Thoughts and prayers go out to all of the victims (and their families and friends) of the shooting in Aurora, […]

I know the title sounds like I'm about to sell you some snake oil, but bear with me for a second here. Some bloggers have discussed the inherent unfairness of the Roth IRA's contributions - namely, being capped at $125,000 for a single filer and $183,000 for a joint filer in 2012. Other have discussed the backdoor IRA - building on a 2010 rule change which allowed people of any income to convert IRAs (and other eligible accounts) to Roth IRAs. We're going to bypass both of those and talk about how you can contribute over $30,000 to your Roth IRA - with the only requirement being that you have access to a 401(k) with certain features. Read on...

In a case of great timing, DQYDJ's article guessing how Mitt Romney has so much money in his IRA is now the third most popular article on the site! While I hold no belief that this situation will continue past November of this year, I think that, in the moment, it's interesting to ask how a retail investor (read: the rest of us) might have fared had we contributed as much as the Romney family must have during Mitt's 24 year stint in the public sector (whew). So, how much out-performance did Mr. Romney achieve?

Welcome Len Penzo Readers!

It's a person and a site. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here.

In the pilot episode of NBC's self-referential 30 Rock, the new boss accurately stereotypes a member of middle management after meeting her just thirty seconds before.
Parody? Undoubtedly. Is it a thing? Yes, it's a thing.

So we've got a nifty new political status indicator to roll out to you next week. It's actually a bit early to know anything with any decent amounts of certainty about the upcoming elections in the old USA, but I want to have this in place soon. Oh, expect more political articles when the race heats up. Make sure to complain loudly in the comments section!

Once again I dropped the ball and neglected to give you folks a post on option contract divined predictions over the next few months (and years). Operating from the school of better late than never, I've gone numbers as of last Friday, 6/29/2012, when the S&P 500 closed at 1362.16. I neglected it right on into July, from the publishing date - but I'll attempt to get July numbers at the proper time (options expiration day is on the 20th).

It's just two more days until our voice comes back over the air (wires?) in the newly re-branded Two Guys & Your Money. So, get your eardrums ready for TG&YM and my "hot voice" - and Joe posting the Fractional Sense archives up in a few days. Stay tuned!

Life insurance isn't really a topic we've touched too often here on Don't Quit Your Day Job, but since the majority of our readership has at least considered the various forms of life insurance on their quest for financial independence (or at least financial sanity?), let's dedicate some digital ink to the topic, shall we?

Remember this post we wrote as a reaction to a prompt on our (at the time) current spending and saving? We wanted to revisit the topic with the whole of year 2011 in the books - and some solid numbers.