Craig Wear, CFP®Craig Wear, CFP® | Expert in Roth Conversions & Tax-Efficient Retirement Strategies for IRA Millionaires

The biggest Roth IRA mistake no one talks about

21 Jul 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:42

Craig Wear, CFP® warns that a common Roth IRA mistake is treating regular contributions as equivalent to investing. Simply depositing money into a Roth IRA without selecting investments leaves cash idle and prevents market growth. He gives a numeric contrast—"$280,000 after 40 years" (contributions-only) versus "around $3 million" (contributions plus investing)—and urges viewers to actively choose investments such as the S&P 500 or other index funds rather than merely funding the account.

Questions this video answers

$280,000 after 40 years.

Around $3 million.

Chapters

Here's the biggest Roth IRA mistake people make. They open an account. They deposit money every month. Then they assume they're investing. Wrong. The money just sits there doing nothing. Unless you actually choose investments, whether it's the s and P500 or some other index, it's just not going to grow. But look, here's the difference. Just contributing, say, $280,000 after 40 years versus contributing and investing could be around $3 million a year. Don't just fund your Roth IRA, invest it. Otherwise, you're just parking cash with a fancy label. And although this may seem like super obvious advice, it's amazing how many people make the mistake.