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In: Personal Finance
20 Apr 2009Investment loss is crippling retirees and soon to retire families. John and Mary are 58 years old. They have been employees in their fields for over 30 years. For most of that time, they have been saving for their retirements using 401k investments in mutual funds. Due to government regulation of those investments, their custodians could only invest the money in mutual funds.
John and Mary believed their efforts would result in a large investment fund that would be their source of cash for living expenses in their golden years. Their investment adviser made calculations of how much money they would have to have invested to be able to have enough money to live on. John would sometimes confess to Mary that he worried about getting sick and using up their money early.
They had figured that to have $50,000 per year to live on, they would need to have at least $500,000 in the bank earning 10% interest. Interest rates, though, have tumbled. At 5%, they would need at least two times that sum, or $1,000,000.
Saving diligently, John and Mary had amassed a fund of $650,000 by taking advantage of compound interest. By keeping the money in an investment that earns 4%, they have calculated that they would earn $26,000 per year. Their checks would be just a little over $2,000 per month.
Their financial world has suddenly melted away. Their baby boomer savings have fallen at least 40%, just like so many of their friends. The $400,000 left will give them only $16,000 to live on each year. They now confront a future of living on less than what the government calls poverty income!
Without 30 years or even 15 years to grow another savings fund, they must find other ways of creating cash flow to secure their retirement. They simply don’t have enough time left to build a retirement fund.
The choice to retire can be in their grasp within months, by using tried and tested methods. But our educational system teaches us to get a job and depend on an employer, rather than those tried and tested methods. Who else wants to know how to get a monthly check that is not dependent on an employer and allow you to be free to choose what you do with your time and money?
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