Retirement Planning - C is for Continuity

Retirement Planning: C is for Continuity

One of the keys to getting from point A (your working days) to point B (your retirement days) is continuity. A retirement plan thrives on the steady flow of cash to work its long-term magic. It can never stop.

These days though, a walk down a grocery aisle or a visit to the gas pumps is almost we need to remind us that our dollar is not going as far as it once was. So you might find yourself looking for ways to free up a little extra spending money for the month. You might even find yourself eyeing the 401(k) contribution you make weekly and are seeing that money better spent in the here and now. It is a human reaction to survival.

If you must lower your contribution, limit yourself to the level of your employer’s matching funds or 5%, whichever is higher. This amount will not have an impact on what your take home pay would have been had you stopped participating completely. Keep that money funding your future. One note of caution, try to save more if things improve. You need to pay yourself first and the key is continuity.

Previously:
A is for Asset Allocation
B is for Balance

Retirement Planning - B is for Balance

As we continue our alphabetical look at the wide variety of investment terms that are thrown about - in such a way as to generally assume you know what is being spoken or written - we will look at balance.

B is for Balance

There has been entirely too much emphasis placed on the need for balance. I firmly believe that in order for each part of your plan to work, it needs to have time to develop. Few people are willing to ride market unrest out, constantly tweaking their portfolio of mutual funds to get the same return, quarter over quarter, year over year.

Not only is this difficult for professional money managers, it is nearly impossible for the average investor to do.

There are far more important things to “waste” our time doing. If you follow some basic rules, you will be fine.

Ask The Right Questions

Among the first things you should ask yourself is “why did I buy this fund?” If it was because you found the long-term returns to be in line with your goals, then let the fund manager work out any kinks the market might throw his/her way. Check the fund each quarter but focus on the yearly prospectus. You should also keep those dollars invested. A down market is a buying opportunity for investors who use dollar cost averaging.

What is DCA?

Dollar cost averaging or DCA is one of the single most important ways to build a retirement portfolio. The method invests money each month directed to your defined contribution plan in equal amounts. This allows you to buy more shares of your mutual fund when the price is low and less when the price is high. It employs one of the basic market principles better than most investors would and does it with no effort.

There are several reasons that this works. Suppose the mutual fund you purchased was selling shares for $5. For each $5 you invested, you received a share in the fund. The market, doing what it does best changes based on an innumerable amount of factors. In some instances, this makes the share appreciate, increasing the price and in others, the price goes down.

When the price increases to $7, your designated investment dollars does not see that as a buying opportunity. Your five dollars instead buys only a portion of a share, in this case, only about three quarter of a share. In this instance, it keeps you from buying shares that might be overpriced.

But if the market goes down and the share price decreases to $2.50, your five-dollar investment has bought a share and a half. Investors have a difficult time controlling the desire to buy more when the markets are on the way up and selling when they are declining in value. DCA solves this.

In your Retirement Plan

The idea behind it is simple and is employed with great success in your company-sponsored plan. In those plans, money is automatically taken from your paycheck. If you are using a traditional 401(k), it is done before taxes are taken from your paycheck. If you are participating in a Roth 401(k) it is taken from after-tax dollars.

In both plans, a steady stream of cash is invested for your future. IRA users have some different challenges facing their use of DCA to its best advantage. Often, IRA investors opt for sending their mutual funds a check each month. This allows them to act based on current headlines.

If this sounds like something you are doing, set-up your contribution to be done automatically and write that amount in your budget. This will give you the opportunity to take advantage of all of the magic the DCA offers.

Previously: A is for Asset Allocation

Retirement Planning - A is for Asset Allocation

Today, we begin a look at the alphabet soup that has become investing and more importantly, retirement planning. For most people, the concept of saving is already understood, the downside effects of having debt has been completely drilled in - from every angle imaginable, and the importance of a retirement plan or planning strategy is absolutely necessary to prevent financial disaster when we hit or sixties or seventies.

A is for Asset Allocation

When there is market turmoil, one of the first things you should examine is how well you have allocated the assets in your retirement portfolio. This is no easy task.

If your 401(k) was properly allocated a year ago, before the economy slowed down, with mutual funds that were focused on growing your money and with your risk tolerance in mind, you will be fine. Fundamentally, not that much has changed.

Smart investors know they need to give their portfolios twelve months to fully utilize the plan. History has shown that with time, many of the imbalances that have a stranglehold on the markets will loosen their grip and things will return to normal.

Hold tight, time will come to the rescue.

What is asset allocation?

How those assets are positioned in your retirement portfolio however is a different matter.

In a retirement plan, asset allocation takes on a different meaning. In your portfolio, you should have basket of mutual funds that focus on different parts of the market. This method of investing protects you from swings in the market that is often specific to one group of investments. The markets rarely fail altogether.

The most recent example of this happened in early 2008 when the stocks of banks and other financial institutions began to falter. The most famous was the failure of technology stocks in 2000. Had you not allocated your assets properly, you would have felt a greater loss than the market as a whole did. Asset allocation protects you from this.

The Right Mix

In order for asset allocation to work, you need to determine two things: your age and your risk tolerance. Age is not so much a reference to how old you are but how far off in the distant or near future your retirement is.

Your risk tolerance is a reference to how much of your investments you are willing to put to the test.

If you are in your twenties, it is generally assumed that you should be the most tolerant of risk, investing in growth mutual funds and able to overcome any short-term problems.

Allocation assets becomes much more important once you reach forty, beginning to temper your risk and protect some of your assets. By age sixty, you should be investing a conservative mix of stocks and bonds.

How to get the Right Allocation

Perhaps the simplest way: invest in target funds that save for a future retirement date. These types of funds gradually change your assets over the years, essentially re-allocating for you.