“Attention, employers. This is Denise. She’s just entering the working world, but she’s already concerned about retirement. She knows that traditional defined benefit pensions covered 84.4% of workers in 1979 but only covered 27.7% as of 2015 – and the share probably hasn’t been increasing.
She expects you to offer a 401(k) or similar defined
IRA
MoneyTips Not as Much as It Seems How is your 401(k) doing? Fidelity Investment’s Q1 2019 retirement analysis shows that many retirement funds are following a positive trend. Ten years after the Dow Jones hit its lowest mark in the financial crisis, retirement balances have more than doubled in 401(k), IRA, and 403(b) accounts. Average
You’ve kept your will updated regularly to make sure your assets are distributed according to your wishes upon death. Have you done the same thing with your beneficiary designations? If not, your wishes may not be carried out as you expect.
A will covers the destination of most assets upon your death. However, assets that
For millennials who are just stepping into their workaday world, planning for retirement is definitely not something they seem to have on their mind. However, as Social Security benefits are sure to scale back over the next two decades, retirement planning has become a must for every millennial who wants to maintain the same standard
Retirement has finally arrived. You’re ready to start drawing on your retirement income sources. Enjoy this new phase of your life.
Unfortunately, you haven’t been able to retire from taxes – and your taxes will enter a new phase as well. You don’t have an employer to hold out taxes on your salary anymore. You’re
Does your IRA or 401(k) contain mostly actively managed funds or index funds? Do you know the difference between those two funds? Do you even know what’s in your IRA or 401(k) at all? If any of those three questions give you pause, it’s probably time to review your retirement account and think about whether
How’s your 401(k) or IRA doing? A typical 401(k) plan returns from 5% to 8% based on a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds and other conservative investments. If your retirement plan is not meeting expectations, you may be tempted by the high returns of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin – but should you be wary
America’s collective readiness for retirement is improving, according to Fidelity’s latest Retirement Savings Assessment study. The study distills America’s retirement readiness into a single score representing the percentage of estimated retirement income that the average saver will require.
According to the current study, America’s combined retirement score is 80 – meaning that the average American
How many times in life do you have to worry about removing too little money from a financial account? Before retirement, there are few such concerns – but, for most retirement plans, once you reach age 70½, you must take a required minimum distribution (RMD) every year from your plan. (Roth IRAs are excluded –
Should you invest in a Roth IRA instead of a traditional IRA? If you have earned income for the year, your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is less than $135,000 as a single filer and $199,000 for married filing jointly, a Roth IRA is a valid option for you.
If your MAGI is less than
Contributing to a retirement account can be difficult for lower income households, but one can argue that it is even more important for those families to take advantage of all the retirement savings options that are possible. One of the lesser-known options applies directly to lower-income families – the credit for qualified retirement savings contributions,
How can you retire with $1 million in assets? It’s easy… if you start with $3 million! All kidding aside, the best answer is to make a plan that achieves the savings necessary to get to $1 million. We can help you formulate that plan using the following seven tips.
1. Make Saving and Budgeting
When it comes to saving money for retirement, Americans have a wide range of different options from which to choose. This can be both good news and bad news: It’s good in the sense that having multiple options makes it easier to select the one that’s best for your retirement savings goals and resources. But
If you work in the private sector, you likely have access to a 401(k) plan that allows you to put aside a portion of your paycheck toward a tax-deferred retirement account. However, government and certain non-profit employees have alternative investment opportunities that are unavailable to the general public.
The alternatives for government employees are known
Do you know how much you pay in fees for the handling and management of your investments? If not, how do you know you are getting the best value for your money?
Fees cut into retirement savings more than most people realize, because they are essentially compounded along with your earnings. The Securities and Exchange
It may be impossible to know exactly how much money you need to save for retirement, but it’s a safe bet that if you have little or no retirement savings at all, you are going to have difficulties in your post-working years. Too many Americans currently fit this profile.
According to the Economic Policy Institute
Contributing to a retirement account can be difficult for lower income households, but one can argue that it is even more important for those families to take advantage of all the retirement savings options that are possible. One of the lesser-known options applies directly to lower-income families – the retirement savings tax credit. Note that
You probably know about potential IRA tax traps related to withdrawals, rollovers, and estate planning that can saddle you with penalties and surprise tax bills. Did you know that the type of investments you hold could also hand you a surprise tax bill and potentially ruin your IRA status?
The most common of the traps
As much fun as it is to hold your tax refund check in your hands and rub them together with glee, direct deposit is a simpler and faster method of receiving your refund. It may be safer as well. Not only will you be spared the possibility of someone stealing your check out of the
It’s never too late or too early to think about your retirement. One of the most common and effective retirement savings options is an individual retirement account, more commonly referred to as an IRA. This article will look at the differences between a traditional IRA and another type of savings account called a Roth IRA.
The end of a year is a time to assess what happened over the past 12 months and look forward to the promise of new opportunities. That is true with most aspects of life, and your financial portfolio should be no exception. Give your holdings a year-end review and consider these strategies as you do
MoneyTips Are you planning on pushing your retirement age out as far as possible, or continuing to work part-time during your retirement years? A growing number of people are following this path, driven partly by enjoyment of their work and partly by economic necessity. In addition, since people are living longer in general, retirement may
A growing number of American couples are feeling the financial squeeze from all sides — their children, their parents and each other. They have been dubbed the “sandwich generation” because they face a wide range of different kinds of financial pressures from both the prior and next generation.
For starters, there’s the pressure many couples
In general, early withdrawal of funds from your retirement account is a bad idea. Not only are the withdrawals taxed at your current income rate, but you will also pay a penalty of 10% on the withdrawn amount.
However, there are some financial circumstances where early withdrawal is needed – and if you are in
Retirement is approaching. Do you have a comprehensive overview of your retirement funds and how you will manage them when you actually do retire? A surprising number of people do not know much about their retirement funds other than that they exist. Some don’t even realize how many sources of retirement funds they have. This