My Retirement Blog
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How Does Your 401K Stack Up?
At the end of 2006, the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the Investment Company Institute analyzed 20 million accounts across 54,000 401(k)’s to get a nice clear picture of how people are saving, how much they’re saving, and give you a better idea of whether you’re on track (but remember you’re comparing against other people,…
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Adjusting Retirement Assets In A Bad Market
My retirement is broken up into four accounts, the first is a SEP-IRA, the second is a Roth IRA, the third is a Rollover IRA (traditional IRA whose originated funds came from a former 401k), and a 401k. Within the four, I’m basically in a mix of mutual funds with the exception of the Roth…
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Fidelity, Vanguard Easily Manage Required Minimum Distributions
After writing the article on required minimum distributions, I checked with some popular retirement brokerages and saw that many of them handle required minimum distributions quite gracefully. At Vanguard, they will: * Calculate your RMD. Each January, we’ll notify you by mail of the amount you must distribute by year-end. * Distribute your RMD, if…
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IRA Required Minimum Withdrawals
The government requires that by April 1 following the year in which you turn 70.5, you are required to being taking minimum withdrawals from your IRAs, excluding the Roth IRA. The amount you are required to withdraw is based on a calculation (use this calculator) and that value is an annual number. The example calculation…
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0% Balance Transfer To Fund Your Roth IRA?
It’s only August so you have plenty of time to do some look ahead planning but have you ever considered using a 0% balance transfer from a credit card to fund your Roth IRA? Well, if you have, rest assured that you aren’t alone but there are a few things you should be very much…
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Twentysomething’s Quick Guide to Retirement
When you start your first job, it’s overwhelming enough to have to deal with actually starting your job, you don’t really have enough mental energy to also worry about retirement – something you actually won’t do for another forty-something years. In fact, with all the acronyms and numbers and letters, it’s very easy to be…
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Free Professional Financial Advice from NAPFA
On August 17th and August 30th, you can get free financial advice from fee-only planners, courtesy of Kiplinger’s. It’ll be the sixth time Kiplinger’s has done this and they’re working with the National Association of Personal Finance Advisors (NAPFA) from 9am to 6pm, fielding calls on 888-919-2345 and emails at jumpstart@kiplinger.com. Here are more details:…
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Play It Safe With Investments As You Age
The recent stock market peaks and valleys have probably given your heart a bit of workout lately huh? This is probably especially true, the heart workout part that is, if you’re close to retirement and underscores the reason why you should try to shift your investments to less volatile vehicles as you get closer to…
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What Do You Want To Do In Retirement?
Before you can calculate how much money you’ll need while in retirement, you need to ask yourself… what do you want to do in retirement? The answer to that question will help you square away the answer to how much money you’ll need. If you plan on living the high life, traveling the world, buying…
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