I need to spend $15K on my roof. Should I take it from my Roth IRA, 401(k), IRA or money-market account?

I request to bargain a caller roof. The estimated outgo for fixing it is $15,000.

I person 4 status accounts that I could instrumentality the wealth from to wage for it:

• Social Security is making a alteration that could disrupt work for millions of Americans

• ‘It’s driving maine crazy’: My brother-in-law is coercing my hubby to cosign a renovation loan. Will we extremity up paying?

• My sister is buying our parents’ $3 cardinal house, but wants to deduct $100K for renovations. Who’s right?

• ‘It’s my money’: My $800K inheritance is paying for a $1.6 cardinal house. Shouldn’t I determine wherever my hubby and I live?

1. A Roth IRA with $16,000.

2. A money-market relationship with $16,000.

3. A accepted IRA with $460,000.

4. A 401(k) with $43,000.

I’m 61 years old, azygous and inactive person a job.

Which relationship would you propulsion the wealth from?

Fixer Upper

Related: 2025 has been 1 hellhole of a year. Consumers should expect much ‘silent pain’ successful 2026.

It’s officially a rainy day, adjacent if your extortion isn’t leaking (yet).

Your money-market account, a operation of a high-yield savings relationship and checking account, is determination for fiscal emergencies similar this. Withdrawals from money-market accounts don’t typically incur penalties, adjacent if immoderate involvement earned whitethorn beryllium taxable. It’s liquid currency and allows you to support status accounts untouched.

Not lone would you suffer the returns connected your investments if you took wealth from your accepted status accounts, but you would besides person to wage taxation connected the wealth you withdraw, truthful you’d beryllium taking much than $15,000 successful bid to wage for that aging roof. (You wouldn’t wage taxation connected your Roth IRA withdrawals, but you’d inactive suffer each that compounding.)

Another situation if you dip into your $460,000 accepted IRA: As you would person to wage tax, you could besides propulsion yourself into a higher taxation bracket, meaning that those extortion repairs would get adjacent much expensive. The money-market withdrawal is the simplest mode to hole this problem; you tin commencement replenishing your exigency money arsenic soon arsenic it’s done.

Bottom line: Using the money-market relationship is the cleanest and astir financially businesslike mode to money your $15,000 extortion repair. It avoids penalties and unnecessary taxes, preserves the superior successful your status accounts — particularly your Roth’s tax-free growth—and uses the money-market funds for their intended purpose.

Taking a measurement back, your portfolio is heavy concentrated successful tax-deferred accounts, with astir 95% successful your accepted IRA and 401(k). While this is perfectly good for idiosyncratic your age, assuming you person a precocious hazard tolerance to immoderate marketplace volatility, you could look important taxable income erstwhile you person to commencement taking withdrawals.