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    Roadmap to Retirement Security: How to Build and Conserve Retirement Wealth
    Roadmap to Retirement Security: How to Build and Conserve Retirement Wealth
    Roadmap to Retirement Security: How to Build and Conserve Retirement Wealth
    Ebook143 pages1 hour

    Roadmap to Retirement Security: How to Build and Conserve Retirement Wealth

    By Stephen Butler

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    About this ebook

    This book won't waste your time. It explains the fundamentals leading to investment success while avoiding the all-too-common "dumbed-down" information that just tells readers what they already know. Sophisticated concepts like "marked-to-market" and "the snapback phenomenon" and "Modern Portfolio Theory" are some of the book's themes that can lead to confidence and success as investors.

    For retirees, the book's purpose is to provide a do-it-yourself course of action allowing for an "end-run" around the financial services industry with the latter's excessive costs --- costs that eat up what could otherwise have been more retirement income. Knowing how to effectively self-manage assets and implement a mix of cost-effective investments is a critical skill for retirees. Understanding and applying some simple basics will deliver the most on-going income while still combating the disasterous effects of inflation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateJan 24, 2014
    ISBN9781491720592
    Roadmap to Retirement Security: How to Build and Conserve Retirement Wealth
    Author

    Stephen Butler

    Stephen Butler is a former award-winning television and newspaper journalist and public-relations consultant. He is married and lives in the Australian city of Adelaide with his wife, Angela. They have two grown children. He has retired. His last job was manager of a public affairs unit for the Australian Defence Department.

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      Book preview

      Roadmap to Retirement Security - Stephen Butler

      Copyright © 2014 Stephen Butler.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4917-2058-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4917-2059-2 (e)

      iUniverse rev. date: 01/20/2014

      Contents

      Part 1—Building Financial Security

      Introduction

      Chapter 1—Set Your Goals and Wake Up Rich

      Chapter 2—The Fundamentals of Risk, Return, and Time

      Chapter 3—Three Asset Classes: Cash, Bonds, and Stocks

      Chapter 4—Mutual Funds

      Chapter 5—More on Stocks: How They Work

      Chapter 6—Adopting the Cornerstones of Intelligent Investing

      Chapter 7—The Automatic Pilots of Retirement-Plan Investing

      Chapter 8—Choosing Your Investment Mix

      Chapter 9—Managing Other Money

      Chapter 10—The End Game

      Part 2—How to Live a Life and Not Outlive Your Retirement Resources

      Chapter 11—Introduction

      Chapter 12—Show Me the Money

      Chapter 13—Where to Take Your Money

      Chapter 14—A Case Study of Retirement Finance

      Chapter 15—More on Bonds—How They Work

      Chapter 16—The Danger Zone

      Chapter 17—Taking Your Money Out

      Chapter 18—Using a Financial Planner

      Chapter 19—Test-Driving Your Retirement

      Suggested Reading

      About the Author

      Part 1—Building Financial Security

      Introduction

      This book provides what people need to know about investing from start to finish from the day they sign up for their first retirement plan until the day, on their deathbed, they give away what’s left of what they own. It is divided into two parts that cover distinctively different activities. The first part is devoted to building retirement assets, while the second focuses on how to invest in a way that may preserve the nest egg for a lifetime.

      Until recently, the average American’s most valuable asset was the equity in his or her home. Today, it is the value of their retirement account, primarily their company-sponsored retirement plan and/or their collection of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) that derived from company-sponsored retirement plan rollover money. In addition to that major source of wealth, however, many people have other money that they have saved, inherited, or generated by the sale of a home or business. Investing money in any retirement plan is easier because of the tax-free treatment of these dollars. Investing other taxable assets can be an entirely different challenge. This book focuses primarily on retirement fund money for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks. It’s where the money is. However, a later chapter does address the challenges of investing taxable money and offers advice about how to invest one’s way through the minefield of investment taxation that can otherwise rob from our successes.

      This book describes the guiding principles that have traditionally led employees to retirement-plan investment success and financial independence. It offers advice covering the entire spectrum of what people need to know, regardless of where they are in the retirement-investment process. From the young employees signing up for their first plans to someone actually spending his or her retirement plan money in retirement, the book offers a track to run on, including simple illustrations of investment concepts. The mysteries of the investment world will fade away in the face of these clear teaching tools. Moreover, the book is designed to be an inspirational answer to those of you who claim, We just can’t deal with it. This book is for you more than anyone else.

      The first chapter outlines why the voluntary retirement plan (401(k) or 403(b)), a powerful and flexible financial tool, has allowed Americans to accomplish so much since its invention more than thirty years ago. The next chapter outlines the most basic fundamentals of investing, followed by a discussion of the basic asset classes: stocks, bonds, and cash. Then there’s an explanation of what mutual funds are really all about. The next several chapters address how to make sense of the different funds and the extent to which they can be combined successfully. Learn how professional investors increase their rates of return while reducing their level of risk. And finally, once you’ve made a pile of retirement money, how do you shift gears and start spending it without running out? That’s the question explored in part 2 of this book.

      I have been designing, installing, administering, advising, and improving 401(k) plans and other retirement plans for over thirty years. A major part of my effort has been educating employee participants. For more than sixteen years, my weekly financial column in fifteen San Francisco Bay area newspapers has offered a steady stream of investment basics that have helped readers capitalize on positive economic forces while avoiding human behavioral failures. Understanding the system and avoiding mistakes increases the potential for reaching retirement goals.

      The first 401(k) plan my company ever installed was at a San Francisco company in 1980. In January 2010, at the company’s annual retirement-plan employee meeting, a person who had been in this plan for thirty years said, Steve, I took your advice. I stayed the course (mostly in stocks) while the markets were falling apart, and now I’m back up to $2.5 million.

      This person had deposited an average contribution over the years of about $10,000 per year. The total for thirty years was $300,000. Since roughly one-third of that $10,000 each year was paid with money that would have otherwise disappeared in taxes, his actual cost in take-home pay was only about $200,000. His average rate of return over the period was a typical 10 percent per year. Voila! He now has more than enough money to retire. He can retire early, in fact.

      Today’s average 401(k) plan account balance for people over age fifty-five is more than $200,000. This figure is based on government information that includes only retirement-plan accounts. It fails to include retirement-plan money that has long since rolled into individual retirement accounts (IRAs). It’s safe to say that the average retiree, when the day comes, has between $300,000 and $1 million in their accounts, and this kind of money can support an adequate retirement income stream when invested wisely.

      The Wall Street Journal cites the growing number of retirement-plan millionaires, while a McKinsey and Company study points out that the average American worker has five times more in retirement benefits than would have been the case had 401(k) or 403(b) plans not been invented. These successes have been an accident in legislative history; lawmakers never anticipated how effective the programs would be. The old joke about We’re the government and we’re here to help actually turns out to be true in this case.

      You Don’t Have to Wait until Retirement

      Our voluntary retirement plan has proven to be history’s most powerful financial tool for accomplishing the financial goals sought by most of us as working Americans. Buying homes, educating children, saving for emergencies, and providing for our retirement are the primary reasons we save. While retirement plans are designed to provide financial security in retirement, they can be extremely valuable resources for meeting financial goals before then. The loan provision offered by most plans, the financial hardship provisions, and the access to cash while between jobs can play major roles in the ongoing financial security of all working adults. Long before retirement itself, the purchase of homes, funding of education, and a variety of other financial goals can be met by accessing retirement-plan savings.

      I’ll share a real-life example. Recently, a newly reemployed middle-aged participant was eager to sign up for the maximum annual contribution to his retirement plan. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that tapping his previous retirement-plan account while between jobs had been the key to keeping his home and his family together. Given this person’s firsthand experience of the value of a financial lifeline offered by the retirement plan, he needed nothing to convince him to replenish his account with maximum contributions. After all, the retirement plan is currently Americans’ most powerful tool for accumulating meaningful amounts of money.

      What’s the Secret to This Savings Phenomenon?

      The government’s sanction, or invention, of tax-deferred retirement plans effectively amounts to a substantial government subsidy. Why? Because our voluntary contributions to the plan come right off the top of our pay, before any taxes are calculated. Some of what we would otherwise have paid in taxes is, instead, deposited into our retirement-plan accounts. Then, as the money starts compounding (money earning 7.2 percent doubles every ten years), all of our earnings on assets accumulate tax

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