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| Is Your Individual 401k Going To Be Enough? |
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| Written by David C Lewis, RFA |
| Thursday, 05 March 2009 16:01 |
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401ks are a popular tool used for retirement planning. One problem with 401k plans is the investor's reliance on employer matching for the plan. This may cause an employee to rely too much on the employer and not contribute enough to savings. Most Americans have no idea how much money they should be saving. If you have never used one, a retirement calculator will probably leave your jaw on the floor in amazement. Planning for retirement is a difficult task and can't be taken lightly. Even when you use a professional adviser, the financial planning process can be difficult. There are just so many variable to consider: how much your retirement savings earn over the years and into retirement, how much debt you have, if any, at the age you plan to retire, and the quality of your health entering retirement are just a few considerations. Government inflation of the money supply also means you have to account for inflation. That can be hard to do. There are many retirement calculators on the internet to help you though. What most of the calculators will show you, however, is that Social Security - for the most part - will not cover very much of your retirement. You will have to save a lot more money to have even a semi-comfortable retirement. The economy will probably recover, and continue to grow. However with inflation at anywhere between three and five percent, you are going to be gaining and losing value in your investments based on how much your savings is being eroded. $50 a week used to be a "normal" wage. Even during mid-life that amount of income had increased to $200 a week. Now, however, you would not even think of trying to live off of $200 a week, let along $50/week. So, today's wage earners making $500 to $1,000 a week in income can expect similar changes when they reach retirement age. Today's calculations will show wage earners that they should expect to have a retirement nest egg of close to $1 million dollars to retire comfortably in 20 or 30 "Retirement Calculator" years. One of the calculators tested showed shocking results: an adult starting with $100,000 adding $4,000 year to that would retire with nearly $900,000 but would end up broke by the time they were 85 years old! Part of managing your existing income is being able to save money and still having access to it when you need it (sometimes hard to do inside a 401K), and still being able to invest for your retirement (though here, a tax deferral helps). Estimating your retirement income and expenses can be extremely difficult, however, there are many different sources of information and assistance available on the internet to get you started. About the Author: Author: David Lewis, RFA is a professional financial adviser. If you want more information about any aspect of personal finance, please visit David's website. Kindly provided by LJ-Marketing.dk You are welcome to use this article on your own website, if you include the link just before this text. |
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