401k

Why 401K Education is Important

“”An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.””

     – Benjamin Franklin

Your 401K plan can be a beautiful thing. With the benefits of favorable tax treatment, employer match programs, investment customization, portability, and loan and hardship withdrawals, the 401K empowers employees with a vehicle to grow their nest eggs for retirement. Trouble is you never learned about how to manage a 401K account in school. It's like your parent tossing you the car keys on your seventeenth birthday, telling you to drive cross country, and walking away. You're in charge of your financial destiny but you don't have the training or time to properly care for it.

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Just say No to front end load mutual funds

When we started the Runnymede blog a couple of years ago, our number one priority was to educate investors about investments and finance. Since then, we have received hundreds of questions. We take pride in answering each and every one of them.

Last week, I reviewed a woman's investment portfolio who asked, “Are my fees huge for the investments that I have?” After a bit of quick research, I was shocked by the results. In fact, it nearly made me sick to my stomach. Her retirement accounts held five mutual funds and all of them had outrageous front-end load fees. Here is the shocking truth:

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Three Reasons to Combine Old 401k and IRA Accounts

It is not uncommon to have multiple 401(k) accounts after switching jobs several times over a career. According to a Fidelity survey, almost a third of people who transitioned jobs were not sure what to do with their old 401(k) or 403(b).1 Changing jobs is a busy time so thinking about what to do with your old 401(k) is often not a priority. If you are among the many busy people who have multiple retirement accounts at different firms, this post is for you.

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How much are your mutual fund fees? Much more than you realize!

In a recent AARP survey, a shocking 71% responded that they didn’t pay any fees for their 401(k) mutual fund investments. I didn’t realize that Wall Street had suddenly earned a reputation for working pro bono. Well this simply isn’t the case, and investors need to better educate themselves on the cost of owning mutual funds which can be very reasonable (index funds) to exorbitant (load funds.)

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5 Shocking Facts about Target Date Funds

If you are a 401(k) participant, it is very likely that you are invested in a target date fund. Vanguard expects that by 2016, 80% of new participants will invest solely in target date funds up from 64% in 2011.

If you aren’t familiar, target date funds combine several mutual funds into one easy to digest fund and are managed to become more conservative as participants move closer to retirement age.

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