If you believe in the Roth, why are you still feeding the IRA?

Stop adding to the problem.

Think of your savings as three buckets: taxable (your bank and brokerage accounts), tax-deferred (your 401(k) and traditional IRA) and tax-free (your Roth). Most people I meet in their fifties have nearly everything in the tax-deferred bucket, because that's what the 401(k) enrollment form defaulted to thirty years ago.

That bucket has a tax bill built into it. Every pre-tax dollar you add, and every dollar it grows, is taxed when it comes out, on the IRS's schedule once required withdrawals begin. If your plan is to spend your gap years converting that bucket to a Roth, every new pre-tax dollar you put in today is one more dollar you'll have to convert later.

And waiting has a cost of its own: years of growth that could have happened inside the Roth, where qualified withdrawals are tax-free, happen instead inside the account you're trying to shrink.

Three ways to start while you're still working.

1. Switch your contributions to the Roth side.

Most 401(k) and 403(b) plans now have a Roth option. Same plan, same investments, same limit. The only difference is when you pay the tax. Pre-tax gets you a deduction now and a tax bill later. Roth gets you no deduction now and, if you follow the rules, no tax later on the contributions or the growth.

Yes, your take-home pay goes down a little, because you're no longer getting the deduction. But you're working. You have a paycheck to absorb it, and this is usually the easiest time in your life to pay that tax. You don't have to go all in, either. Plenty of people split their contributions between the two.

And for higher earners over 50, the choice is partly being made for you: starting in 2026, catch-up contributions for people whose prior-year wages were above a threshold have to go in as Roth anyway. That rule covers the catch-up only, not everything else you contribute.

2. Add Roth IRA contributions if you can.

If your income is under the IRS limit, you and your spouse can each contribute to a Roth IRA, even if one of you isn't working, as long as you file jointly and have enough earned income between you. It's a smaller amount than a 401(k), but every dollar of growth on it can come out tax-free.

There's a quieter benefit, too. The five-year clock for tax-free Roth growth starts on January 1 of the year you first put money into any Roth IRA. Getting that clock running while you're working means it's long finished by the time you need it. A Roth 401(k) has its own clock; it doesn't start the Roth IRA's.

If your income is too high, a "backdoor" Roth, a non-deductible IRA contribution that's then converted, may be an option. It doesn't work cleanly if you already have money in a traditional IRA, so check that before you try it.

3. Start converting a little before the gap years.

You don't have to wait for your last paycheck to do a first conversion. In some working years there's room left at the top of your current bracket. A year with a smaller bonus, a spouse who has already retired, or a few months of retirement in the year you leave all create room. A modest conversion can fill that room without moving you up a bracket.

The bigger conversions still usually belong in the gap years, when the rate is lower. But starting small gets money into the tax-free bucket sooner, and gives it more years to grow there.

Put the right things in the Roth.

How much you move matters. What you move matters just as much.

Qualified Roth withdrawals, growth included, are tax-free, so in the plans I build, the longest-term, most growth-oriented investments go there. Bonds and other steadier assets can sit in the tax-deferred bucket, where slower growth means a smaller tax bill waiting at the end. That's the opposite of what one blended fund in every account does, and I explain why in One fund got you here. Spending it takes a plan.

When pre-tax still makes sense.

I believe in the Roth, but this isn't all-or-nothing, and I wouldn't tell you it's right for everyone. Pre-tax contributions may still be the better choice if:

• you're in one of your highest-earning years, in a bracket you're confident you'll never see again in retirement;
• you need the take-home pay right now, and losing the deduction would mean saving less overall;
• you expect to move to a state with no income tax in retirement; or
• you plan to leave most of your IRA to charity.

For most people the answer lands somewhere in between: some pre-tax, some Roth, and a plan for which bucket gets spent when. That flexibility, having money in all three buckets before you retire, is the real goal.