Keep Your Savings Strong
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credit: Jeff Keen
Though you may be feeling unsure about your ability to contribute to your retirement fund or cushion your savings account, CNNMoney has tips to help you keep your nest egg on track:
- Figure out your financial needs: Knowing what hills you have to climb is your first step to staying on the right track for savings. Some experts say that your “goal” number should be 10 times your pre-retirement salary, so if you make $50,000 per year, aim for $500,000 in savings. And while that number may seem shocking, it takes into account everything you’ve already saved, what you’re saving today, and how much you’ll save before retirement rolls around.
- Don’t panic: Your wallet may seem lighter these days, but don’t fold to the pressure and readjust your 401(k) or take other “desperate” measures. However, you should look over your stock portfolio and see how your investments look, taking care not to stop investing all together. By keeping some of your money still in stocks, you’ll help prevent outliving your savings.
- Assess your fees: Check out the expense ration for your funds to make sure that fees aren’t eating up all your profits. Average fees (shoot for or below) are 0.9, which means you shouldn’t pay more than $90 for every $1000 invested.
- Get to know your 401(k): A 401(k) can be difficult to decipher, but you shouldn’t be paying more than 1.5% per year in fees. If you don’t know how much you’re paying, make sure to ask you plan administrator and get to know the details of one of your biggest investments.
Tags: Banks and Banking | Investing | Saving Money | savings
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
