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dancerjodiI was thinking of budgeting earlier today, and coincidentally came across a mention of this site http://betterbudgeting.com/ in Self Magazine (I canceled the subscription incidentally, and this is my last issue - I had it at the office to flip through while a particularly big query was churning). Its pretty neat, and I like their Black Belt Budgeting concept.
The article in Self (the August issue) also mentioned that to prep for retirement, one should have 12 times their annual salary in reserve (at the time of retirement I'm assuming, probably based on living 12 or so years past age 65, adding that income to benefits that one would gain through SS, assuming its still around then). They suggest that the best way to do this is to invest 12% of your salary via 401k or otherwise. That's neat in concept I guess, but Brian and I need to get out of our high interest debt before tacking something like that.
It was a cool article, and worth checking out if you have access to. They suggest things for people of each decade (in their 30's, 40's and 50's) to do and have guidelines for investing for your child's college education, scaling back spending, and other useful tidbits.
The article in Self (the August issue) also mentioned that to prep for retirement, one should have 12 times their annual salary in reserve (at the time of retirement I'm assuming, probably based on living 12 or so years past age 65, adding that income to benefits that one would gain through SS, assuming its still around then). They suggest that the best way to do this is to invest 12% of your salary via 401k or otherwise. That's neat in concept I guess, but Brian and I need to get out of our high interest debt before tacking something like that.
It was a cool article, and worth checking out if you have access to. They suggest things for people of each decade (in their 30's, 40's and 50's) to do and have guidelines for investing for your child's college education, scaling back spending, and other useful tidbits.
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Date: 2006-08-24 08:57 pm (UTC)The roth IRA is very popular though because you pay taxes on the money before you put it in, then the tax is interest free if you withdraw the money after 59.5 or whatever. The really nice thing is that you can withdraw the principal at any time without any penalty, unlike a 401k. If you decide to withdraw the interest early though it will be subject to a penalty.
An interesting thing that few companies have offered is the roth-401K. Acts like the roth ira but can be contributed to (and matched?) like the 401k. Pretty cool.
Personally I can't get in on my new company's 401K for another month or something, so I plan to finally open a roth ira, maybe a stock index fund, and then just save the rest since I too am in theory looking for a house or schooling in the near future. Once I can use the 401k agian I will hit the match on that and try to keep sticking something in the roth ira.
[1] If you company allows multiple account direct deposit I suppose you could have it direct money to a roth and a savings as well as a checking account.