Life Insurance Information

Presume that you’re on your own and plan accordingly. A 401(k) is by far and away the best retirement investment vehicle possible. Retirement ideas range from imagining yourself living in a life of luxury, playing golf, taking 9 month vacations, and enjoying life, down to

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Presume that you’re on your own and plan accordingly. A 401(k) is by far and away the best retirement investment vehicle possible. Retirement ideas range from imagining yourself living in a life of luxury, playing golf, taking 9 month vacations, and enjoying life, down to living in a retirement community where your basic needs are taken care of. To do proper retirement financial planning, you should start early ? This can be found online through a number of retirement calculators, and will help you plan the day when you can send your company your retirement letters and say “I’ll be on the golf course!” Most retirement calculators are driven by an investing rule called the Rule of 72 ? It will steer you into how to make the most of a company 401(k) plan, while taking an unsentimental retirement view ? Failing to plan for your retirement can have very negative consequences on the quality of your retired life. That’s the “too late smart” part of the proverb. If you’re eligible for a 401(k) program, you should take it ?



Your retirement benefits should contain a mix of growth funds early on, wealth preservation funds and income generation tools as you age ? Start early, invest everything you can afford to, and know that your money is working for you in the long term. You’re getting older every day ? Are you getting smarter? Fortunately, there are retirement books that can help you with this. Too soon we get old, and too late we get smart is the old Yiddish proverb. Take 72 and divide it by your rate of return in points (for example, getting 6% on a savings account or CD) and that will tell you how many years it takes for your investment to double. Remember that slow and steady contributions win the day; you can’t rush this later in life. One thing you should not count on is Social Security; due to changing demographics, we’re going to be disbursing more from Social Security than it takes in in about 5 to 10 years, and the fund will literally run out at the current rate of contributions in thirty years. It benefits you in multiple ways, from employee matching (which doubles your investment) to being take out of your paycheck before taxes (which is fundamentally giving you a 20-35% increase in the net investment from doing it in post-tax income) to tax deferral on the interest it accrues. In this case, 72 divided by 6 is 12, meaning that sitting an investment down in a 6% account means it will double in 12 years.



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