What’s better for you: A self-directed IRA or a solo 401(k)? This is a critical and distinctly untrivial decision… particularly if you’re investing in real estate, syndications or any type of complex transactions. I’m Bryan Ellis. I’ll tell you how to make the right choice for you right now in episode #312.

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Hello, self-directed investors, all across the fruited plane! Welcome to Self-Directed Investor Talk, the SHOW OF RECORD for savvy self-directed investors like YOU where each day, I help you to find, understand and PROFIT from exceptional alternative investment opportunities and strategies.

I, of course, am your kind, lovable host, Bryan Ellis. Today we venture into the start of a new series that I call the “Choosing The Right Tool” Series wherein you’ll see rather clearly how to choose which type of account is right for you, because the answer is truly not the same for everyone.

This, my friends, is episode #312. To hear the episode again or to read the transcript or enjoy the resources I mention on today’s show, feel free to visit SDITalk.com/312 and you’ll find it all there, available for you to freely enjoy with my complements.

Before we jump in today, I have a quick announcement that’s very exciting! Next month, July of 2019, will see the publication of Issue #1 of a brand new magazine that’s being published by yours truly. It’s called Self-Directed Investor Magazine and if you enjoy this show – and come on… come on… you know you do! – hehehe if you enjoy the Self-Directed Investor Talk podcast, you’re going to LOVE Self-Directed Investor Magazine.

Furthermore, it will be under the editorial control of my wife, Carole Ellis, so it will be GREAT. She didn’t get that job because we’re married. She’s got that job because she is the best there is for this task. She has VAST editorial experience, having been editor-in-chief for the well-respected journal called Research (published by the University of Georgia). She was also the editor in chief of Think Realty Magazine, a niche publication for individual real estate investors.   And she also had full control of my own real estate newsletter, the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter, and it’s subscribership of over 600,000 investors worldwide. Point is: Carole is a highly-regarded professional in the sphere of magazine editorial work and there’s literally no one I’d hire instead of her. I’m genuinely honored she’s decided to do this, and I know you’re going to enjoy the fruit of her effort too.

And oh… by the way… would you like a free subscription to Self-Directed Investor Magazine? I mean… totally free? Well, I’ll tell you how to do that momentarily. But first:

So which is right for you: A self-directed IRA or solo 401(k)? That’s a great and very important question, as you’ll begin to truly understand forthwith.

First, let’s define exactly what I mean. When I say “self-directed IRA” or “solo 401(k)” or even the more generic “self-directed retirement account”, I’m referring generically – unless I say otherwise – to a retirement account that has nearly no limits on the types of investments you can make. This is in contrast to the term I coined for the other type of IRA which is the “captive” retirement account. 

Captive accounts are the ones provided by your bank or your company’s 401(k) plan or your stock brokerage company.  It’s not necessarily easy to know, just based on the name of the account, whether you’re using a “captive” account or a “self-directed” account because a lot of the companies that provide captive accounts still called them “self-directed” or something similar to that. 

So if you need to know which type you’re currently using, here’s a simple and very decisive test: Call up your retirement account provider and ask them this question: Can I use the money in my retirement account to purchase a herd of dairy cattle? If the answer is “yes”, you’ve got a self-directed account. If the answer is “no”, then you have a captive account. Easy-peasy.

With that foundational question out of the way, we’ll return to the question of whether a “self-directed IRA” or a “solo 401(k)” is the better tool for you. Now, you might notice the bias from which I’m working, that being that you should definitely be using one or the other of those types of self-directed accounts.

I’d like to disabuse you of such thinking right now. In fact, not everyone needs a self-directed account. They really don’t. And if they don’t actually need these accounts, they shouldn’t use them.

Who might NOT need a self-directed IRA or solo 401(k)?

Well, if you are deeply and exclusively committed to investing only in the assets that are available to you from your current IRA or 401(k) provider, then there’s no real need for you to have a self-directed IRA or solo 401(k) at all. You’re not going to get better investment results by investing in publicly-traded stocks or mutual funds simply by performing those investments inside of a self-directed retirement account.

Also, you really need not have a self-directed account unless you have a way to get some money into that account. In general, there are two ways to get money into a retirement account.  The first one is that you set aside some money from the income you earn from your job or business. So in tax parlance, this means you must have what is called “earned income” in order to qualify to make contributions to any kind of retirement account.

The other way to get money into a retirement account is by way of TRANSFER. So let’s just imagine you have a 401(k) from a previous job or maybe an IRA that you began building years ago. If you wanted to have a self-directed retirement account, it’s quite likely you could simply transfer the money in your existing accounts – which are probably with “captive” account institutions like your bank or stock brokerage – over to a “self-directed” account so you have the ability to invest that money any way you want.

So what we have so far is: If you don’t plan to invest outside the realm of publicly-traded securities, then you don’t need a self-directed account at all. And if you want to have a self-directed account, you must have one or both of some sort of earned income and/or an existing account in order to fund your new self-directed account.

Now, unfortunately we’re out of time for today, so when we resume tomorrow, having this well-established foundation, we’ll dig deep into the question of which type of self-directed account – IRA or 401(k) – is the superior choice for YOU and YOUR needs.

Hey my friends if you have any questions you’d like for me to address, be sure to send them to [email protected] and also – about getting a free subscription to the magazine – join me for tomorrow’s episode #313 and I’ll tell you how to do that then.

In the mean time: Invest wisely today and live well forever!

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