6 Ways to Make Your Retirement Accounts Last Longer

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Where are these people getting their 750K nest eggs? I am 50, self employed and pay 15% of my earnings alone to social security. I home school my kids (public schools in my area are full of crime) so my wife is home teaching. I have 2 kids at community college to supplement their high school credits. When I was in my twenties, I paid back student loans, in my thirties, I dumped my 2K (max allowed) into my IRA. In my 40's I put 15K/yr in my non matching 401K. I spend hours trying to play the market, buying options, ETFs, etc. With all my efforts, my "nest egg" is 210K. My 40 year old home was falling apart when I bought it and still is.. The house only has 50K left on the mortgage (value ~250K). I drive 2 25 year old cars. If I am lucky I might have 300K for a nest egg by the time I am 62. Everytime I ask anybody about the 401K, they laugh and say they might have 50K. Am I part of the (sigh..) silent majority?

Ron Paul of MD 10:30PM January 27, 2010

why not write about the average guy who if he is lucky he has 100k at retirement. And some of us are still paying rent. Throw in getting laid off at the age of 56.

jeff of CA 9:55PM January 18, 2010

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melissa of MD 10:13PM December 08, 2009

If you owe nothing ,own your house outright, have no credit card debts and keep your cost of living within your limits. You can live very well in retirement. This takes the proper planning and solid investments. Sounds easy, well it is.

Ray of FL 11:46PM November 24, 2009

As retirement draws closer in this environment, own your age in investment grade bond funds with decent dividend return. Reinvest dividends. In this beat up real estate market shop for the distressed or repossesed bank owned property. Negotiate the best deal. Transfer IRA funds to an instution that allows you to hold rental real estate as an asset. Take money out of the IRA tax free to buy and refurb the home, get it rentable. Then take the rents, put them back in to the IRA. Very easy process once you find the right IRa administrator that allows the asset in the account. When the real estate market comes back, which in all liklihood it will once the natonal liquidity problem improves, real estate markets should improve, providing upside potential. This takes some planning and work to get the rehab stuff done but is well worth the effort. In leu of renting if you don't have the nerve for that, just put the RE on the market, price it a little below market value, take the profit, put it back in the IRA. Ten percent max in qualty stocks. Keep an eye on interst rates in relation to the bond fund holdings because of the inverse relationship between the two.

Brian of IN 8:46AM March 19, 2009

There are so many people who are to busy working to even allow themselves to look at what is left of their retirement accounts. My husband turned 50 years old in April of last year and suffered a heartattack in October. He was laid off in January of this year, just as he started his cardiac rehab. I am 51 years old and work in nursing, an industry were I cannot even call in sick a day as there are to few nurses to see my patients. Half of my patients are on charity, dying at home on hospice. My spouse and I have 4 grown children and 6 grandchildren under 5 years of age. The only ones with actual healthcare and not being treated at a county hospital are my daughter's family, thank God her spouse was able to join the Army and will be deploying to Afganistan this year. You literally have to lay your life on the line to get health insurance in this country. My spouse could go back to school and retrain but for the cost of his cardiac medication and treatment which in one month alone could wipe out any savings and put us in bankrupcy no matter how much I work overtime, and at 51 years of age I don't know how long I can physicaly keep up the pace, not to mention the mental toll of working hospice cases that make my life seem like Cinderella after the ball. The only people who say retirement should be fun work for advertisement companies with clients in the financial and insurance fields. Reality never has made such promises. The highlight of my day is free; watching my grandchildren play, learn and laugh. The real question should be not what will our retirement be but what will their day to day reality be.

J. Ponce of TX 8:06AM March 10, 2009

There are many people not of retirement age who are in situations that are not this clear cut. What about those who have to support an aging parent? Don't forget about the rising costs to educate our children in all age ranges? My brother and I are already bracing for the day when our mother will need to be cared for. Neither of us are prepared to have her move in to our situations because we don't have the space to accomodate her. We are both fairly young, but have children who will need to get through school, including college. We both hope that in 20 years, she will be comfortable, our children will be on their own and we will have something left over to start saving. But by then, we may not be able to retire unless we come up with a plan to supplement our incomes now. (In a recession no less.)
Carl Wiley
Author
The Ring of Knowledge

Carl Wiley of NJ 3:04PM March 07, 2009