Should I Get Out Of Debt Or Save For Retirement?
The easy answer to this tough question: Put your money where it will do the most good. Compare the interest rate on the debt against the potential investment returns on the retirement savings, and choose the one that pays better. So if you’re paying 14% interest on your loans, and earning 10% interest...
How To Handle Multiple Retirement Accounts
At some point in you working life, you’re likely to manage from three to five retirement accounts at the same time. This doesn’t include Social Security or defined-benefit pensions that are managed for you. Hard to believe that you’ll have so many? Let’s look at the various types. Your...
Top 10 Tips For Women On Building Wealth
Women need to manage their money even more carefully than men, but many ignore or delay financial planning. Here are 10 steps women need to take to build a secure future. 1. Act now. Each day you delay puts your retirement date further away, and reduces your chances of weathering a serious financial...
Saving Money For Retirement
Saving money now for a goal that’s far off in the future is not an easy thing to do. There are plenty of urgent needs competing for your hard-won paycheck already—bills, cars, a house, braces for the kids and college leap instantly to mind for most young parents. And most of us would rather avoid...
Retirement Savings Strategies – Best Investment Options
You’ve heard it before, but it’s the golden rule of investing: the sooner you start putting money aside, the more the power of compound interest can work for you. How does compound interest work? By keeping your money invested over a long period of time, you earn interest on the interest...
Retirement Planning For Women – How Much Is Enough?
Women need to save more money for retirement than men. Yet they generally have less disposable cash to set aside. And what they do save, they tend to invest too conservatively. On average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, women live longer than men, work fewer years, change jobs more frequently,...
Investing For Retirement – Managing Investment Risks
When it comes to investing over the long term, investing too cautiously might be the biggest risk you can take. Here’s why: over the past 50 years, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index has returned an average 11.8 percent a year with dividends reinvested, says Ned Davis Research. Long-term...
401k Questions To Ask
Expenses in 401(k) plans have grown so complex that even plan sponsors often do not understand what they are and how much they add up to. Here are some steps to guide you. Go to your human resources department or the adviser responsible for the plan. Bring your records to the meeting. Ask first about...
401k Fees And Expenses – Hidden Costs
Savvy investors are always beefing about the high expenses they’re forced to pay when they invest in mutual funds. But few of them grasp the soaking they’re taking on their 401(k) plans–an almost invisible drain on their assets that is getting worse every year. There’s much to...
