My Retirement Blog

Tag: 401K

  • Class Action Lawsuit over Excessive Hidden 401K Fees

    Laura Rowley wrote an article two weeks ago discussing a pending lawsuit in which employers allowed 401k plan admins and third party providers to charge “excessive, hidden fees” in their 401k offerings. Specifically, this was was a breach of their fiduciary duty under ERISA, the Employee REtirement Income Security Act. For some cases, the admins…

  • Four Reasons Couples Should Stagger Retirement

    An important question you should ask yourself, as a couple nears retirement, is whether they should stagger retirement. It’s a topic that is worth exploring with your loved ones because there are many financial and relationship issues that accompany retirement and those can be, in part, alleviated if you opt to stagger your retirements. An…

  • Find the Cheapest Effective Funds

    Not all 401(k) programs are created equal, that’s a fact I’ve known for quite some time and one cemented after reviewing The Smartest 401(k) Book You?ll Ever Read by Daniel Solin this past weekend. While the idea that 401(k) plan administrators may pay kickbacks to companies turns your stomach, the reality is that it occurs…

  • Proposed Improved 401(k) Disclosure Laws

    Every quarter, I receive disclosure forms from my employer’s 401(k) plans. They discuss my current account balance, my gains and my losses, the fees I’m paying, and a broad look across all the funds available to me. It’s a good quarterly snapshot and one that I felt was adequate. I had online access to my…

  • New 401K Debit Card Legislation

    I’m not a big fan of 401(k) debit or credit cards because I’m not a fan of raiding your retirement accounts to pay for non-retirement expenses. I think that the retirement bucket should essentially be a lockbox (*gasp* the dreaded lockbox phrase) that you don’t touch unless you’re actually retiring. However, the cat’s been let…

  • Don’t Gamble Your Safety Net

    If you’re like me, you recently saw your retirement accounts take a pretty sizable hit. In fact, since October of last year, the markets have been down 20%. 20% puts it into bear market territory and something that probably makes you shudder to think about it (I know I do). You might be tempted to…

  • Five 401(k) Mistakes

    No matter who takes a crack at 401(k) mistakes, they invariably come up with the same advice over and over again. That’s not to say it’s not worth reading, it definitely is, but it shows that the basics of how to take advantage of a 401(k) are easy and simply bear repeating. The latest 401(k)…

  • Roth IRA: No Required Minimum Distribution

    If you have a Traditional IRA or 401(k), you are required by tax rule to start taking required minimum distributions (most of the major brokerages have tools to help you manage this) by April 1st of the year after you turn 70 1/2. One of lesser known benefits of a Roth IRA is that there…

  • Automatic 401(k) Participation

    I have no idea why 401(k) participation wasn’t automatic in the first place and why it took the Pension Protection Act of 2006 to make it possible. The benefits of the law are already being seen as Nationwide Financial Services reported that 96% of employees are now saving for their retirement versus 74% in 2006.…