If you’re saving for retirement, chances are that you are putting money away into an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan. According to a recent study by the Investment Company Institute, Americans put away over $5.8 trillion in assets in 2019. By comparison, that number was only $3.1 trillion in 2010. 

While 401(k) and 403b accounts are by far the most widely utilized saving plans, you may not be aware of the various costs and fees that come with them. In fact, if you’re like 37% of savers, you may not realize that you pay anything at all.

Planning for retirement can be both exhilarating and scary at the same time. Living a worry-free retirement requires a combination of a robust investment portfolio, liquid assets, potential annuities and social security income. 

At the beginning of 2020, no one could have imagined the sudden economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Market volatility has naturally made many people consider postponing retirement plans because of sudden drops in the stock market that have increased investment uncertainty in retirement accounts. 

This is one of the most common questions that I am asked on a regular basis. It’s certainly a fair question and one that’s probably even gone through my head a few times.

We live in an instant gratification world – what have you done for me lately?” We expect to see the results of our saving and investing efforts immediately. While there are times you’ll actually notice faster growth within your investments because of a specific sector or company, for the most part it’s a long-term process.

Since the novel coronavirus began spreading across the globe, it has impacted everything about our daily lives. However, while some of the effects were immediate, such as quarantines and lockdowns, one of the less obvious was how it would impact retirement planning. 

In this article, we want to look at the various ways that COVID-19 has disrupted retirement plans. To help understand these effects better, we’re going to look at the three stages of planning - early, pre-retirement, and retirement. We’ll also pay attention to the various legal changes that were inside the relief bill passed in March. 

The Financial Freedom Blueprint® Is Now An Online Course

We have some super exciting news around here at NextGen Wealth. We have taken our trademarked financial planning process, The Financial Freedom Blueprint®, and turned it into a do it yourself online course.

So, if you’re the do it yourselfer type when it comes to your personal finances, you now have a financial planning process laid out for you that will take you through every step of the way.

President Trump signed into law the ‘Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement’ Act (SECURE Act) on December 20, 2019. It became effective on January 1, 2020. The SECURE Act is considered a part of the government’s spending bill and will affect retirement savers inevitably. 

The legislation puts into place several provisions that are designed to strengthen retirement security across the country. It also includes several common-sense reforms that are considered long overdue. These reforms are designed to make retirement more accessible and easier for many Americans.

When discussing retirement planning, it’s crucial to prepare for the most significant expenses you’ll be facing. While you can control some of these, one cost that will only get higher is healthcare. Unfortunately, as you get older, your body will require more maintenance and upkeep, which can lead to more hospital visits, medications, and other treatments.  

To ensure that you’re ready for rising healthcare costs, we want to outline the best way to plan for them during retirement. Whether you’re going to retire in a few years or a few decades, it’s never too soon (or too late) to prepare. Here’s what you need to know. 

Remember when saving for retirement used to be so easy? Yea, I don’t either because I wasn’t alive back then. However, if you were, all you had to do was work 40 years at your employer, get your pension and social security and then sail off into the retirement sunset.

Today, on the other hand, it's a totally different story. It now basically falls completely on your shoulders. There are so many questions. How much should I save in my 401k? What do I even invest in? What about a Roth IRA? The list can go on and on. Let's take it step-by-step to get you moving in the right direction so you can get to retirement – or what I like to call financial independence – sooner rather than later.

Now that the holidays are over, it’s back to reality. For many – hopefully, not you – it means paying off all the debts you racked up from your extremely generous giving. Let’s just hope you had already budgeted for it and you were merely using your credit card to get the free rewards.

Regardless of whether you have debt or not, sometimes, unknowns pop up in our lives where we need to get access to money. If you don’t have it sitting in a savings account – which I’m sure you do if you’re an avid reader of this blog – you have to find it somewhere.

No matter how old you are, it’s never too late to start thinking about retirement. Although you will want to put money away in a variety of different accounts, one of the most reliable is an IRA. You may already be familiar with Traditional and Roth IRAs, but the fact is there is a way to move money from a Traditional to a Roth, which is considered a Backdoor Roth IRA or a Roth Conversion.

Both actually do the same thing in a slightly different way. A Backdoor Roth IRA is typically in relation to converting a Traditional non-deductible contribution to a Roth IRA. A Roth Conversion is normally in relation to a larger amount being converted from a Traditional to a Roth. Again, they both do the same thing but just have different names. Today, we’re going to focus on the Backdoor Roth IRA.

For many individuals, the primary concern is to save as much money as they can before retirement. After all, the bigger your nest egg, the less likely you’ll run out. 

However, even if your retirement accounts are bursting at the seams, budgeting is still a necessity. In many cases, without a budget, you could wind up having to dust off the old resume because your funds are starting to run low. 

As a financial advisor, I meet with individuals and couples who hope to retire early all the time - I mean, who doesn’t. Once I sit down with them for some basic number-crunching, we work together to create a long-term financial plan that will guide many of their decisions. 

This can include how much to invest, when and where to invest, and ways to increase cash flow and returns while keeping long-term costs and taxes to a minimum. 

The average person needs between 70 and 80 percent of their income each year when they retire. If you have that already saved, you're probably in good shape. 

However, there's always more you can do to help you stretch your retirement funds without sacrificing your quality of life. It just takes planning and know-how.

First of all, congratulations that you are able to max out your 401k. Whether it’s $18,000 if you are under 50 years old or $24,000 if you’re over 50, that is a lot of money to sock away on an annual basis.

Now that we have established you're contributing the max, the next question I ask is do you receive matching contributions from your employer? If the answer is yes, another congratulations are in order because not all employers provide a company match.