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Should you raid your Roth IRA to pay off your student loans? No, I think raiding your Roth IRA for any reason is a bad decision. You only get so much Roth space in your life. Raiding the Roth IRA for anything except retirement is not a good idea because that money is compounding tax-free for years, and the longer you let it do that, the more valuable that benefit becomes. But the Roth IRA has other benefits too. It is great for estate planning. Even with the recent changes in the estate tax laws, you can still stretch a Roth IRA for 10 years after you die. So basically it can double in value before anyone has to take anything out of it. Plus you can name a beneficiary for it, so rather than having to wait for it to go through a will and go through probate and become public, it just goes straight to the beneficiary. It is also very good in almost every state for asset protection. Money in retirement accounts is generally not touchable in the event of an above policy limits judgment that isn't reduced on appeal. That is another great reason not to raid your Roth IRA, especially to pay off a loan that goes away when you die. We discuss this question of raiding your Roth IRA in more depth in this episode as well as discuss the state of this podcast in the last year including the best and worst episodes we've put out and a long rant on podcast guests and questions. Leave your comments about this episode at https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/classic-blog/ 

This podcast is sponsored by one of my favorite partner companies, Earnest https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/earnest  You can save money on your student loans by refinancing with Earnest. The cool thing about Earnest is that you can choose custom terms to fit your budget. You can pick your exact monthly payment. You can select fixed or variable rates. You can even choose your custom term. Now, obviously, the shorter your term, the lower your interest rate. They're not going to pass you off to a third party servicer. They're not going to penalize you for making any of your payments early. Plus, your family's protected with loan forgiveness in the event of your death. Similar to the federal student loan programs, but obviously with a much better interest rate. You can refinance anything from $5,000 to $500,000 which is a much wider range than most of these companies offer. So check out earnest today at www.whitecoatinvestor.com/earnest You get 500$ cash back when you refinance.