Will Your 401(k) Be Enough?

I came across this article today on Yahoo, and the title is enough to make anyone nervous.  "Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short".  The first graphic in the article shows that for the median household headed by a 60-62 year old person, they will ultimately fall short of their needed retirement income (85% of current income) by about $30K ($4K if you have a pension).  They ask a financial advisor in the article what his recommendations have been, and for some, it's go work a part time job into your 70's to make up the difference.  I'm only picking and choosing parts of the article to mention here.  I highly recommend reading this article.  But I challenge you to ask questions while you're reading the article.  I've listed just a few here that came to mind.

Why are so many people falling short?
Didn't financial advisors give them good advice?
What can I do with my money to make sure I won't wind up in the same place when I retire?
Is getting a part time job the best way to make money in retirement years?
If pension and 401(k) isn't enough, how else can I invest money to make money?

If anyone comes up with any more questions, please feel free to comment or send me an email with the questions.  I am planning to do a short series of posts here over the course of the next week or two outlining the different asset classes (investments) that exist and what some of the pro's and con's are.

Good Luck!
Jacob Short

Investing in Financial Markets: Traders and Trends

Something that troubles me is how the majority of people in this country have very little control over their retirement.  Most people are inadequately funded for their retirement based on their age, and their money is typically invested in Mutual Funds of some kind.  I'm not denying that there aren't some benefits to these accounts.  However, with a little financial education, you can have much more control over your retirement and be able to take control of your retirement.

The article that I've linked to below discusses the different kinds of traders in financial markets as well as trends and why we care about trends in financial markets as individual investors.  You can read the article by clicking here.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me by clicking here.

Good luck everyone and enjoy the weekend!

Jacob Short