Aon found, in dollar terms, that a 45-year-old participant that uses some form of professional advice will amass $587,000 by the age of 65 or 79% more. Both scenarios assume no further contributions by either participant and include all fees. The numbers magnify even more when 20 years of additional contributions are factored in.

Why the great disparity? The survey found that the portfolios of individuals who didn’t seek advice suffered from:

• Inappropriate risk levels
• Market timing mistakes
• Misunderstanding risks and market volatility

THERE IS A WAY for you to have your retirement account managed by a professional without disrupting your existing account. More than 100,000 retirement plans throughout the country, including 401(k)s and 403(b)s, allow for individual participants, like you, to engage a professional advisor to help manage your retirement account assets directly through your existing plan. The process is simple and easy to implement and nothing about your account will change other than a significant increase in your investment options. Contact us via the "Free Consultation" button above or e-mail us and we can show you how.

Understanding Costs of Retirement

Besides helping you with 401(k) rollovers, our company can also help you understand what amount you should be targeting with your retirement assets. Many entering retirement without having completed retirement planning believe that they will spend less in retirement than they do currently. Our experience is that is rarely the case. Most retirees spend nearly as much in retirement as they did before. They may not have a mortgage or children to raise but they usually find other things to spend their money on. Travel and healthcare often are the top two expenses.

As these retirement planning tips suggest, most people will end up spending as much as they do now when they retire. In general, it's always best to save for the same standard of living than not.

One way that we can help you plan accordingly is to break your retirement into phases. Early retirement is typically when a lot of recreational spending occurs. You may decide to buy a house or help your children through college or go on expensive trips. The middle phase may be a bit more conservative, but you should still expect normal, every day, expenses. The late phase of retirement should consider medical costs.

Even though people are living longer, it doesn't always mean that their twilight years are going to be spent in good health. Having retirement money ready or the proper insurance available to help with any medical costs is vital. Along with explaining and helping with 401(k) rollovers, retirement planning should consider your spending habits in the future. We can help you plan out each phase of your retirement.

The secret behind saving for retirement is compound interest. When you're younger, you can take more risk with your investments which can potentially provide powerful long-term returns. However, if you are unsure of how to properly allocate your assets, what to invest in or when to sell, then your odds of long-term success diminish greatly.

Using a service like ours can help you choose the right investments and create a solid plan for the future.

Even if you are close to retirement, it is imperative that you prudently invest to maximize your retirement account returns. We are fiduciaries that will advise you and manage your investments to help maximize your returns.  We can also assist you with whether or not you should consider 401(k) rollovers.

Is a good portion of your wealth still sitting in your previous employer’s retirement plan? DO NOT make the mistake that so many have by falsely believing that all of their retirement assets were safe in their old 401(k) or 403(b). Corporate bankruptcies happen, even large ones like Enron, market crashes happen like what happened in 2008-2009. If you have any portion of your retirement assets invested in your former employer’s stock, you must take action now.

When Enron went bankrupt, it was one of the largest companies in the S&P 500. At the time thousands of current and former employees had the majority of their retirement assets invested in Enron’s stock only to lose it all. When the market crashed in 2008-2009, Citicorp and many other large corporations lost 90% of their market valuations. Today, the stock of Citicorp, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, trades at 8% of the previous market peak it achieved in 2007. If you were an employee or former employee of Citicorp, Enron or other similar company and planning to retire between then and now, and you were heavily invested via your 401(k) in the company stock, your retirement has been decimated.

This is a common problem that we see over and over at Gwynedd. People frequently come to us with retirement account statements from their previous employers and the accounts have not been adjusted since they left the company. Many times the accounts are either invested in a Stable Value fund, which earns virtually zero, or the company stock which represents 40%-50% of the total allocation.

We Can Help You Calculate After-Tax Rate of Investment Returns

An unfortunate part of investing and retiring is that  taxes will eventually need to be paid. Depending on how often you withdraw money from your retirement or when, you might also face fees. Our company can help explain 401(k) rollovers and help you calculate after-tax rates of returns. You may find that other retirement plans are better than your current one when taxes are considered. In this case, rolling over your 401(k)  may be exactly what you need to do.

To ensure you receive the returns that you expect after taxes, we can help you calculate what your portfolio needs to grow to and the best way to invest it.

Start Planning Today

Our company can help you with 401(k) rollovers and planning for retirement. Contact us today to start learning about 401(k) rollovers and the best way to invest for retirement.