After paying off my car this week, I can't help but spend some time thinking about how I want to invest what used to be my monthly car payment. Also on the horizon is my big dividend check, which comes around the 16th of October.
I feel like my first order of business is to straighten out my Roth IRA. I started a Roth in 2002 without really knowing what I was doing. I went into the bank I was using at the time and sat with one of those financial planners at "the desks" and set the thing up. It was in in B shares of what is now the oppenhiemer main street fund (I had no clue what I was doing at the time). The exit penalty should have expired by now, so here's the plan as I see it:
Next month, go to scottrade and with the dividend check I'm getting, open a new roth IRA there. Once the account is established, roll over the oppenhiemer funds into this account. This will give me approximately $7500 dollars in the account. As I can, I will continue to put money into this account until the end of the year until I have reached my 5k contribution limit. Then, in subsequent years, do the same thing, until I get wildly rich and can no longer contribute to a roth because my MAGI is too high (I know, really wishful thinking).
As far as investing goes, my thought is to set up a ladder-like effect, first investing in extremely high yielding (and much riskier) dividend stocks, then stepping it down to lower yields (and also lower risks). I was thinking for the first investment, maybe an mREIT first (ARR has piqued my interest recently), followed by one of the telecoms, and then finally, utilities and consumer staples (think PG, JNJ).
Any thoughts? This plan is by no means set in stone.
