re: Roth IRA income limit

It is more complicated if you have other IRA's and that includes rollovers.

Contribute $6,000 into money market in traditional IRA.
I already have $94,000 in a Rollover IRA from a previous job.
Convert $6,000 to Roth IRA (but only 6% is eligible for backdoor).
$360 is backdoor and I owe tax on $5,640.

To answer the OP's question when you are flirting with the limit...put as much as you can into Roth until phase out then backdoor the rest (assuming you don't have other IRA's as detailed above). Your CPA can run the calculation for you. You can do as suggested and do a backdoor even if under the Roth limits (or in phase out) just make sure you don't take the deduction for the traditional IRA part that is eligible.