Oregon Saves Roth IRA

Budgeting
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Any Oregonians qualify for/use the Oregon Saves Roth IRA program?

I got a letter this week saying I qualify for the Oregon Saves program through one of the theaters I semi-regularly work for and am unsure if I want to opt out or not. The automatic withdrawal starts at 5% and will gradually scale up to 10%. Does it make sense to let this happen or just take it as an incentive to up my contributions somewhere else? This is not a constant paycheck, but about 8-9 weeks at a time with a few weeks’ gap between shows and 5% would shake out to be about $20/week.

Current retirement savings details:
$200/month into an Edward Jones roth IRA, worth about $15k
Traditional IRA rolled over from an old work 401k, worth about $13k
Union pension - the theaters I work for contribute 8% of my weekly paycheck, in the $1k-ish range as of December

…as I write this out, I think it makes more sense to just increase my contributions to my existing roth IRA. Am I missing something here? Thoughts or experiences with the Oregon Saves program?

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Hi @krmit - the Oregon Saves roth IRA doesn’t have a lot of advantages if you’re already using a roth IRA - though I’d check the expense ratio (the amount you pay to invest in it - ideal is below .25%) on the Edward Jones one. The Oregon Saves has a pretty high expense ratio (1%) or so. It’s also important to make sure you’re not over contributing (more than $6,000 a year) between the two accounts because the limit still applies for all accounts.

But yea, you’re best off not adding an account that comes with the same benefits as your current roth IRA and just upping your current contribution if you can make it work.

If you really want to dive into it, we made an episode about it ages ago:

2 Likes
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Thank you! I’ll give it a listen.