Thursday, January 8, 2009

IRA 401K

By Raul Dutton

It is vital that we plan for our future retirement. No one wants to work until they die or be forced to rely on their loved ones to support them financially.

How do we avoid that? There are many different retirement planning methods to choose from. I'd like to discuss briefly an IRA and a 401K.

IRA 401K A 401k is a retirement fund usually managed by a person's employer. The employer will usually offer to match dollar for dollar the contributions of an employee up to a certain amount or up to a certain number of years. There are several reasons for this.

They are required by law, to keep x amount of liquid dollars to back up the benefits they are offering to their employees. By encouraging you to contribute to the 401K they get more money on hand to claim.

Another reason is that they can use the funds to invest and actually make money from your contributions, thus allowing them to pay you back at time of retirement with the earnings from your own contributed dollars.

IRA stands for Individual Retirement Account. The purpose of these accounts is to make people want to invest in their retirement to kind of take it easy on the social security system. Too many people rely on their 401K and then their company goes under. Then they are left eith no retirement.

Since their are so many types of IRA's, it may be difficult to decide which is the best for your plan. Discuss your retirement goals with a financial advisor and they can help you see which is the right one. - 14915

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