Financing Your Way into Retirement

Credit Cards.  Some love them, some hate them... but no matter what, pretty much everyone uses them.  But with over 150 Credit Cards out there to choose from, it can be hard to figure out exactly what card is right for you.  From Ongoing Purchase APR, annual fees, reward types (miles, anyone?), and credit history, there are a seemingly endless amount of factors to consider when choosing a card.  How does any keep track?

Today I just wanted to show you a great new tool that can help find the perfect credit card for whatever your preferences are.  A new comparison engine has built a tool that can help filter through the options and find a card that meets your own preferences, not just what someone else suggests to you - and best of all, its completely free!  Play with the widget right here on Boomer's Retirement, or take a look at the full credit card comparison right here.

Find the Best Credit Cards

An Expert on ETFs

This past week, on the Financial Impact Factor with Paul Petillo, Dave Kittredge and Dave Ng we had David J. Abner. He is the Director for Institutional Sales and Trading at Wisdom Tree and the author of The ETF Handbook: How to Value and Trade Exchange Traded Funds (Wiley Finance) These funds, that trade like stocks have been coming to the forefront of the investment world for almost a decade. But even after all that time, their purpose isn't clearly understood, their benefits less so and the media, suggesting volatility has dampened our enthusiasm towards them. Mr. Abner discusses these products, what they are and why they are important. ETFs will begin showing up in your 401(k) as investor demand and plan administrator's fiduciary responsibility tightens. This increase exposure is good for the funds; but are the good for you?

Listen to internet radio with

Paul Petillo of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com

and Dave Kittredge and Dave Ng

of FinancialFootprint.com

on

The Financial Impact Factor

at Blog Talk Radio

Is a Million Dollars Enough?

As long as I have been writing about financial topics, the million dollar mark has been the goal that most every retirement planner suggested was necessary to leave the workforce and have enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life. And then, not coincidentally, the post-2008 landscape changed that configuration, in many instances, actually lowering the goal.

Keep in mind that goals are backward looking even as they are forward reaching. You need one they suggest to know what you need to do to get there. The question that lingers is how much is a goal worth having if the goal creates stress on your well-being, your family dynamic and your overall health? In fact, the answer may eventually answer the question of how long will we live in retirement?

Is a goal worth having?

Yes and no. First it identifies what needs to be done to achieve whatever it is you dream of doing. You want to go to the movies, the goal is to produce the twenty bucks or so it will cost. This is a fixed goal with real tangible numbers to accompany the desire. You know the real cost of going: tickets, concessions, babysitter, etc. You also equate exactly how many hours you may have worked to achieve that goal. Retirement unfortunately is much different.

You don't know what anything will cost. Folks throw out inflation as a concern, healthcare as an untenable cost and your longevity is the long-term savings reducer rather than the concept that it will give you more fruitful lives. 

You do know that you don't want to be newsworthy. You don't want to be headlines: "woman says death preferable to living in poverty" or "man says I didn't plan on being poor". So you do two things that enable what might seem inevitable. You worry and you don't save.

So what is the number?

There is no number. There is just you trying to figure out the day-to-day while ignoring the future. Keep in mind that no retirement plan was ever designed to replace 100% of your current income. Eight-five percent is considered good and seventy percent of your current income would be do-able. You can subtract your projected Social Security Income and you have some sort of idea how much you will need based on how much you need now.

In survey after survey, you have answered with comments that suggest you are no where near where you should be. Of course you aren't. Even if you haven't invested/saved all that much, time will make it somewhat better. Compounding still works. The investments you make now will be better off in the future, even if only slightly so. And the budget you keep now will help you stomach living on less in the future.

In survey after survey, the folks who look at the data, construct the questions and parse the info the answers supply see a landscape littered with dispair and angst. They see people lamenting that they will work until they die. They see people complaining that they will do worse than their parents and suggest that they will do worse than any generation prior to this one. They find that people are unwilling to adjust their dreams and use that as the goal, even if it is wholly unrealistic.

Is the answer your 401(k) plan sponsor's responsibility?

Russell Investments thinks this may be the key. They did a study recently that suggested two things: higher income wage earners will be better prepared for any problems they may encounter in retirement (healthcare costs, market volatility, inflation, etc.) while lower income wage earners will struggle with the day-to-day expenses prohibiting them from finding any available cash in which to save. The study does suggest that Social Security plays a lesser role in the higher pre-retirement income wage earners plan (about 36%) as compared to the lower income worker (about 51% of current income could be replaced).

But where the study differs from other reports on the dire state of this affair is helping the plan sponsor reconstruct their role in the process. Without citing the cost to businesses for retaining older workers (some numbers have put the cost as high as an $50,000 per worker past normal retirement age), focusing on the near-term expenses by making the plan better may be the best way to move this worry into the realm of manageable.

I'll give you the link to the whole study (here) but the element that intrigued me the most was the suggestion that the defined contribution side of the equation, the fiduciary responsibility of the company, could play the role that has been often overlooked. It is easy to say save more without offering the employee any hope of finding the right investments in which to do just that.

The way they suggest it would work is first to induce the employee to use the plan. Rather than a dollar for dollar match up to a certain percentage, they suggest that the employer match 75% of the first 5% contributed. Five percent has long been considered a sort of break even point for the employee providing some contribution without impacting the take-home pay needed by the lower income earning group.

If you were to see it written as a math sentence, it would look like this: A 75% match of first 5% of income creates a savings rate of 8.75% or 5% plus (0.75 x 5%) = 8.75%

But they think the best option would be to not stop there with the incentives. They think a secondary match should kick in once the employee taps the 5% mark. Companies could offer a 25% match on the next 5% contributed.

If you were to see this next stage of the plan, it would look like this: 8.75% plus (0.25 x 5%) = 15% savings rate.

The study goes a bit further suggesting that auto-enrollment and auto-escalation (essentially forwarding pay raise to the plan instead of to the paycheck) would get these hesitant savers on board sooner rather than later. It would also require the plan administrator to refocus on the core demographic of the employees, tailoring the underlying investments towards that group and controlling expenses better in the process.

And that would change the question of whether a million dollars was enough to "aren't we in this together?"

Are You Thinking Estate Planning?

Boomers aren't considering their estate plans the way they should. Perhaps the costs seem high. Perhaps the language too difficult. Perhaps we don't want to come face-to-face with our own mortalities. But talking about estate planning isn't just for the older ones among us. On the Financial Impact Factor Radio we hosted Deborah L. Jacobs, author of "Estate Planning Smarts".

This was an important show for those of us who may not have taken the important first step and made a will. And you'll find out that this is actually the next step in a good estate plan! Tune in to find out what the first step was. Deborah, a columnist and estate planning expert at Forbes discussed how to approach this topic with your parents, your spouse, your family and your lawyer.

 In the second half of the show, Dave Kittredge and Dave Ng of FinancialFootprint.com and my cohosts discussed the upward challenge of re-educating yourself for a new career, even if you graduated 30 years ago. College doesn't come cheap and when Boomers focus their attention on getting trained for a changing work environment, everyone benefits.

 

Listen to internet radio with

Paul Petillo of Target2025.com/BlueCollarDollar.com

and Dave Kittredge and Dave Ng

of FinancialFootprint.com

on

The Financial Impact Factor

at Blog Talk Radio