What do I do about establishing a retirement fund?

Question

My employer doesn not offer 401K. I also have student loan debt and credit cards that I'm working on payingn down. Should I pay those off before worrying about investing? Is an IRA the best choice for me? I am almost 30 and feel I should start worrying about my retirement.

Answer 1

Most people would suggest paying of the credit card debt for sure. But you do need to begin saving for retirement unless you want to eat cat food. It is my opinion that a Roth IRA is the best vehicle but it is somewhat of a toss up between a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA. The big advantage of the Roth IRA is that all earnings are tax free. The advantage of the traditional IRA is that money is not taxed until withdrawn and money placed into the account is not taxed until withdrawn.

However, an IRA can generate significant returns. If your are tax adverse never having to pay taxes on those returns will bring a smile to your face.

Here is an example.

Assume you place $4000 a year into a Roth IRA accoun and it manages to earn 10% annually, a very likely event over the long term, then in 35 years you will have $1,084,097.47. It is quite possible that you could do better than that. But there is also the possibility that you might not do so well. Anyway you put in $140,00 and get to take out over a million. And remember the million is earning more money while you are withdrawing funds. In fact you may not be able to withdraw them fast enough to not leave anything to your desendents.

Diversification will improve your probability of doing well.

Answer 2

Take it from a retiree - You are never too young to start a retirement account. An IRS is a great idea; contact your bank about it. 401Ks can be bad news! A friend of mine lost $30,000 in one year because of a drop in the economy. After he lost money the 2nd year he withdrew everything & placed most of it into an IRA. If I had saved for just $1000 extra per month, I would have had enough money to do more than meet current expenses. Don't let this happen to you.

Some people always have bills. Pay what you can into the ira now & increase the amt as you can. Your banker can advise you as to what % of your income would be wise to invest.

Answer 3

Since your employer does not offer a retirement plan you are left with an IRA. I would open an account with Vanguard ( Vanguard.com) and invest in one of their funds. If you are just starting out I would suggest using the Star fund to begin with. Vanguard does not charge any sales fees and they have the lowest expense charges of any mutual fund company. This is why you have to go on line to deal with them.
You need to start saving for retirement as soon as possible. If you work out the compound rate of return you will find that the longer you invest the more you will have at retirement.

Answer 4

Because your employer does not offer a 401k, I think your best investment right now is paying off your debt.

Fortunately, my employer did offer a 401k while I was in debt, so I was able to contribute to that while paying down my debt.

I was in the hole about $30,000 in student loans, credit cards and car loans. It took me three years to pay it down, but I finally did it. I actually think it was a good learning experience. Now I use a lot of the money I used to pay down debt to build my net worth. Four years after I paid down my last debt, my net worth is over $200,000!

I'm sure you can do it too.

Answer 5

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