My Retirement Blog
-
Money 70: Best Active Mutual Funds for 2007
While most people agree that the best bang for your buck comes from index funds, sometimes you want to roll the dice a little and see if that hot shot mutual fund manager can get you a little better return than the market. Even though index funds are the best value, putting all your funds…
-
Are You Saving Enough For Retirement?
Kiplinger’s has a great little retirement calculator that will calculate whether or not you’re prepared for retirement give you and your spouse’s (if you have one) current financial situation. While no calculator is perfect and no calculator can predict the future, it’s very important for everyone to at least have the confidence that they’re headed…
-
Roth 401k vs. Regular 401k
The Roth 401k was made permanent with the passing of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 last year, though it has been around since 2001, and it does for 401k plans what the Roth IRA did for Traditional IRA plans – it created a vehicle for folks to save after-tax dollars and allow it to…
-
Helping Your Children Save for Retirement
If you have kids that have earned some income this year and quickly spent it on an XBox 360 or the new Nintendo Wii, you have an opportunity to help them along in their retirement by giving them a gift and having them put that amount towards their Roth IRA. You’re allowed to give anyone…
-
Roth IRA or Traditional IRA?
Remember back when you were a child and your parents said you couldn’t do something and it made you really really want to do it? Well, that’s how many people approach the Roth IRA because after you start making more than $95,000 the amount you can contribute to a Roth decreases. Once you earn more…
-
401k Revenue Sharing Controversy
There are two big points in a recent article in Kiplinger.com on the topic of hidden 401k fees. The first is the issue of “revenue sharing” between a 401k fund choice and the 401k’s plan administrators. Apparently what happens is that large investment companies are essentially offering a “kickback” to a plan administrator if they…
-
Close To Roth IRA Contribution Phaseout
This year will mark the first time I’ve ever been remotely close to the Roth IRA income phaseout (which happens to be $95k – $110k) and in the past I have always tried to contribute to my Roth in a lump sum at the beginning of the year in order to get my money in…
-
Do Your Part, Use Direct Deposit
I was reading an article on Yahoo Finance that explained how 25% of baby boomers didn’t use direct deposit for salary and other regular payment deposits. The article then supposes that if the 150 million benefit checks cut by the Treasury Department were converted to direct deposits, it would save us all a cool $120…
-
10 Retirement Resolutions: Keep Your Other Resolutions Too
US News and World Report had a little piece where they discussed some good New Year’s resolutions related to retirement and I thought that I’d put each of them through their paces. The tenth and final retirement resolution was to stick to your other (non-financial) resolutions too. It can’t hurt to eat right and exercise–and…
Got any book recommendations?