Category: Retirement Accounts

Defined Benefit vs. Defined Contribution Retirement Plans: Why 401k Plans are Not Your Father’s Oldmobile

Making the rounds the past 24 hours is a piece by Atrios in USA Today called “401Ks are a Disaster.” Here are the first two paragraphs: We need an across the board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20% or more. We need it to happen right now, even […]

The Simple Math: Hey, Baby Boomer, How Much Money Will You Need When You Retire?

Many of us baby boomers are lucky enough to have parents in their 80s and 90s. Many of those folks retired when they were in their 60s, which means that many of them have had 30-year-plus retirements. During this time many of those folks have had the pleasure, brought to […]

Roth Accounts: The Most Underused, but Very Useful, Retirement Tool

During the 12/12/12 concert a few nights ago I was double-screening — with the big screen tuned to one of the many networks showing the event and the little screen tuned into my own little slice of the Twitterverse. It’s always interesting to see non-music folks commenting on music. One […]

Magical Dollars

Dollars are fungible. They really are — kinda. When most people hear that phrase, though, their only response is to say, “what’s fungible mean.” Lawyers learn the word in lawschool, and a few others learn it in their work. But just about no one learns it as part of their […]

Painting Yourself into a Corner, as Applied to Retirement Planning

One of the funnest, most difficult parts of my work is coming up with language to help clients understand concepts that tend towards the not-so-easily-understood side of things. Because, even though I often rail against the financial services industrial complex (the FSIC) for the jargon it uses, and for its […]

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