Can I contribute to an already existing Roth IRA as I would a savings account?

I have a Roth that I contribute to all at once at the beginning of the year. In years past, I had the money taken out of my check each month and deposited directly into the Roth. So yes, you can do that. If your employer offers direct deposit, just find out the account number and routing number for your Roth and apply it. Fees will depend on the Bank holding the Roth and there is always the possibility of the Roth losing money. Generally they are a great idea. The money to post tax so you pay no tax when you pull it out at retirement.

The IRA is not tied to the job. You can continue to contribute to it.

If there are restrictions associated to whether your employed there or not, you can roll is over to a like kind account with someone else like Ameritrade. I rolled mine over to the self directed Ameritrade account. Of course it has to be earned income even though its after taxes.

Right, the Roth isn’t tied to my employer any longer, as neither am I. I guess I am further asking if this is a smart option – if there are transaction or tax fees unlike that of a regular savings – then, are there better options here where I can save long term, and in small increments, and have a larger distance from it, as opposed to an ING savings?

Roth IRAs were introduced in 1998 and created by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. They have never in any way been linked to an employer (Hence, the Individual in Individual Retirement Account). If this was at any time linked to an employer, you may be thinking of a Roth 401(k) or a regular 401(k) which are both employer sponsored plans.

Assuming you mean a Roth IRA, you can think of it as a container in which you can put investments. A Roth IRA could contain anything from a safe money market account to a mutual fund, to a risky stock; that’s entirely up to you. Most of the major investment houses have lower minimum investments if it’s in an IRA (Vanguard, Fidelidy, etc.). Some offer waived minimums if you contribute a small amount each month, as you mentioned. However, if you already have an IRA account somewhere, there is typically no fee to make any number of contributions that you would like. Just make sure you don’t exceed the maximum, which is $5000/yr if you are 49 or younger, and $6000 if you are 50 or older. The only other requirement is you can only contribute up to the amount of earned income that you have for that year. So, as long as you make more than $5000 in a year, you can contribute the whole $5000 to your Roth IRA. There are penalties for withdrawing from your Roth IRA if you have not yet reached retirement age, however there are a few exceptions.

Note carefully @reinvestor‘s last sentence. Once you put money into the Roth, you can’t take it out, unpenalized, until you are much older. The penalties can be pretty stiff if you have to take the money out sooner that whatever the age is.

So don’t put any money you want to use before you retire into a Roth or any other IRA. These are accounts designed to help people save for retirement.

Having said that, it is a good idea to put as much as you can into retirement savings. But that doesn’t mean every cent you aren’t using. You also need to keep a significant amount of money in cash for emergencies. You don’t touch the emergency money, unless you have a serious need for it.

Not if it is part of an umbrella IRA from which you are taking 72T distributions. I’m not sure otherwise. A regular IRA can accept deposits.

Read the statement you received when you opened the account. I should state the restrictions for that account.