hold on to RSUs in a portfolio? And are there any tax implications that I should be aware of?

Julie asks (at 44:36 minutes): My husband is starting a job with a new company that offers a high deductible health plan with an HSA.

We are really excited about the potential for an HSA. Weve never had one before, but we know that it is a great F.I.R.E. vehicle and we really want to max it out.

We expect that after about a month of my husband having the HSA, my company is going through a change and will be offering new full coverage insurance.

I understand that we cannot have the HSA when I have access to other full coverage insurance.

If for that month before my new benefits take place, can we max out our HSA with my husbands company? The plan would be to put all of my husbands paychecks and max out to the $7,300 limit. We wont be able to contribute to the HSA in the following months, because my husband and I will have coverage through my job.

Can I do this in a month span or do rules around the HSA apply to the entire calendar year?

We have so many changes going on that its a little bit confusing and we really, really want to maximize that HSA if we can for all of the tax advantages.

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#394: Ask Paula: Inflation is High! How Much Cash Should You Keep?! - Afford Anything