Can one contribute to both 401(K) and Roth IRA

Background

Year 2018. I'm a Full Time Employee. I have maximum contribution of $18,500.00 towards my Employer provided 401(K) for year 2018. Can I still contribute $5,500.00 to my Roth IRA?

Yes.

What I have found out is yes as long one meets IRS criteria. But, you need to be careful when both are working because generally, your Modified AGI will surpass $200,000.00

Suggestion

Wait for year end and see if you still qualify with respect to Modified AGI of $189,000. I would invest my money in a stable stock/bond/saving etc. and transfer into IRA at the end of the year.

Facts

• 2018 401(K) contribution limit for  is $18,500.00
• 2018 Roth IRA contribution limit is $5,500.00 (conditions apply)
• One can contribute to both 401(K) and IRA (conditions apply)

Roth IRA Contribution constraint

If your filing status is...	And your modified AGI is...	Then you can contribute...
married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er)	< $189,000	up to the limit
	> $189,000 but < $199,000	a reduced amount
	> $199,000	zero
married filing separately and you lived with your spouse at any time during the year	< $10,000	a reduced amount
	> $10,000	zero
single, head of household, or married filing separately and you did not live with your spouse at any time during the year	< $120,000	up to the limit
	> $120,000 but < $135,000	a reduced amount
	> $135,000	zero

Amount of Roth IRA Contributions That You Can Make for 2018

FAQ

Question: Can I contribute to Roth IRA, if I'm contributing to Employer provided Retirement Plan?

Answer: Yes. IRS clearly states this here, considering one meets the criteria.

References

• modified AGI
• Retirement Topics - IRA Contribution Limits
• Deferral limits for 401(k) plans
• Can I contribute to a traditional or Roth IRA if I’m covered by a retirement plan at work?

Epilogue

Questions and comments are welcome, so that we can improve on this concepts and anyone can use it.

Texas Vehicle Registration Renewal

I was new to Texas and took me a while to know that it is so simple to do Vehicle Registration renewal online.

Have your Vehicle information and other personal details ready before you start the process following below link. Make sure it has your current mailing address, so that you can receive your renewal notice on time. You could renew much before the expiration date.

http://www.txdmv.gov/motorists/register-your-vehicle

It takes around 2-3 weeks for new Registration sticker to arrive.

Protecting Dahlia Plant from Insects/Slugs

Recently I bought Dahlia bulbs from Costco and planted them in my front yard during beginning of Spring season. Everything went smoothly and I could see germination successfully within 2-3 weeks. On closer look, I found that some insect or bug is eating all the plant leafs.

First Attempt (03/25/2015)

I tried two or three pest control but I could hardly see any improvement. I did some research on the web and found this site to be very useful. Now, I suspect it is Slug rather than insects.

Second Attempt (04/03/2015)

Today I'm going to buy some Slug control from Home Depot and apply it to those plants.

Review 08/18/2015

Now we are into peak summer and Dahlia season has long gone. The final review is that, the Slug control which we got from Home Depot was great. I had to apply it three times during the season. I mean almost every 4th week, otherwise Slug would come again. I do many much left of Slug Control which will be used next year.

Feedback on Dahlia

Next year, definitely, I am not going to put the Dahlia bulb. But, I think it would grow on its own now, because it's bulb is already placed in the ground and I have not removed the plant's root beneath the soil. Dahlia requires lot of maintenance. Also, its shoot is very weak and it breaks down pretty easily. 30-40 % of my flower bloomed on broken upside down shoot. Dahlia looks beautiful and it remains for couple of days. But, if you can maintain it, it is a beautiful flower to have in your garden.

Creating Pathway in Backyard Entryway

In my backyard entryway, I could hardly find any grass throughout the year. The obvious reason is that it is a high traffic area. Other than removing trash, I use this pathway many time for casually walking around, sometimes friends come in through this door. So, for me this backyard door is kind of second entryway.

Problems

1. This pathway doesn't have much grass
2. It is always muddy because of sprinkler system
3. During heavy rain, it is almost like walking on a black mud
4. It becomes slippery
5. When grass gets bigger, it feels scary to walk on the grass
6. I want to see where I'm stepping on rather rather than blindly putting my steps on the thick grass
7. It doesn't look good

Solution Approach

1. Low Cost
2. Elegant Looking
3. Grass should still grow to its thickness
4. Avoid mud sticking to my feet/shoes
5. Avoid sensation of dirt while I pass through barefoot
6. Avoid unconscious feeling that I'm stepping on already damaged grasses

Items to Buy

1. 11 7/8 in. x 11 7/8 in. Red Concrete Step Stone

I found this Red Concrete Step Stone (11 7/8 in. x 11 7/8 in. Red Concrete Step Stone) in Home Depot. It required some planning ahead for placement, design and number of tiles. I just put these stones on the ground without any additional support or digging. I do remember that, it took about 3-4 months to settle the stone firmly in the ground before it was not shaky at all. If you want a firm fix from beginning I would suggest digging and removing grass underneath before placing these stones. In First month, I could remember that I had to shift these stone little bit, whenever I took some heaver item rolling over it because it used to shift on the ground. But now, it is firmly settled and surrounded by thick green grass. It has settled lower enough inside the ground to a limit that I could take my Lawn Mower over it to cut the grass, which I was not able to do initially.

References

[1] http://www.diynetwork.com, 26 Design Ideas for Beautiful Garden Paths, http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/outdoors/structures/26-design-ideas-for-beautiful-garden-paths-pictures

Changing the Tube of a Tire in a Kids Bike

There are many blogs on how to change the tube of a tire in a kids bike. You could see few reference videos, I have listed in the reference section. On top of that, I would like to share my experience along with the roadblock, which is very important to know in advance. All in all, it is an easy job to do.

At the first glance, the very thought, while looking at the flat tire, to change the tire myself made me little uncomfortable and unconfident. When I watched few how-to videos, I got little ease in confidence. The first thing I did was to create a list of items I would need. My son's bike is about 2-3 years old, so making sure not to buy too expensive parts.

Start of the Project

It was quite intuitive to open the screws fitted in back-tire and start unfolding the bike. In past it had happened that I opened few things but was unable to assemble it back, so I always keep tag on what goes where. This one was not that difficult, though.

Tasks where I had to really struggle

When I started putting the new tube back in the tire, I literally failed in the first attempt and broke the tube. In video, it was quite easy to put the new tube back in the tire, but I was not able to do that. I called off the day and started thinking about it. Did I miss any tool to use? Am I doing it right way? Is it really that tough, what in video looks so simple? I was determined to find it. There was no chance that I would have taken this bike to a bike shop for repair because this bike is less than $40-$50 bucks in value. I started observing the bike tire whenever I got time. After two days, while I was casually observing what went wrong, I found that I was trying to insert the tube in the tire from the wrong side. Once I realized the mistake I did, on the second try, it hardly took 2 minutes to insert the tube in the tire, which took me more than 30 min of try before I broke the tube, the previous day. Anyway, learned something new.

Other than this challenge, unscrewing back-tire and screwing it back again is not that of difficult part. Just be ready that your hand will get messed up with black grease from the axle of tire. So, now that I know the process, it would hardly take me 45-60 min to change the tube.

List of Tools

1. Tube [$5] (Mandatory, if you don't want to fix the old one.) Check the tire size mentioned on the tire to get the right size tube. You could also get puncture resistance tube.
2. Tire Lever [$5] (Mandatory)
3. Crescent/Adjustable Wrench [$15] (Mandatory)
4. Wrench (auto rotating) [$10] (Mandatory)
5. Flat Head screw driver [$5] (Mandatory)
6. Hammer [$12] (Mandatory)
7. Tire (Optional) - If you want to change, but not recommended
8. Lubrication (Optional) - After you are done the fix
9. Pair of Plier (Optional)

References

Cloud Experience with Home Printer with Epson WF-3640

Epson WF-3640 Printer

Just bought a new Epson WF-3640 Printer from Costco for about $100 bucks, after my old HP MX 890 horrible printer stopped working. Still discovering Epson WF-3640 Printer's features. After using for few days, I am quite impress with the quality, speed and features it provides. Especially, its Cloud Print and Scan capability is at par with what we have at work. At a high level, other than traditional wired features, it provides Email Print, iPrint through Mobile device, Scan to Cloud and Remote Print. All these features enhances the user experience to an another level where it let's you synch with other Cloud Services we use in our day to day life. My favorite, which I would use the most, is Email Print, Remote Print and Scan To Cloud services.

Overall, I would recommend this small, inexpensive printer for personal use. It is great if you would want to upgrade or want to have a better printing and scanning experience.

I have had two HP Printer (MX 89X series) from last six or seven years. The first one broke. Got another HP Printer two years back and it broke again. Horrible quality. On top of that, it was a printer with an experience of just get the work done somehow. We had to struggle a lot with its driver, Wi-Fi, wireless printing, paper feed, scanner, and what not. But, let's just say it was a piece of crap and work just got done.

Installation and Setup

Just like any other good product, installation of this printer was a breeze. I was able to print and scan through wired connection to my laptop within 30-45 min or so. I was able to connect this printer to my Wi-Fi but could not get up and running with Epson Connect Service. I had to call their support and it was a quick 20 min call to resolve the issue.

What was the problem: In order to avail Epson Connect service you would have to register at https://www.epsonconnect.com. I downloaded the driver but could not get through the registration process because it was not able to detect my printer. Technically, my laptop and Printer is connected to the same Wi-Fi. So, you could connect to printer using its IP Address http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, which you could obtain from its setup menu, through a browser. The registration program does the same thing behind the scene. The problem was that I did not realize that I was on VPN and because of that my machine was not in the same network as Printer. I was able to realize this when I tried the printer IP from my other home laptop. Accessing printer through its IP Address simplifies registration and many other admin processes. Once you reach to admin console of the printer you could do all sorts of settings and configuration directly from there. Here are the list of services and their description on how to.

Email Print

After successful registration, my printer was automatically assigned an email id within epsonconnect.com domain. Later I reconfigured this email Id after logging into https://www.epsonconnect.com to my own convenient emailId. My new email Id looked something like meaningfulname@print.epsonconnect.com. I test fired few print through this service and it worked really great. My wife tried this from work and it worked. I could not find any latency in this service. To make this service more secure, I blocked this service to a selected email address, so that it will print only if the print request is coming from the listed email a/c. I created a docx file and sent and email with this file attached and empty email body. Within 30 sec I got a response that either email body is empty, file is not attached or attached file is not supported. On further investigation I found following limitation or guideline of email service. I tried this couple of time from my office email Id but it did not work. When I tried my gmail account, it worked fine. [ToDo: There is some setting or something that print request sent through exchange email, for me, doesn't work.]

Note the following when sending an email.[1]

You can enter up to 100 printer's email addresses.

Cannot print with specifying a printer's email address in the Bcc field.

You can attach 10 files.

You can attach files up to a total of 20 MB including the body of the email.

The following file types are supported.

Word (doc, docx), Excel (xls, xlsx), PowerPoint (ppt, pptx), PDF, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIFF

Except for the body of the email, text files (plain text) cannot be printed.

Zip compressed files cannot be printed.

Short Message Services (SMS) unique to mobile phone providers are not supported.

Scan To Cloud

Scan to cloud activation took no time. Once I was registered at http://www.epsonconnect.com, I just had to follow few simple steps to link my Google Drive and Email account where I would receive my scanned document. Scanned to two different location, one for Google Drive and another for email, and both worked like charm. Response time was as if my Printer was connected to my laptop.

Epson iPrint App

Printing through iPhone app was another quick setup. It took hardly 5-10 min downloading the iOS App and setting up the printer. You want to make sure, your phone is on the same Wi-Fi on which Printer is connected.

Google Cloud Print Services

You can enable this service after accessing the connected printer at http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. (check your printer configuration to get this IP Address).

All of the following setup were done easily. I would need more time to investigate the nitty gritty details of these services and which one would be best suited to me.

Remote Print Driver

AirPrint Setup

Wi-Fi Direct Setup

References

[1] Epson, Email Print, https://www.epsonconnect.com/guide/en/html/uses_1.htm

Best practices for Outlook for Mac 2011

Best practices for Outlook for Mac 2011