Guided Tools/Calculators

In the coming months, we will be developing calculators designed to help you with various financial concerns you may have, such as:

• How taking a loan from your retirement account will impact its balance.
• Whether it would be better for you to pay off your credit cards or contribute to your retirement plan.
• How you can maximize the match your company provides to retirement plan participants.

In the meantime, we have a selection of easy-to-understand articles below that may help you to gain a better understanding of finance in general.

The Power of Asset Allocation
So you've decided to delve into the world of retirement planning. Now what? There seems to be no limit on either investment options or sources of information. Given that most of us don't have the time to learn everything we ever needed to know about investing, we will give you the key points first. You can then decide to delve into the details if you want…

Staying on the Efficient Frontier
You've done your homework and realized that by investing now you can significantly improve your chances for affording a comfortable retirement. You have even gone so far as to place your money in some sort of tax-deferred 401(k) plan. You feel good about yourself — you've done the smart thing for your future. Now you can sit back and watch your returns compound, all the while planning what you will do in your retirement.
Or can you?…

Maximizing Your Employer's Match
So you want to take your employer's retirement match to the max, but you're not sure what it takes to do so. The truth is, taking advantage of your match can be relatively easy, but the decision to do so may not be as straightforward as it seems…

To Take or Not To Take a Loan
If you are trying to decide whether you should borrow from your retirement plan savings or not, take first steps first. Check with your plan administrator or Benefits book to verify if your plan even allows you to take out a loan. Some plans do and some plans don't. If you find out your plan does allow loans, then you'll also need to find out about the rules around the loan feature. Then comes the difficult part — answering the question of whether or not to borrow from your plan…

Twenty-Somethings, Take Note
This is one of those trick riddles for those who love word problems in math class…

a. Chris is 25 and saves $3,000 a year for ten years (or $30,000) and then stops saving.
b. Greg is 35 and saves $3,000 a year until retirement at age 65 (or $105,000).

Who has more money when they reach 65?…