This week’s Money Poll (the fifth in the series) is about retirement investing… The question of the week is “Do you have any retirement savings accounts?” As I’ve done in the past, I’ll go first. I participate in a 403(b) through work, and my wife and I also both have Roth IRAs. Neither one of us have a Traditional IRA, although my wife did until we converted it into a Roth last year. How about you?
{democracy:6}
I do have a 401k; however, most of my retirement money will come from personal investments
Catrijn,
Congratulations on getting rid of your debts and building an emergency fund. You didn’t let a bad break completely discourage you. When I was unemployed, I reassessed some of my spending habits and lowered my monthly expenditures by quite a bit. I didn’t really have a choice. When I found another job, I was ready to put those monthly savings away for retirement.
We have a hodgepodge of retirement plans.
We’ve rolled over employer retirement plans into Rollover IRAs, we have SEP IRAs, we have traditional IRAs and our son has a Roth IRA.
We also had variable insurance – which can act like a retirement plan, but it’s a rip off.
In the future we might consider annuities, depending upon govt. tax moves. Also, we’d consider ROTH 401ks. We’re not sure taxes will decline when we retire.
Have a wonderful day,
Making Our Way
http://makingourway.blogspot.com/
Much to my shame, my husband and I fall into the no retirement savings category. He used to have a 401k, but it was unfortunately wiped out by a very long period of unemployment. Starting IRAs for both of us is one of the major goals for 2006. Last year we decided to clear all our debts and build an emergency fund instead of investing for retirement. (Accomplished on both counts!) I don’t regret that choice at all, but even in our late 20s I’m starting to feel the clock tick.
I have traditional and Roth IRAs, a 401k from my “day” job, and a SEP from the US component of my business income. All funded to the maximum allowable by law. (Plus a pretty big stash of cash in the non-US accounts, since my out-of-country customers are almost 100% profit for me, and I don’t owe US taxes on that money until it’s paid either to the US business or to me personally.)
It’d be rather hard to fund the accounts that completely if I had to rely on my “day” job for all my income…but as it is, I’m pretty much living exclusively on the business money, and putting the salary (above and beyond what I can put into tax-deferred accounts like the 401k and the IRAs) into investments. No tax advantage, but still working for me.
The foundation for retirement will be using your employer plans, such as 401k and 403b’s and also trying to contribute to an IRA each year. If you can use both of these accounts and try to max out your contributions each year-you’ll be way ahead of the retirement puzzle. I started a new web site http://www.retirementthink.com…please visit for tips and insight.
Nancy
It is amazing to me how many people delay saving for retirement. After reading through your results, I was feeling a little more confident, but then I realized that the type of people who use resources such as your website would probably also be making smart financial decisions like investing in 401Ks and IRAs. But out of the general public, how many people actually take advantage of these opportunities, especially while they are young? It is scary to think about, especially with the way Social Security is going. I am a writer for Debt Eliminator 101 and recently posted about 401K contributions. Congratulations to all those who are contributing to their futures now! Keep up the good work,
Sharon
We both have an IRA from 401(k) rollovers, no ongoing contributions and we also have 401(k) accounts from current employers.
A large part of my IRA money came from a 401(k) at a former employer that I rolled over. Moving it from that employer’s 401(k) into an IRA gave me a wider range of choices for investments and a lot more control. I went from having no leverage to being the account holder on an IRA account that could be moved to another financial institution if my current one doesn’t keep me happy.