<-- I'm with Doofus

I've already confessed this on a personal finance site I frequent, but figured I needed to here as well:

Well, I did something pretty stupid. Remember that Roth IRA I opened? Well, it turns out I'm ineligible for it. Depending on how you file and--if filing married/jointly--how much you and your spouse make combined, you may be ineligible for a Roth. I remember reading that a while back, but I'd forgotten. Also I didn't know for certain how much my husband was making these days. It turns out--and this is a little depressing--he makes four times what I do, and because of how we file, I am ineligible for a Roth, my paltry salary notwithstanding.

Upon realizing my mistake, I said to my husband, "Guess I get to blog about what a dummy I am!" To be honest, though, I'm a little relieved. I jumped into it without checking it out fully, and I wasn't maxing out my 403b. I think I just liked the idea of having a little batch of tax-free money waiting for me when I retire. Maybe the tax laws will change, or maybe we'll find that we should change how we file anyway for other reasons. I think I'll look into the latter, though I have my doubts we'll do anything differently.

Anyway, I called ING and told them what I'd done. Apparently it happens all the time, which made me feel better. I'm getting the money moved to my savings account. Sadly, however, my Roth account had gone down $10.00. Feh! Lesson learned: No more jumping into things I don't understand!