Is It Better to Max Out My Roth IRA Up Front or Over Time?

Ramsey Everyday Millionaires

Ramsey Network

Careers, Investing, Business

4.6 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by SmartVester.
0:08.0	Connect with an investing pro near you at ramsysolutions.com slash smartvester.
0:13.8	Ryan is in Minneapolis.
0:15.3	Hey, Ryan, how are you?
0:16.5	I'm good.
0:16.9	How are you?
0:17.4	Better than I deserve.
0:18.4	What's up?
0:19.2	Thank you for taking my call.
0:20.8	Sure. My wife and I are currently in Baby Step 3, and we'll be finished with that by the end of the year.
0:27.3	We receive an annual bonus in March. It'll be roughly $15,000 take home.
0:33.1	Would it be better for us to take that 15 to fully fund our Roth IRA or to spread our contributions
0:40.7	out throughout the year and use the bonus between steps 4, 5, and 6?
0:44.9	It doesn't matter much.
0:47.8	Either one will be fine.
0:49.8	The difference mathematically is what you might earn – if you do the 15 all in a lump sum in March
0:55.0	what would you have earned in March versus one 12th of the month all the way around and so
1:02.2	you know like say the average might be what you would earn on eight or 10,000 of that 15 so it
1:09.4	might be a thousand dollars difference it might be $800 difference on a 10 or 12%
1:14.8	year. Unless we had a crystal ball, we won't know for sure what the math is on that. But in general,
1:21.0	the sooner you get money into the market, the better off you're going to be long term. Right.
1:24.9	But it's not, I mean, the difference, it's not like you're going to have
	...

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