Despite everything thats happened this year...gas prices, Japan and the Mid east meltdown.  Stock market returns are positive.

Index	Last	Change	% change	YTD
DOW	12,220.59	50.03	0.41%	5.55%
NASDAQ	2,743.06	6.64	0.24%	3.40%
S&P 500	1,313.80	4.14	0.32%	4.47%
Quotes as of Close 3/25/2011

Employers are starting to offer Roth 401k and 403b plans.  Call your benefits office or 401k custodian and see if your plan offers the Roth option.  These are ideal for anyone..expecially high-income employees who don't qualify for the Roth IRA. 

Income restrictions on the Roth IRA...No income restriction on your Roth 401k

There are income limits on who can contribute to a Roth IRA on a continuing basis, but those rules don't apply to Roth 401(k)s.

In 2011, the limit for joint filers is modified adjusted gross income of $179,000. The maximum contribution amount is reduced for those with income of $169,000 or more. For single filers, it's $122,000 and the maximum contribution amount is reduced for those with modified adjusted gross income of $107,000 or more.

Employers can match Roth 401(k) contributions, but the employers' dollars must go into a pretax account, not the Roth, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Great tip...Take your Roth 401k and roll into your Roth IRA

One disadvantage of a Roth 401(k): At age 701/2 you'll need to start taking annual required minimum distributions (MRD's). To avoid this, you can roll your Roth 401(k) into a Roth IRA before reaching that age. Your Roth IRA does not require an MRD.

Courtesy of WSJ.com

One believer is Bud Hebeler, 77, a retired Boeing executive who runs www.analyzenow.com, a retirement-planning website. He says annuities have made his retirement more secure, helping him avoid the problems that plague many retirees who rely primarily on their savings.

According to Financial Research Corp., a Boston research firm, a 65-year-old retiree who withdraws an inflation-adjusted $45,000 annually from a $1 million portfolio of stock and bond investments has a 25% chance of running out of money before age 92. But if the retiree gets the same annual income by investing $400,000 in an immediate annuity and withdrawing the rest from $600,000 invested in stocks and bonds, the chance of running out of money drops to 6%, the research firm says.

WSJ.Com Making The Case To Buy An Annuity

Social Security Electronic Booklet

If you've converted or are planning to convert a Traditional or Rollover IRA to a Roth IRA, be sure to get all the paperwork right.

With income limits for Roth conversions eliminated last year, the number of Roth conversions jumped. And that has led to some oversights involving tax and beneficiary forms, says Ed Slott, a certified public accountant in Rockville Centre, N.Y., and founder of IRAhelp.com.

Investors must fill out Internal Revenue Service Form 8606, "Nondeductible IRAs," and submit the form with income-tax returns for the year the conversion was made. (The form is available from your bank, broker or at www.irs.gov.)

You must submit Form 8606 even if you opt to delay reporting the conversion tax.

Under a special provision, those who converted to a Roth last year can choose to either report the full taxable income on the conversion on their 2010 taxes or report just the conversion in 2010 and spread the taxable income evenly over tax years 2011 and 2012.

Courtesy of WSJ.com

Oil prices climbed Tuesday as Iran clamped down on anti-government protesters and unrest in the Middle East threatened to keep energy prices high for months to come.

West Texas Intermediate for April delivery, a benchmark North American crude, gained $2.66 to settle at $99.63 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude — a benchmark used widely outside North America — gained $3.62 to settle at $115.42 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The average 401(k) balance hit a 10-year high at the end of last year as the recession waned and more Americans bulked up their retirement savings.

At the end of 2010, the average 401(k) balance had risen to $71,500 -- up 11.5% from $64,200 a year earlier, according to a report released Wednesday by Fidelity Investments.

Thousands of demonstrators continued to rally in and around Madison's Capitol on Monday, braving frigid Midwestern temperatures to show support for Wisconsin's unions.

The protest was sparked by Gov. Scott Walker's proposed budget repair legislation, which would remove state employees' collective bargaining rights and mandate workers to pay more for health care and pension funds.  

The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) Annuity Calculator can help you estimate how much your monthly annuity payments would be if you have the TSP purchase an annuity for you when you make your request for a full withdrawal.

The amount of your monthly annuity payments depends to a large degree on the size of your TSP account balance (or the portion of your account that you intend to use to purchase the annuity).  In addition, the type of annuity you choose, your age (and your joint annuitant's age in the case of a joint life annuity), and the interest rate index at the time that the TSP purchases your annuity, affect the monthly amount that you will receive.

We get a lot of requests to explain the"age 55 rule."

Too Bad...You're not a public servant.

Top-notch retirement benefits are prolific in the public sector. A large majority of state and local government workers (84 percent) were offered a traditional pension in 2010, compared with just 20 percent of private industry workers. The public sector professions most likely to come with pensions include primary, secondary, and special education school teachers (96 percent), natural resources, construction, and maintenance jobs (87 percent), and the protective service (84 percent). "State and local governments, some federal government employees, and the military are the primary areas where they remain strong," says Olivia Mitchell, director of the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

7 Reasons You Don't Have A Pension Us News & World Report

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he doesn’t mind breaking promises to pensioners to close a $10.5 billion budget deficit -- even if they sue.“I have bigger issues than who sues me,” said    Christie, 48, a Republican and former federal prosecutor who wants to end cost-of-living increases for retirees. “Get in line.”

Pressured to cut spending and not raise taxes, public officials are focusing on pensions.   State plans cover 24 million active and retired workers, according to the Denver-based organization, about 8 percent of the U.S. population of 309 million in 2010.

Out of Proportion

Christie, saying New Jersey’s retirement benefits are “wildly out of proportion with the private sector,” suggested eliminating automatic cost-of-living increases last year. The state has also stopped paying into its pensions.