{"id":24035,"date":"2025-07-26T17:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T17:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/24035\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T17:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T17:12:12","slug":"where-should-i-put-my-money-after-withdrawing-it-from-my-ira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/24035\/","title":{"rendered":"Where should I put my money after withdrawing it from my IRA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alongside WBEZ, we\u2019re gathering your questions about all things money and finances. Then, each week, we bring you answers from the people who know best. <\/p>\n

Linda, 70, from Oak Forest asked about what to do with her retirement funds. She said: <\/p>\n

\u201cIn October 2025, my IRA will be free of early withdrawal penalties. I had $50,000 in there for 10 years and only earned $13,000. I felt I was used by my financial adviser and do not want him to advise me of what to do with the money now. But I don\u2019t know what I want to do with it. CD ladders? High interest savings account? I also see online names of banks I\u2019ve never heard of. How do I tell if they\u2019re legit?\u201d<\/p>\n

Early withdrawal penalties<\/p>\n

Sarah Brady, personal finance writer and Sun-Times contributor, said if you\u2019re under 59 1\/2 and you pull money out of a traditional individual retirement account, you can face an early withdrawal penalty. Typically, it\u2019s a 10% penalty tax. <\/p>\n

Since Linda is 70, she\u2019s closer to the required minimum distribution milestone. For many types of retirement accounts, you\u2019re required to start taking distributions at 73.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you are in that safe window, where you\u2019re of the age where you can make a withdraw without penalties, you do still want to be aware that the withdraw can be taxable,\u201d Brady said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Personal finance writer Sarah Brady<\/p>\n

Check with your financial adviser<\/p>\n

Earning $13,000 in 10 years appears to be low, Brady said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve been getting an average annual return that\u2019s just over 2%, which is indeed low,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m going to go ahead and make a guess that your adviser has probably put your investments into really low risk assets. So your portfolio is probably built up with things like money market accounts, let\u2019s say, treasury bonds, CDs \u2014 investments that are really low risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said if your return appears low, it could be worth talking with your adviser as well as asking about their fee structure. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re concerned about misconduct, I would contact the firm and let them know,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you have issues with the firm in general, you might want to think about reaching out to FINRA at finra.org to file a complaint.\u201d <\/p>\n

Deciding where to put the cash<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re withdrawing retirement funds for day-to-day spending, it\u2019s best to deposit the cash into a checking account for quick access. <\/p>\n

Brady said if you don\u2019t have emergency savings, she highly recommends putting at least three months worth of your regular expenses into a bank account with a high return, like a high yield savings account.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say you want to save up money for a trip in six months or you won\u2019t need to spend it for a couple years. Then \u201clow risk investments, where you are going to have a guaranteed rate of return\u201d are worth considering such as CDs and treasury bonds, she said. \u201cThose are great things to look at, where you don\u2019t have to worry about losing money, but right now, you could potentially lock in a rate of 4% or higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re seeing banks online that you don\u2019t recognize, one thing you can do to check if they\u2019re legitimate is to visit the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s website, fdic.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a great tool called the BankFind Suite<\/a>,\u201d Brady said. \u201cYou can plug in the name of any bank that you\u2019re interested in doing business with and check to see if they have FDIC insurance and [if] they\u2019re actively in business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have a financial question you want answered by an expert? Leave us a voicemail at 312-321-2122<\/a> or email us at moneyquestions@suntimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alongside WBEZ, we\u2019re gathering your questions about all things money and finances. Then, each week, we bring you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-24035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}