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Andrew Tobias
Andrew Tobias

Money and Other Subjects

Flying Your IRAs to Costa Rica First Class

December 14, 2004February 28, 2017

PRICELINE GOES FIRST CLASS

If you haven’t checked it lately, you’ll see that priceline.com lets you pick specific flights (or, as before, name your own price and take your chances) . . . and now, with its ‘Advanced Search’ option on the airline page, you can:

  • Specify coach, business, or First Class
  • Specify “non-stop”
  • Specify an unrestricted ticket that can be exchanged or cancelled with no penalty
  • Search flights by specific airline and flight times

I’m not sure this will save you any money over booking directly through the airline itself or any other travel site.  I haven’t had time to play with it and compare with, say, American Airlines or Expedia.com.

But it’s a handy way, if nothing else, to get a quick idea of the airlines that fly where/when you want to go, and the prices they charge.

WHY YOU SHOULD FLY COACH ANYWAY

Georgia Wong: “It just shocks me that a chunk of Americans don’t have enough retirement money (or any).  I know at least six people who are close to retirement but aren’t ready financially at all.  One person (sixty-ish) has no money and the other five have little resources.  According to this CNN/Money article, the average Social Security check is $900/month.  Not a lot to live on, especially if you live in an expensive, metropolitan area like San Francisco.”

☞ One more reason Americans retire to Mexico or Costa Rica.

SO SET UP THOSE ROTH IRAs!

Krikor:  “I have a Roth IRA that is currently invested in the Vanguard Index 500 fund. Knowing the need to diversify, I’m thinking of putting some money into a foreign fund of some kind. I’m a bit confused about how these things work, though.  Is the Roth IRA something that I created through Vanguard, or is it the collective name for any post-tax money I invest and earmark as ‘Roth IRA?’  In other words, if I buy shares of another fund for a Roth, will they set up another IRA at that company, or will they know about my Vanguard shares?”

☞ You can have separate IRA accounts at more than one place, contributing to them as much or as little as you want, so long as all your contributions, combined, don’t exceed the overall contribution limit each year.  (Note that even if you’re married and filing jointly, an IRA belongs to an individual, not a couple; so if each of you contributes to the max, you can stash away double the money.)

CHEAP AT HALF THE PRICE

Les Rosenbaum: “I ordered 10 copies of your new book to give as presents.  I found them for $9.83 each, no shipping charge, at Textbookx.com.”

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