In a previous post, I detailed my thoughts on investing for retirement in Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). I just finished reading Burton Malkiel’s masterpiece A Random Walk Down Wall Street and am more certain than ever that a buy-and-hold strategy using low-cost index funds in a Roth IRA is the wisest retirement strategy for a […]

Social Security is one of the United States’ best known and most important social welfare program.  The program, technically known as the Federal Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance program (OASDI), provides retirement income, health care for the elderly, and disability coverage for eligible workers and their dependents. 
Like most social welfare programs, OASDI provides a benefit that cannot […]

Congratulations! If you have followed the steps we have laid out thus far, you have built a solid foundation for your retirement.  Stick to your retirement savings plan and you have guaranteed yourself comfort in your golden years, 30 or more years from now.
To summarize the retirement savings strategy that I have posed:

Set up a Roth 401(k) or 403(b) plan […]

So you have a Roth IRA, you are saving $333 per month or thereabouts, you understand the principles of dollar cost averaging, and you have have a target asset allocation.  Now it is time to choose a group of investments that will make up your retirement portfolio.
You have a wide variety of investments available to […]

You don’t need to be a great stock-picker or have a degree in investment banking to make money through investments.  In fact, study after study has shown that the vast majority of the returns from any given portfolio result from the asset allocation of that portfolio.  In other words, by simply choosing a nicely diversified […]

The most basic principal of investing is to “buy low, sell high”. Unfortunately, putting that into practice is at best difficult and at worst a dangerous gamble. However, by using a strategy known as “dollar-cost averaging”, you will automatically buy more shares of a stock, mutual fund, or ETF when the price is low and […]

In this article, we’ll determine how much you need to save each month in order to adequately fund your retirement.
The first task in planning for retirement is to determine how much money you will need to live comfortably in retirement. To accomplish this, we’ll use the Time Value of Money calculator that I posted […]

In the next few posts, we will explore the many facets of saving for retirement, in detail.
Earlier, we discussed how to set up a 401(k) or 403(b) plan and Roth IRA. I expect that by now you have enrolled in your employer-based plan, if available, and opened an account to hold your Roth IRA. […]

There are two key features that you need from your Roth IRA account:
1) the ability to automatically invest in stocks and/or mutual funds.
2) low fees.
You will hold the investments in your Roth IRA for at least 30 years. Over such a long time horizon, stocks and/or mutual funds will offer you the best return […]

By now, you should be the proud owner of a convenient local checking account and an interest-bearing savings account that will keep your short-term and emergency funds safe from inflation. (if not, read my last post on Cash Flow accounts.)
We have only just scratched the surface. To really put your money to work, you will […]