Investing in 2011

You have mutual funds if you have a 401(k). Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)hold mutual funds as the primary investment and despite their use throughout the world of investment and retirement planning, too few people have a positive attitude about what this tool can do for them. Most of the negative propaganda comes in spite of the ease of use, often lower expenses than any other investment tool, accessibility, better transparency (or well on the way to providing better insight) and often, tax efficiency. Some do this with great effort; others revamp their portfolio only when an index is restructured.

So what are mutual funds and how can they improve your life in 2011? There are only two types: actively managed or those indexed to a specific grouping of investments. From there, it gets complicated but getting from there is where the whole traffic jam of ideas begins. It makes no matter, which school of thought you ascribe to if you do at all: everyone needs and actively managed group of mutual funds and a passive group if you expect to do anything worthwhile in 2011.

In the coming year, one which is predicted to be quite good despite my doubts, which I will put forth in couple of days with my year-end look at 2011, diversity will deliver more than simply chasing one ideology of the other. The "indexers believe that these sorts of funds are all you need to succeed in any year. Offset by relatively low costs, these funds make up for hoping that that through diversity they can achieve better than average returns for those who invest in them.

As a group, index investors are a fervent bunch. They espouse this investment as the be-all-to-end-all tool and in doing so, give those who chose the other camp - the actively invested mutual fund - to wonder if they may be right. There are reams of research that indexers point to as the reason why they believe this approach. But passively sitting back and letting the market determine your investment outcome is not for everyone.

Actively managed mutual funds are structured in the same way as index funds: a portfolio of investments (stocks, bonds or both), a manager (be it one, more than one or a computer), disclosure and regulatory rules that they must abide by, and performing as billed, if not better. The difference in who picks what is in the fund. Index funds are determined by an index published by such notables as Standard and Poors or Russell or Wilshire. Actively managed funds contain investments picked by management.

Both bring like-minded investors together to pool their money and in doing so, offset the risk and cost of having to build a similar portfolio on your own. Actively managed funds try and outperform their index counterparts in large part because it is these indexes, right or wrong, in which their performance is gauged and graded. If they do better than an index, investors notice, add their money and create increased opportunities for the fund manager to increase those returns with additional acquisitions.

It doesn't always work and some comparisons are unjust (how can you compare a fund with fewer than 100 holdings to one where 500 are held?) and do not paint a true picture of performance. But in tandem, they might work for different reasons for everyone interested in a more profitable 2011.

In times of turmoil, everyone feels pain. When the whole of the marketplace dropped precipitously in 2008, no investor escaped. Some were damaged more than others but as a group, we all felt pain in some form almost at the same time. Investors who simply plowed money into a 401(k) or loaded up on their own company's stock and thought that investing was a world of do-no-wrong, were given a rude awakening. Those that traded actively on their own and were beginning to feel some invincibility creep into their results were caught unaware as well.

And in the past year, investors in US stock funds did what they had done in the previous three, withdrew more than they invested, Called outflows, they impact mutual funds harder than the selling of shares from your own portfolio. These outflowing funds are produced with the sales of a portion of the portfolio. And every such move impacts the remaining shareholders in the mutual fund.

Inflows, or your money pouring into a mutual fund comes automatically in a 401(k), through deductions into an IRA and self-deposited by individual investors. Yet only a handful of people I speak with everyday likes the idea of a mutual fund as an investment and if last year was any indication, think fund focused on the US stock market alone is not the path to financial success.

Why? We want simple things to work extraordinarily well. Nothing does but we expect it of mutual funds. We want low fees, we want moderate risk and we want to know that our money is safe from market interruptions and taxes. And at the same time, we want growth, to retire early and to have our investments perform without hiccup for decades. Only mutual funds can do this - even if we dislike the idea.

Low fees, moderate risk, safety and tax efficiency is a tall order with three of the four fitting the index fund bill. Safety is subjective and safer, even more so. But no equity index fund alone can do this. No bond index fund alone can do it either. Target date funds, hybrids of other equity and bond funds (and often a basket of such funds from the fund family) promise all of the above but have yet to prove they can deliver.

Yet three out of four isn't bad. Put this type of fund in a Roth IRA and put as much as you can in it, consistently over 2011 and you will do as well as this year has done (which looks to be two back-to-back years of double digit gains for the S&P500 index). Even if you do half as well as the 20% plus gain in 2009, you'll be way ahead of where you'd be otherwise.

In the other group, looking for growth, outsized returns and freedom from hiccups, look to your 401(k) where your employer may be retuning to offering a match in 2011. If they do, this is not so much free money as hedged money. A 6% match added to your 6% contribution gives you a lot more room to assume risk that you probably are. Retiring early is a dream even as we acquiesce to work longer. But it can be closer to a reality if two things happen: you invest more and use actively managed funds in your 401(k) to get there and the market corrects a little in the first half of the year. This means buying more for less and positioning yourself for a good 2011. Not 2010, but close.

Whatever your outlook for 2011, a tandem approach to investing - using index funds and actively managed mutual funds might be the best approach in the next year. Be cautious of only two things: this isn't advise and be careful you don't over-expose yourself in any one sector.

Next up, my predictions for 2011.

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of BlueCollarDollar.com/Target2025.com and a fellow Boomer.

Researchers believe that Boomers are facing Retirement Risk

Late Boomers, early Boomers, GenXers, it's all the same. Retirement will be a risk and most of us aren't taking the risk seriously.

Most of us make a flawed assumption about retirement. We save (or as I prefer, invest) for our retirement and do so based on the fact that the taxes we pay now will be the same when we retire. This sort of assumption, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, puts 51% of American households at risk of not having enough to sustain their pre-retirement lifestyle in a post-retirement world.

The CCR takes the view that if this nation stays on its current course, and nothing is done about the increased level of Federal spending, "government debt will increase from the 2010 level of 61 percent of GDP to 79 percent by 2020, 118 percent by 2030, and 180 percent by 2040." This sort of escalation will result in one of two things happening to offset those increases: the government will need to reduce spending or increase taxes - or both. Neither option bodes well for those planning on retirement.

The Center is focused on a broad-based National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) that "measures the percentage of working-age households who are ‘at risk’ of being financially unprepared for retirement." Even if the taxes we pay remain the same as they are today, most American households will find retirement financially challenging. But what if they rise as the report suggests they will - or better will need to?

The report was issued prior to the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, which had they been allowed to expire, would have increased the overall taxes most of us pay impacting the amount of money we currently save for retirement. As a group, we react to incentives or in the case of increased taxes, disincentives in predictable ways.

First, we tend to invest less (if the pull back of the company match following the market downturn in 2008 and our failure to make up the shortfall in the wake of that decision is any indication) as we adjust our household budgets.

Those budgetary needs are real and present. But the future needs in retirement as a result are a real and present danger most of us are ignoring. Add the possibility (or the real likelihood) that taxes will increase in the coming decades from their current levels, and you have a recipe for financial disaster brewing beneath the surface.

The CCR projects that a value-added tax (VAT) would be necessary by 2020, and this tax, once introduced would need to escalate from 0.9% to 8.1% in the thirty years following its introduction. Social Security taxes would also need to increase from the current payroll tax of 12.4% to 14.7% by 2050. The group most at risk: older workers who have little time remaining in the workforce to increase their contributions to offset that shortfall. Younger workers would have time to adjust but the need to do so might cause a natural human reaction when faced with some tough economic decisions is to recoil, not regroup.

If a value-added tax were instituted, the retired worker would face some serious financial challenges that they may not have planned for while building their nest-egg. Granted, Social SEcurity tax increases would not impact this group, but once retired, each change in the tax structure, no matter how minute would lower the available amount of money they might need (and counted on) and i doing so, increase retirement risk.

In the wake of any fiscal policy changes to make up for the growing GDP, the CCR suggests that a higher target replacement rate would be needed. There is only one way to do this: increase contributions. Doing so would have the net effect of slowing the ability of any group to sustain a lifestyle current to the one they have and if they failed to budget for tax increases, put their retirement hopes and dreams in jeopardy.

Gen Xers would need to budget to spend less and invest more at a time when college debt, families and independence impact their day-to-day financial decisions. While this group can adjust their consumption rates to make up for the shortfall, it is unclear that they will. Late Boomers, those caught between the distant retires (Gen Xers) and the soon-to-be retirees (Early Boomers) also face risks. While those risks are not as great as their older cohorts, it would require them to make drastic cuts in how they currently live to make up for the projected shortfall in retirement.

The report concludes withe following statement: "If households were to respond by cutting savings as well as consumption, due to choice or necessity, the percentage of households ‘at risk’ would be larger.  This brief errs on the conservative side by assuming no behavioral effect." But we know better.

We know that you will make some bad choices between now and then. If tax levels rise while you are still employed, the impact will be direct on how much money you take home. If you realize that your retirement calculations are incorrect, you may conclude that working longer (rather than saving more and adjusting spending habits) is the only way to make for lost ground and a diminishing timeframe.

We know that you will perceive risk as the enemy and find ways to reduce your exposure to risk by reverting to more conservative investment schemes like target date funds. This will have the net effect of protecting your money while forfeiting potential growth opportunities. The younger you are when you recoil from risk, the longer it will take to reach optimum retirement levels. Ironically, avoiding risk while you are working increases your retirement risk.

There are options. The first and most obvious is increase your contributions. This is the right choice to make but comes with a caveat: you cannot increase your debt in the process, a normal reaction to lower daily spending opportunities because your budget has tightened.

The second and less obvious choice is to assume some risk either in your 401(k) or outside. It is true that the current tax rate will be extended. So why not pay the taxes for your retirement income now in the form of a Roth IRA while rates are predictable and lower than future rates?

Here's an idea worth considering: invest in your 401(k) up to 10% of your pre-tax income, match or no match (more if you can). Use the most aggressive funds in the plan to position yourself for the greatest amount of growth (if you are younger - Gen Xer or an Early Boomer). On the outside of that plan, open a Roth IRA and focus your investments on an index fund such as the S&P500.

Because of the tax efficiency of an index, paying the taxes in the future on what your tax-free principal has earned, even if they are higher, would be less than what your 401(k) or traditional IRA owner would pay. There is no fixed time to begin taking distributions (it is possible this could change but a lot of tax analysts think this is unlikely) and your estate is better served with a Roth IRA. Because you can begin distributions when you want, this could be an added boost for your retirement income in the advent of any tax increases in the future.

No one can say for sure that taxes will stay the same or go up. We do know one thing for certain: they will go up - as will inflation. If you aren't planning for this, you should and the sooner the better.

Financial Impact Factor - the Radio Show

Welcome to the second episode of the Financial Impact Factor. Your hosts Paul Petillo, Dave Kittredge and Dave Ng give you the inside information on a wide variety of financial topics that include talk about retirement, personal finance, investing and all things financial.

Today's show discusses the happiness factor (as we seem to be spending more this holiday season than we have in the last two years, we wonder if this is too soon and whether you can spend your way to happiness), your life lived frugally (can the current savings trend last and how does it impact your 401(k)) and the chances of working longer (will this benefit Baby Boomer women as they add a few of the missing work years to their retirement portfolios).

Listen to internet radio with financialimpactfactor on 

Blog Talk Radio

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of Target2025.com/

BlueCollarDollar.com and a fellow Boomer.

Boomer Women may Want to Work Longer: But will they be Allowed?

Boomer women, faced with lesser time in the workforce are increasingly looking at the option of working longer. The question is: will their employer see this as beneficial? And if they do, how far are they willing to go to permit this extended work career?

We know two things in this post or almost post-recession era we are currently in: One, older workers are returning to work or not leaving the workforce at all and two, younger workers who traditionally made up the bulk of the workforce, are being crowded out by this newer pool of older workers. Delaying retirement due to economic concerns that have stymied our financial well-being has been news for quite some time. But what if the new face of the workforce is slightly wrinkled and framed in grey?

According to a study conducted by WorkplaceFlexibility.org and authored by Richard W. Johnson, Senior Fellow at The Urban Institute: "As the U.S. population ages and the number of Americans reaching traditional retirement ages increases, employers may need to attract and retain more older workers, many of whom are highly experienced, knowledgeable, and skilled." Basing the study on well-known assumptions, Mr. Johnson explores the shift in the workplace to accomodate the older worker who is increasingly choosing to hang on to their employment longer.

Among those assumptions is a longer life. As the older population reaches retirement age, they are finding the ability to continue working a possibility in large part because the work these folks tend to do is less physically demanding that many jobs were just a decade ago. While financial concerns are most likely to enter into the newsworthy conversations, the study seems to suggest that this trend is centered more on women than men.

The result is increased complications both for the company, the worker and the benefits they might or should be receiving at that age. The result is an experiment unlike any conducted prior to this where the lines blur between what is full-time work and what is full-time retirement.

Phased retirement, the new buzzword in this process involves reduced hours and responsibilities that include some perks normally reserved for women and men in the workplace who temporarily leave because of families. Among those phased perks are "flexible work arrangements, including part-time employment, flexible schedules, telework, contract work, and job sharing."

For the employer, the fringe benefits often accessible to the older workforce, such as traditional pensions could open the door to age discrimination. And this could hurt women more than men. Even as women have made great strides over the last several decades in pay, benefits and workplace populations, it is this group that is most likely to continue, or want to continue working beyond the traditional age of 65. Men, despite the reports of longer and healthier lives, choose to retire more now than when the jobs they engaged in were more physically demanding and strenuous.

Because the focus of this report is on the effects various policies and practices surrounding this transitional time of a workers life, Mr. Johnson points out some of the incentives and disincentives for working or not. Social Security has been gradually pushing back the retirement age and will probably continue to do so in the coming years. Defined benefit plans or pensions further complicate this trend by penalizing the annuitized payment should the worker continue to be employed.

The shift over the last three decades to defined contribution plans (401(k)s, 403(b)s) are much more accommodating to this segment of the workforce that wants to work longer. They can continue to contribute to a DC plan long after the traditional pension retirement age has been reached, adding the potential for greater lifetime incomes in the process. Because of these types of plans, workers reaching retirement age are more likely to work at least two-three years longer than they may have previously anticipated.

The study also revealed that if the employer provides health benefits for early retirees. of which according to a 2009 study conducted by the Kaiser Foundation only 29% of the employers do, that person is more likely to retire. Take them away or not provide these benefits and the worker will stay on the job longer.

Because Social Security benefits are calculated on a 35 year work history, one that favors men who have never had any interruption in their work history, this group is more likely to take their leave from the workforce. For women, each additional year worked eliminates a zero earnings year that may have come due to family leave because of children or the need to take care of aging parents.

The question facing employers is whether to retain these workers. In most instances, the older worker is at the top of the pay scale and poses a greater cost on the health benefits provided. Mr. Johnson notes: "Another study found that employers were less likely to call back older job applicants than otherwise identical younger applicants (Lahey, 2008). And it takes laid-off workers age 50 and older much longer than younger workers to become reemployed, even though older unemployed workers appear to search just as intensively as their younger counterparts (Johnson and Mommaerts, 2010)." Even if the desire to work longer is there, the opportunities may be limited.

Employers have acknowledged that the pool of potential retirees in the coming years will have a negative impact on the skill level of their employees. Yet few have done anything to address this shortfall of talent and skill. "For example, in the Cornell survey only 26 percent of employers allowing phased retirement would provide the same health benefits to workers after they reduced their hours. About two-fifths of employers allowing phased retirement in the Cornell survey, but only 9 percent of employers in the Ernst & Young survey, would allow in-service pension benefits."

The problem will need to be addressed by Congress at some point. Women Boomers face the greatest challenge in the coming years as they attempt to make up earnings shortfalls and look to adjust their schedules to a more flexible arrangement.

Employers will also need to address the issue as well. they may say that the talent looking to retire is worth retaining. But their current policies don't suggest they are doing much in the way of providing incentives. They may say they desire the older workforce. In practice, they have yet to make substantive moves to permit this choice.

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com and a fellow Boomer.

Breaking free of debt before retirement

Debt is far more common amongst people approaching retirement than you may realize. While a lot of us have a mortgage to pay, there are also lots of other things - credit cards, personal loans, etc. - that can still be a real drain on your finances as you approach the end of your working life.

Carrying your debts over into retirement could be a real problem unless you're guaranteed a very good retirement income. As such, you should do what you can to make sure they're cleared before that time.

Ways to tackle your debts

Set yourself a budget

A lot of the time, when people feel that they can't get on top of their finances, it's largely because they're not organizing their money in the right way. A budget can be a simple but effective way of making sure you're keeping your finances under control.

To put together a budget, you'll need to make a note of all your regular monthly costs - things like your bills, mortgage and any other debts you may have. Now add up the total - this is how much you need to put aside to make sure your expenses are covered each month.

By doing this, you can ensure your debt repayments are covered, and you'll know how much you can safely spend on other things.

Make a few cutbacks

A budget alone probably won't help you repay your debts any more quickly. To try to make sure you're free of debt before you retire, you should ideally be repaying as much of your debts as possible every month.

Take a look at your finances: where could you cut back without significantly compromising your quality of life? The chances are there are a few things. For example, do you really need that magazine subscription? Could you switch to a cheaper internet provider? A few simple changes could potentially free up a lot of money to pay towards your debts.

If in doubt, get help

If you've tried all of the above and it still doesn't help you speed up your progress on your debts, then it may be time to get expert help help.

An expert debt adviser will have the knowledge to help you find the best way of tackling your debts. Whether it's general money advice or a more formal debt solution, they can help you decide on the right course of action. 

Is your retirement account suffering from Investment Paralysis

Boomers should take note of the seemingly robust economy around us as we head into the holiday season. The stock markets seem to be poised for what has been termed often as the "Santa Claus rally". Consumers, at least according to business surveys, are beginning to spend. And this is all occurring, while in the shadows, the economy or its numbers remain little changed. That and most of us are still suffering from investment paralysis.

Here we are, years after the fall of 2008, and the average middle class worker still has an account balance that is far from where it should be - if they plan on retiring. When most of us think is retirement age, we think in terms of what has been the generally accepted retirement age. This unfortunately is a failure on two fronts: yours and the plan sponsor.


Your responsibility is in the contribution.According to a Wells Fargo survey (pdf) conducted among 357 plans, middle class is defined as: "those aged 30 to 69 with $40,000 to $100,000 in household income or $25,000 to $100,000 in investable assets and those aged 25 to 29 with income or investable assets of $25,000 to $100,000." This group knows that they will need more than $300,000 to fund a basic retirement yet, on average those balances fall far short of that goal with $20,000. Is it any wonder that this group is increasingly buying into the notion that working longer is a fact of life in the post-downturn world?

Most of the middle class group contributes only about 7% of their pre-tax income to these plans. And if the survey is any indication, much of the fault lies in the employer's approach to these plans. The study suggests that employers are concerned about their legal liabilities in helping their employees even as they acknowledge the shared role in helping those workers.

These fiduciary concerns are widespread among plan sponsors who worry that should they provide advice, and that advice doesn't meet employee expectations, they will see the plan sued.

This has led these employers to look for plans that offer third party advice, shifting the liability to another player. What they fail to embrace is that using a TPA (third party administrator) doesn't lessen the liability. While 89% of the plan sponsors understand that there is a need for retirement help, only 71% (as of 2009) think that they should help those employees understand what the plan can do for them.

In order of importance, and in reality, employers do something else entirely and your defined contribution plan's ability to get you there is reflective of this lackluster effort. Only 35% of the DC sponsors surveyed think that education is important, 22% encourage greater participation and increased contributions, 9% think investment diversification is important while only 2% facilitate the planning process by pointing out what is need in retirement and helping their employees use the plan to achieve this.


Are more funds in the plan the answer? Some DC sponsors believe they are and are looking to increase their offerings. But often, plans with more than fifteen funds aren't necessarily giving the employee more choices that suit their needs. The new choices are often in the form of target date funds and other more conservative investment offerings. This is often done at the exclusion of more suitable offerings (such as aggressive mutual funds for younger workers). Once again, they fear retribution for suggesting anything akin to risk.

DC sponsors are worried about what the industry calls investment paralysis. Too many funds, studies have suggested, often have lower overall participation rates that those with 15 fund or fewer in their plans. Because there is a growing movement to offer auto-enrollment, choosing a fund for that new employee often requires the plan to carry a wide variety of target date funds to pinpoint a "potential" retirement year.


But understanding the need and acting on it, from both a participants point-of-view and that of the DC sponsor are often far from what they are actually doing. Plan sponsors need to understand more than just the investment array, plan design, distribution options, education and communication, and fees charged by the plan. It is their fiduciary responsibility, one that carries legal risks if mishandled, to measure their plan's impact. Only 15%, according to the survey do so.

The employer still offers matching contributions in many defined contribution plans. But how and what are a matter of debate. Many still offer matches that are tied to company stock, put restrictions on access to those matching funds, and use the auto-increase contribution system as a way to offset raises. Often, maintaining the 401(k) plans they might have, as many of the companies surveyed suggested, is done for the sole purpose of getting and retaining new employees. This, in light of less-than-robust private hiring, might come at a reduction of other benefit programs.


If you are still in a DC plan and your employer's match is not as adequate as it should be, this doesn't let you off the hook. You still need to save more, much more than you are presently doing. While it is true that 5% is the cut-off point where pre-tax contribution investments don't impact take-home pay, some sacrifice on the employee's end is needed. And this should be done,match or no match.

If your employer's 401(k) plan is not as robust as it should be or doesn't fit your age needs, open an IRA or Roth IRA on your own. Contributing to both plans (10% to your 401(k) and the maximum allowed to an IRA or Roth IRA) is your responsibility. While we still look to the company we work for for guidance, and even to the point where we believe they care about us and our retirement future, the facts are not bearing this fuzzy feeling out in the surveys I have read.

As Laurie Nordquist, director of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement Trust said: "If people aren't willing to pay for advice they are going to get a more vanilla approach to planning," adding, "But a simple plan is better than no plan."

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com and a fellow Boomer

Are you planning for retirement when you should be managing it?

Boomers know all too well what it's like to be close to retirement. But I have always been concerned with the phrase. Just saying it make the whole process seem like a carrot on a stick, always within sight; never quite reachable. Why does it have to be like that? is I there perhaps a better way to planning for retirement? Possibly the key is in the management.

From the minute you put your first dollar to work for you in 410(k) or an IRA, you were close to retirement. Age suggested you were closer but we soon learned that it wasn't so much a date on a calendar that determined the retirement scenario. It was the date plus the money you had invested.

Unfortunately, this is sort of backwards. The approach can be forgiven in part because we are constantly exposed to planning as the key to getting from that first dollar to that toes-in-the-sand-drink-in-your-hand place called retirement. Planning offers us some solace that we are doing something. What we find out too late is that "something" in more prone to failure than we had previously anticipated. So we back-off, give-up, resign ourselves, or worse, make the same mistakes again.

Why would we, knowing what failure tastes like continue to make the same mistakes? We are groomed to do what we have always thought was the right thing to do: plan. Fredrich Hayek, the Nobel prize winning economists suggested that you can't possibly know everything at once - there is simply too much data and it is happening too fast. Trying to collect in one place to make a decision is only asking for trouble. There is an African proverb that suggests only a fool test the water's depth with both feet. So why do we think we can jump into retirement using only one tool?

We are conditioned in our business dealings to think that we can control various aspects of the world around us, bending it to our will. But these are simply reactions to what has already passed. And that further conditions us to accept failing as long as, according to Francois Gadenne, CFA, who is the current co-founder, chairman and executive director of the Retirement Income Industry Association in Boston: "To succeed we must fail, early and often -- and cheaply."

Writing in a recent edition of AdvisorOne, Mr. Gadenne sought to reverse the planning of retirement by suggesting that it should be a management of funds. By building what he calls a funded floor, you are essentially unable to make big bets about an uncertain future. He blames the current state of retirement on the idea of central planning. Central planning becomes rationale on top of failed rationale and that is not based on what could happen but rather who is in charge when it did.

He writes: "Retirement income advisory processes should work like market prices rather than like central planning because, once we move beyond didactic examples, central planning cannot be smart enough or large enough or coercive enough to overcome the knowledge problem in the real world." In some ways, he seems to be deflecting the blame, something we are very comfortable doing when it comes to our money. Planners should merely advise and review that advice annually.

This seems to give advisors some distance between what you are doing and what you should be doing it. That chasm can become incredibly wide and because you are mostly conditioned to react to after-the-fact events, it is now you, not those who advise you, who are responsible for your failure to manage while trying to make a plan succeed.

Because retirement planning - or management - is often so far away and the people involved in the earliest stages of this process have probably drifted away, it is a wholly "you" process. You bring the mistakes that you have been conditioned to bring. When things get risky and when the risk costs too much, you take fewer of them because you know that they are less expensive. And because the retirement pundits also suggest that the earlier you start, the better opportunity you have to weather the downturns that await us, we accept them, regret them and learn to move on. And often repeat them.

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of BlueCollarDollar.com/Target2025.com and a fellow Boomer.

When all else fails

There is an old German proverb that suggests: He who borrows sells his freedom. This is true in some respects. I remember growing up in a time when borrowing money and establishing credit in the process was the key to adulthood. It still is in many ways as your lives become entangled in the need for better-than-average credit scores. Credit scores have drifted into every corner of our financial lives, impacting not only the cost of our insurance but also finding your handling of your debt a precursor to getting a good paying job.

But unlike some of the borrower/sorrower quotes attributed to Benjamin Franklin, having access to money when you need it can often be just enough of a bridge to get you over short-term bumps in the road.

One of the most typical kinds of personal loans is used for home improvements. These loans are usually short-term (1-5 years) and often lent at a favorable rate (depending on the quality of your credit score). By simply proving you have a monthly income, are able to pay your bills on time and showing how you intend on using the money, these loans are relatively easy to get - even in today's economy. You might have to do your homework and possibly adjust how much you need based on your debt-to-income ratio. But of you have shown your financial accumen when it comes to using money - more specifically, other people's money, the process can often be relatively painless.

Less attractive is the emergency cash loan. These types of loans have been vilified in almost every corner of the lending market and with good reason. Most folks who use them are not as financially savvy as their cohorts with good credit, they often are not accustomed to turning to the bank or other lending institutions and because of this, are a much higher risk. But the fact remains, emergencies do and will happen. Whether you see this as a lender of last resort - and you should - depends on how the rest of your financial picture looks.

These types of loans are often incredibly short-term (as most emergencies tend to be). Someone considering them should have closely examined every avenue prior to committing to them. They need to understand that the only way these loans will work is to pay them off, in full, when they come due.

More than home improvements and emergencies, the vast majority will use borrowers to fund a break for the work-a-day world. Vacation loans are often based on your ability to pay (you must be working or receiving enough of a benefit package to pay the loan back) and can be quite tempting. This becomes a personal argument: how much do you need a break and how much are you willing to pay after-the-fact for the time away?


As with all loans, the key is to paying on time and perhaps even budgeting to pay a little towards the principal. In other words, the minimum payment the lender requires should not be the payment you are budgeting for when you decide to borrow the money. You need to budget for more. By paying some additional cash to the lender, earmarked for the principal, you will pay less in interest, be paid off sooner and be able to build a much more desirable credit score in the process.


Keep in mind, every borrowing opportunity needs to be carefully examined.

The Okay Retirement is Not So Okay

Boomers are particularly vulnerable to suggesting that things are okay. In this post we will look at the okay retirement plan and suggest that your 401(k) may be trying to accommodate you with okay choices.

To see the word okay (the form I prefer over the simpler OK or the punctilious O.K.), without intonation or judgement doesn't do the word justice. Hearing it adds meaning and nuance. You need to experience it roll off of someone's lips lazily, dropped in an aggressive acquiescence or simply thrown out there for fun . It is a word, or phrase that simply is.

This is the prevailing feeling you get from hearing someone say 'I'm okay' when asked about their retirement plan, or their day at work, or their time spent in school. It becomes an answer ladled over falsehoods. Why is that? Okay is value-neutral. In fact, for it to have any real meaning, it must be spoken. What happens when okay is, well, okay?

For the last year, we have seen the markets kind of recover (I would not suggest watching the regular gyrations of the stock market these days for anyone but those strong of stomach) as they continued to deal with news from around the globe.

True, the markets are notably higher than several years ago but the structure seems rickety, unstable. This applies to more than just equities; bonds are troublesome too. Commodities have weighed in with gold becoming bubble-like in the wake of low inflation, the opposite of what usually happens. And yet, if asked about your retirement plan, you would probably answer: "It's okay."


What is happening in your 401(k) has offered the a look at what okay is when it comes to investing. Some of this is your fault. Some of it the fault of those whose definition of fiduciary responsibility has shifted. Perhpas there is no better evidence than that offered by Prudential Retirement. They have introduced okay investing to its 3.7 million customers using 401(k)s the manage. By doing so, they extend the risk avoidance to a new level: an FDIC insured bank account in your 401(k).

There are basically three things wrong with this, two are obvious, the other is speculation based on years of experience ferreting out the moves most financial institutions make.


The first has to do with risk, or better yet, lack of it. The average investor is still recoiling from the meltdown now over two years old. In all my years, I have never seen a lingering fear last so long or an industry do what it can to enable it. By this time in usual times, what happened to your investments would have been long forgotten.

A bull market somewhere would have been outed and it would start anew. This is a different era. Lingering unemployment, continued global financial strife, housing, and all the rest have made forgetfulness more difficult.

But this pendulum swing to conservative is a bit surprising.Risk is inherent in the investment world. Without it, as I have mentioned on numerous occasions, you have savings, vanilla and plain and safe.


You can get to retirement with savings. But you will have a greater opportunity to get there with more money if you invest. Trying to get folks to change this vernacular, from retirement savings to retirement investing has been a Sisyphean task. We want to think of it as savings so most personal finance and retirement writers and pundits continue to use the phrase. 401(k) plans have become the new bastion for low to no risk, offering target date funds and index funds as the go to investment for all of their participants.

I have many reservations about target date funds (from promoting set-it-and-forget-it investing, the inability of these funds to beat the market, a good target date index, and the fact that so many of these funds are simply a halfway house for orphan funds) and index funds (yes they are cheap but they are also too tax efficient for a 401(k)). Making them the default investment for new hires or advising older workers to use them and you have a recipe for an underfunded retirement - in part, because the vast majority of people who use them don't fund them with enough money to make up the low risk sacrifice they are making.

I mentioned that you could get to retirement with savings. It's possible but not within the purview of the average worker. You would need to save using a wide variety of stable vehicles like money market funds and CDs, all of which are offering so little in the way of interest that it hardly beats inflation. Bonds may seem like they offer a safe haven and in some instances they do. But that safety is accompanied by risk and one of those risks is beating inflation. Did I mention that you would probably never stop working in order to make the "savings-only" plan work?


What about annuities? This is where I am speculating. Prudential Retirement is an arm of Prudential Insurance which sells annuities. Although the vice president of Prudential Retirement Carlos Mello makes it known that his company doesn't give investment advice, the seed will have been sown with the new product.

Billed as a place to ponder your next investment move or even an account whereby those close to retirement can have access to cash when they do, putting a savings account in a 401(k) will be used as a sales tool for annuities. Insurers know that most people look back on the performance of their 401(k) in the short-term (about six months) and base their decision on whether to buy annuities at retirement or not. A market that has done well turn newly minted retirees away from the product. While with a down market in the months leading up to retirement, the purchase of an annuity is much higher.

Now imagine someone close to retirement stockpiling cash in one of these FDIC insured offerings. They are already (or will be at least) accustomed to little or no return. The upsell to annuitize that cash upon retirement, and the pitch is rather charming, may be too hard to avoid. To hear retirement planners talk, you would think they are reinventing the pension. Which in some respects they are. Without the employer's contribution.


If you were employ a three thronged approach, which is an okay way to go, you might use savings for emergencies, building up a six month reserve - a year would be even better. But do so knowing that you will need to fully fund your 401(k) in the process - not just a comfortable 10%. And you will need to hedge both of those bets with a Roth IRA held outside your 401(k) - this is where your index funds belong.

While etymologists tell us that the O and A long vowel sounds, separated by the hardness of the K is nearly universal and used in almost every language, it shouldn't be used to describe the state of your retirement plan.

Paul Petillo is the Managing Editor of BlueCollarDollar.com/Target2025.com and a fellow Boomer.

What's in Your Plan?

The essence of the word plan suggests that you need to formulate a strategy ahead of time. According to BusinessDictionary.com a plan is a "Written account of intended future course of action (scheme) aimed at achieving specific goal(s) or objective(s) within a specific timeframe. It explains in detail what needs to be done, when, how, and by whom, and often includes best case, expected case, and worst case scenarios."

In retirement planning, it means constructing an investment strategy that will help you meet the needs of a time when you no longer want to work - or at least work in the same capacity you have for most of your life. You make assumptions about that period of time and incorporate those into the plan: accumulating wealth, managing debt, staying healthy, paying off mortgages are just a few of the examples of acting to ensure that those assumptions have a chance of coming to fruition.
You approach retirement planning with a certain degree of optimism. Otherwise, why bother? But adulthood can leave us far more pragmatic and because we know things can go wrong - investments can sour, housing can lose value, our health can take a turn for the worse, and debt can be created with the simplest of financial mishaps - and all with unforeseen results.

So we insure. We insure our property against lose, our health against illness and sometimes our investments as well. And we insure our personal contribution to the rest of the people in our lives with life insurance.

Insurance, particularly life insurance is bought when we feel responsible for those around us in a way that we can't really explain. We want these loved ones to continue on without us but to do so without financial hardship that our lives have prevented. We want them to continue on with their lives allowing our children to reach their potential (such as college) and our spouses to be able to live in a way that is supportive of our children.

There is no clear answer to how much is enough. If you were asked how much you would need to live comfortably without ever having to work again, say through a lottery winning, you would probably answer $2-3 million. Yet when we shop for insurance, we often think in terms of a fraction of that.

Insurance is part of a good retirement plan. Too much or the wrong type of insurance can put pressure on your ability to invest enough to get to a comfortable retirement. Not enough, and your family will not be able to survive financially should your income suddenly disappear.

The least expensive insurance is term insurance. It offers the most coverage for the smallest premium but comes with one caveat: it ends after a certain period of time. In other words, if you never use it (and both you and the insurer hope this is what happens), you lose it. Often sold in 20-year increments, it does what it is supposed to do and if you are fortunate, it will never be needed.

Whole life insurance is exactly that: it is a policy that lasts a lifetime provided you keep it long enough and pay the premiums. It builds up a cash value which acts as an investment of sorts and will, after a period of time, begin to pay the premiums for you. But the coverage for the same amount as a term life policy is often much lower and if you want a lot of coverage, the premiums are much higher.

If you are contemplating buying whole life do so only if you are on firm financial footing and can keep your retirement accounts fully funded. Buy term if you are younger, building a family and are likely to face financial hurdles in the coming years. The vast majority of those who buy whole life insurance end up selling the policy after a certain period and if they buy insurance again, they buy term.

Term life insurance is the least expensive when you are young and you can get the most coverage as a result.

You do need to keep two things in mind when buying any insurance product: be truthful and forthcoming with as much information as possible when buying the policy. Although, according to the insurance industry, almost all claims are paid without question, 0.05% of the remaining claims are challenged.  In all cases, be prepared for the fight that might ensue (an example can be found here) if the policy you are using was recently bought. And, always buy from a company whose name you recognize, is rated highly and will be around for the term of the policy.

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of BlueCollarDollar.com and Target2025.com and a fellow Boomer

Retirement then, Retirement now

Boomers should take note: had you retired 35 years ago, you would have done so with a pension. Fast forward to 2009, that pension has been more or less replaced by 401(k) plans. And according to the ICI, you are richer because of it.

Despite the metaphors surrounding what retirement planning is supposed to be: a three legged stool, a three pronged approach, whatever visual cue you need to make sense of the process, your retirement is or at least should be, a lopsided financial affair. It should be something that works as a part of whole but not in any sort of equal sense. Social Security and the state of your financial affairs at the time you decide to quit working is really only supposed to be a small part of the retirement plan. In truth, the most prudent people who plan their retirement do so without any consideration of income from any outside source.

Not so in the years following the Great Recession. The vulnerabilities are now something we have seen first hand and many of us have recoiled in horror. Instead of relearning where we went wrong, we looked for the safest rock to hide under. Perhaps that is why, when the latest report from the Investment Company Institute was released this past November, your defined contribution plan or for most of you, your 401(k) was given equal stature amongst the other two "legs" of the retirement stool.

Social Security was designed to help keep those without from becoming destitute in retirement. Not surprisingly, the report points out this use of the program by those who are the least fortunate, the lower paid worker, as more reliant on those benefits than the higher paid worker. As they look at a post-ERISA world (the 401(k) actually came nto being in 1981), they conclude that this has always been the case and if it has, then so be it.

But the study wasn't designed to be much more than a good-old-boy pat-on-the-back. The ICI sees the distance between the demise of the pension as the sole means for retirement among workers in 1974 as a trip worth traveling. Coming out on the other end of that journey finds the lobby arm of the mutual fund industry rather satisfied. they point out that the median income from a defined contribution plan per person in 2009 was $6,000; in those same 2009 dollars, the same median was $4,500 in 1974.

It is not surprise that many of the remaining firms in the private sector still maintain them. But these plans are not considered a reason to work at these companies when it comes to the younger workforce. Pension breed company loyalty while 401(k)s allow workers to shift jobs when a better offer is available. On the other hand, pensions often leave this same group of workers with no retirement benefits, essentially, at least according to the ICI report, when vesting rules and the timing of benefit accural are used as a rodbloack to getting those benefits for time worked.

But during the time frame they used to conduct the comparisons (1975 to 2009), Social Security now makes up a larger share of retirement income even among those who had assets and other income sources. Based on per capita income at either end of the spectrum, with the lowest income group using just 2% of what the study calls asset income with an 85% reliance on Social Security compared with what the higher income group employs (20% assets and 33% of income from Social Security).

While the ICI celebrates the success of the defined contribution plan that replaced the private sector pension and they point out that those with DC plans are doing better than DB plan recipients in the past, one simple fact remains: we aren't doing enough.

While the answers seem clear: you need to invest more - probably much more than you would be comfortable in making, live smaller now while you are working, and hope that your health, inflation or taxes doesn't take a toll on those accumulated finances. In the face of such daunting news, you could expect a pull back. Instead of increased focus, we would get more ennui. Instead of an emphasis on better educated investment and financial decisions, we should expect more use of what we assume of are set-it-and-forget-it investments such as target date funds.

To answer the question in the title: was your 401(k) intended to be complimentary for retirement? I believe the answer was no. It should have been the investment savior, a Wall Street miracle. Trouble is, now many people. financial professionals included are looking for a way to provide the same guaranteed income that those long-shunned pensions provided. And when they do, we will wish it was 1975 all over again because it will come at a much higher cost than we imagined.

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com and a fellow Boomer.

Retirement Good News - and Some not-so-good News

We want, even crave some good news from the retirement industry. Something that suggests that we are doing the right thing. And while there seems to be nothing but bad news - increased withdrawals, lower participations rates, to name a few, it is isn't all doom and gloom.

There is good news out there. But according to a survey done by Mercer, a company who promotes itself as a global leader for trusted HR and related financial advice, products and services, we have yet to internalize this information. We are still cautious, anxious and worried, more than we should be about the continued level of unemployment. These fears are showing up in our approach to retirement, how we treat the investments in our defined contribution plans, and the expectations we have for those accounts.

It's really not much of a surprise that, according to the survey "these fears are amplified among older workers, most of whom realize they are running out of time." The question is: should this be the case in a time of what appears to be economic growth, job stabilization and in spite of the volatility attached to the stock market, improvements worth noting?

This survey reflects on past results suggesting that when the economy does well, the people they surveyed usually express the same feelings. Not so much this time around and the survey suggested this anomaly was unexpected.

Corporate profits are doing well and compared to a similar survey done last year, the outlook for the economy has improved dramatically. The improvement (21% did not think the economy was doing so hot last year at this time compared to 77% this year) puts the positive outlook at at pre-Great Recession levels.

And despite that, they found some remarkable trends still in place. People still think of retirement the same way - even if they predict they will work longer to get there. They still contribute to their 401(k) type plans - seeing them as the primary source of their income in retirement followed by Social Security and account held outside of the company sponsored plans such as IRAs.

The anxiety reaches much higher levels when it comes to confidence in replacing current income. Most don't feel as though they are doing enough or worse, are capable of doing more. The expectations of replaced income, once at 80% has fallen somewhat as workers have watched the continual erosion of the remaining private sector pensions. Keep in mind, companies have been steadily jettisoning pensions over the last several decades in favor of 401(k) type plans. What was once the promise of a retirement income they could calculate and the employee loyalty needed to get to that point shifted to a plan that was portable and could be used to lure prospective talent.

But those that still have these sorts of defined benefit plans have given their employees the impression that counting on these long awaited benefits may not be the smartest thing to do. In fact, only 19% actually expect the promise to be fulfilled, their companies to remain profitable enough to fund what are widely expected to be shortfalls, or worse, even still be around to keep those promises.

So why do only six out of ten workers suggest that they are not putting enough money away for a retirement they still idolize, even anticipate? They lament the late start. Fifty-seven percent think that they will be able to catch-up. Older workers are now leaning on Social Security as a more important source of income, with some even suggesting that their defined contribution plan will only contribute 26% of their retirement income.

And according to the survey, we are contributing less, across all age groups including the 50-plus worker, than we did in prior years. If we cite this worry about having enough to retire on as the primary reason we lose sleep, it would seem the answer would be obvious - contribute more. But we don't. This may have to do with lackluster company matches or company matches that fly in the face of good advice, such as matching only when the employee buys company stock or a prolonged vesting period that does not actually give the match until the worker has been in the plan for as long as five years.

There have been marginal drops in the amount contributed and participation. Add that to a more cautious approach and you have a retirement recipe for disaster - not just for the worker but for the companies who sponsor these plans. Andrew Yerre, Mercer’s U.S. business leader, says the findings “should cause concern for any plan sponsor who offers a pension plan.”

Are there simple fixes for all of these age groups? Possibly. Ignoring the requirement for matching contributions, even if there is none, should not stop you from embracing the plan and attempting to put as much as is financially possible into it. Understanding that this is not a test, and your retirement is in your hands, more so than it has ever been, should be enough of a catalyst. There needs to be an improved level of aggressive investment among younger workers and some added to older worker's portfolios.

Paul Petillo is the Managing Editor of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com and a fellow Boomer.

Retirement Doubts

There is absolutely no doubt that the retirement planning horizon is as diverse as those who are attempting to navigate it. In other words, there is no set formula for one group that can be used for another. On one side of the equation, we have those who can see the chance that they might retire and on the other, are those with doubts.

Those doubts exist in both groups. Older workers have seen the deterioration in their defined contribution account balances, the gradual and systematic elimination of pensions and the growing pressures that being sandwiched between both children and parents who are beginning to accept what they see as inevitable. That inevitability has been translated into simply working longer than they had previously anticipated to get the retirement that resembles that of a generation prior.

This group knows that they will need to invest more for their future at a time when they can't seem to free up any extra income to do so. They run calculations. They do math. And then, with all of this somewhat depressing information in front of them, they seem to be doing what would be counterintuitive: they become conservative in those investments.

The younger group, the college graduate, the young workers just entering the workplace and those who have been struggling with new families have a unique opportunity that has long since past the other group. They have time.

Many of these workers will enter the workforce where there is no pension, where they anticipate the benefits of Social Security will be limited and attainable farther away than that of their older cohorts and a marketplace that served the older workers with longer bull markets that are not likely to exist in the future. That bull market, a term defined as positive movement in the stock market, helped their parents in ways that will not be there for them.

From 1982 to 2000, most of those in 401(k) plans saw balances rise without limit - or so it seemed. Since that point, we have seen two bubbles burst, stock market returns become more volatile and faith that this investment vehicle has stalled.

Yet those 401(k) plans still offer the best opportunity to do better than their parents at battling the potential of increased taxes, rampant inflation and that volatility. these 401(k) plans are shifting, often in dramatic fashion. Matching contribution are less than in those bull market years and for this group, they can expect that they will stay that way. But there are some changes taking place that could help this group more so than their older counterparts.

These changes include the increased presence of Roth 401(k)s in those defined contribution plans. Whereas older workers would need to calculate their taxes when making a change into these sorts of plans from a traditional 401(k), younger workers can begin at this point. The Roth 401(k) allows for after-tax contributions, which for most younger workers means that earning less (being taxed less) is a hidden benefit. Rollovers from a traditional plan comes with a tax bill. Beginning at this point, as younger workers can do, will not have any taxable impact.

But the best way for younger workers to avail themselves of this opportunity should be done in a tandem approach to the plan. If you contribute 5% of you pre-tax income, you will not in most instances, impact a dime of your take-home pay. At this point, finding an additional 5% to put in the Roth 401(k) side of the plan not only hedges against taxes in the future but gives you the ability to know this money is yours, the taxes you paid at a younger age will be less than at rate you might receive as you age, get pay increases and promotions.

This group should also know that this should be the time of your most aggressive investment strategy. Yes it will be a rough ride. But having time to recover is worth the risk. You have to contribute and stay in it through thick and thin to benefit. You can retire doing this even if you have no idea what your retirement will look like.

Paul Petillo is the managing editor of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com and a fellow Boomer

Boomers International Web Site Stats

Daily Summary

(Go To: Top | General Summary | Monthly Report | Weekly Report | Daily Report | Daily Summary | Hourly Summary | Host Report | Referrer Report | Directory Report | Request Report)

This report lists the total activity for each day of the week, summed over all the weeks in the report.

Each unit () represents 2,000 requests for pages or part thereof.

day	#reqs	#pages
Sun	229641	54980
Mon	243767	62726
Tue	251395	67686
Wed	267458	72459
Thu	197278	51919
Fri	225978	58829
Sat	233320	60477

Hourly Summary

(Go To: Top | General Summary | Monthly Report | Weekly Report | Daily Report | Daily Summary | Hourly Summary | Host Report | Referrer Report | Directory Report | Request Report)

This report lists the total activity for each hour of the day, summed over all the days in the report.

Each unit () represents 500 requests for pages or part thereof.

hour	#reqs	#pages
0	80038	19019
1	75848	19592
2	65520	18144
3	53322	16480
4	46641	16704
5	45701	16929
6	44852	17371
7	46057	17617
8	47546	17018
9	56331	18146
10	71863	19511
11	80208	21304
12	88738	19296
13	92352	19345
14	93452	20386
15	87729	18664
16	85709	17894
17	80257	18082
18	69806	15889
19	70766	16823
20	68454	16779
21	66323	15930
22	63760	16020
23	67564	16133

Host Report

(Go To: Top | General Summary | Monthly Report | Weekly Report | Daily Report | Daily Summary | Hourly Summary | Host Report | Referrer Report | Directory Report | Request Report)

This report lists the computers which requested files.

Listing the top 50 hosts by the number of requests, sorted alphabetically.