Is Your Individual 401k Going To Be Enough?

By David C Lewis, RFA

For most Americans who have not started planning for their retirement,401ks seem like a "good bet". A serious problem with this idea is the investor's reliance on employer matching for the plan. This might cause an employee to rely too much on the employer and not contribute enough to savings. Nothing will give you a wake up call like using a retirement calculator. You can find them on the internet from a variety of places. Retirement planning is hard, and it isn't something you just throw together without analyzing your needs and wants.

Even when you use a professional adviser, the financial planning process can be difficult. There are just so many variable to consider: how much your retirement savings earn over the years and into retirement, how much debt you have, if any, at the age you plan to retire, and the quality of your health entering retirement are just a few considerations.

You also need a way to account for fiscal irresponsibility on the part of Government (i.e. inflation) and what that will do to your retirement savings. On the internet there are dozens of retirement calculators available, sponsored by retirement organizations, investment companies and other businesses in the money management business that can help you do this. What most of the calculators will show you, is that for most people, even relying on Social Security, you will need a lot of retirement savings to maintain a near pre - retirement standard of living.

If the economy is able to grow enough to outpace inflation, your investments must be able to keep up. Even still, with inflation running 3%-5%, your investments are losing value and struggling to keep up.

Your parents and grandparents may have grown up in a time when a $50 a week wage was normal. Now, however, that's completely unrealistic. More than 50 years later, there is no way you could expect to live off $200 a week.

Average Americans making $500 to $1,000 per week today will see the same kind of results that their parents and grandparents are seeing now, unfortunately. The retirement calculators are showing that they should have a retirement nest egg of close to a million bucks if they want to retire comfortably for 20-30 years.

An online calculator tested online showed that an adult starting with $100,000 and adding $4,000 year to that would enter retirement with almost $900,000 but end up broke by age 85.

Part of managing your existing income is being able to save money and still having access to it when you need it (sometimes hard to do inside a 401K), and still being able to invest for your retirement (though here, a tax deferral helps). Estimating your retirement income and expenses can be extremely difficult, however, there are many different sources of information and assistance available on the internet to get you started.

About the Author:

Author information: There is only so much information that can be covered in one article. If you want more information about any aspect of financial planning, please visit David's website.