Hello podcast friends. I'm Laura Adams, your host and personal finance author,

speaker and consumer advocate who's been producing this show since 2008.

My mission here is to give you knowledge, resources, and motivation to manage your money

the best way possible and create a richer life, even in the face of the

uncertainty that we're all feeling about the current global health disaster.

I want to thank you so much for downloading the show and being a part of the

money girl community I've received so many questions from readers and

podcast listeners about how recent coronavirus legislation affects their finances.

And more importantly and specifically, their retirement accounts.

So that's what we're going to cover today.

I'll start out with several questions that I've received that you all may be wondering yourselves. Shannon B says, I read that due to COVID-19 the 10% penalty for withdrawing from retirement accounts will be waived.

I'm wondering if this includes IRAs and since I'm financially affected by the pandemic,

would you recommend that I withdraw funds from my Roth IRA,

which has $2,500 to pay bills?

I got another question from Joyce who says, is the government letting

retirees not take an RMD, which stands for required minimum distribution in 2020 due to the stock market debacle.

And Jessica T says, I'm 26 years old and started a new job this January, but I don't qualify for the 401k until I've been

employed for a year. I was planning on starting a Roth IRA and possibly an investment account, but then the market became unstable due to COVID-19.

When would be a good time to start investing in those accounts?

Thanks so much for your questions, Shannon, Joyce, and Jessica.

It's really important to understand how new legislation relaxes retirement account rules,

plus the benefits of continuing to make retirement contributions, if you can.

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