Posts tagged ‘Retirement Funds’

Target retirement funds are mutual funds that do it all for you … one stop shopping. You tell them when you plan to retire, and they manage your money in a diversified investment portfolio that gets more conservative as your retirement date approaches. Once you retire, your money is managed conservatively for you.

That’s their story, and unfortunately they are sticking with it. I suggest you look before you leap. Your idea of conservative might differ from theirs. For example, let’s say that you plan to retire in 5 to 10 years. What percent of your retirement nest egg do you want at risk in the stock market? Or, if you plan to retire in 30 years, what’s your comfort level with owning stocks? How about when you are already retired? Continue reading ‘Target Retirement Funds – Look Before You Leap!’ »

You can take charge of the life that you will live even way beyond your productive years. It is, in fact, more important for you to make sure that you have an alternative income source when the time comes when you are no longer physically capable of earning an income. Setting up a retirement fund either by yourself or with the help of a retirement planning consultant would be the best thing that you can do today to prepare for your retirement. If you are employed in a company that has a good 401k program, this is one of the best tools that you can take advantage of especially if your employer has a matching contribution and if the 401k is well-founded on good investment principles. Other types of retirement funding tools would include your Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and individual investment instruments that you can put together in your own portfolio specifically to address your retirement income needs.

Retirement funds are best dealt with early on in your life. The earlier your start saving and investing for your retirement, the better it is for you. There is no way to guarantee how much you can get out of your 401k. There are, however, ways by which you could make projections or estimates as to the accumulation of your retirement funds. Some employees are allowed to make additional contributions to the amount of 401k contributions that they have elected to make on a regular basis, subject of course to certain eligibility requirements. The good thing about using 401k as your source of retirement income is that you cannot touch it for your short-term and medium-term cash needs. There are only a few scenarios that allow for the disbursement of a partial or a full withdrawal of the 401k fund before retirement. 401k disbursements are slapped with penalties for early withdrawals. Continue reading ‘Retirement Funds – Getting Ready For Retirement’ »

The question on many people’s minds these days is how to recover their lost retirement funds. It’s happened to all of us-we invested our hard earned money only to watch the financial system plummet and our investments wither away. Even the low risk accounts are dwindling, making it hard to believe that we will have enough to retire on, much less meet our other financial goals.

Fortunately, there are some smart tips, that can help you rebuild your accounts and get back onto firm financial footing. Continue reading ‘How to Recover Lost Retirement Funds’ »