This can't be good for retirement, markets, the economy....

The August Kiplinger's takes a few retirement calculators out for test drive.   Same input, different results.

Here's information on five commonly used online retirement tools.

Middleton, Lake Mary, Suwanee, Holly Springs, these places sound like great places to live!  Check out Money Magazines Best Places To Live.

Courtesy CNNMoney.com

Here's the information on our website: Rollover Basics

We all know the Roth IRA is a great retirement account with several benefits-our distributions will be tax free at retirement, our contributions can come out at any time and there is no mandatory distribution at age 70 1/2. 

Suze Orman's recent column suggests many of us who will have a mortgage at retirement may want to use our Roth account to pay off the mortgage.

This year, individuals with modified adjusted gross incomes below $99,000, and married couples filing a joint return with income below $156,000, can invest the full $4,000 in a Roth. Contributions are reduced for individuals with incomes between $99,000 and $114,000, as well as married couples with incomes between $156,000 and $166,000. (You can contribute $5,000 if you're at least 50 years old.)

I have a better idea. After 15 years, your mortgage balance will be about $217,000. To pay it off in full you would need a 401(k) balance of about $335,000 to net the $217,000 after taxes. (Withdraw $335,000 in one year and chances are you'll be stuck in the 35 percent tax bracket.)

If you had at least $217,000 in a Roth IRA instead, you would be in great shape, because that $217,000 could be withdrawn tax-free. If you ask me, saving $217,000 is a lot easier than saving $500,000, or even $335,000.

retirement

Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) on Tuesday became the latest large company to move away from a traditional pension plan.

Starting in January, Dow will not offer new salaried hires its traditional pension plan. Instead, they will get a so-called cash balance account. Dow will contribute 5% of their pay, plus interest, to the account, which will vest after three years.

Dow, which has 43,000 workers, said it started evaluating new retirement plan options after the Pension Protection Act passed. The company said the cash balance plan will allow it to keep a competitive retirement plan with less volatile expenses.

Courtesy of CNNMoney.com

Most 401k plans offer a menu of investment choices.  Some plans are now providing an annuity option- the ability to generate an income stream with a portion of your monies after you retire.  Even if your plan doesn't provide this option, you'll have the ability to rollover funds into an IRA and buy annuities.

The Saturday Wall Street Journal provides some tips, advice and a podcast on annuities.

A number of companies are introducing products that for the first time allow workers to invest in annuities through their 401(k)s, the heart of many Americans' retirement savings. A 401(k), for the most part, is easy to understand and set up. But it doesn't offer a simple mechanism for creating a steady income in retirement. Annuities, by contrast, have long offered a way to generate a paycheck in later life but tend to be complicated, expensive and a general pain in the neck to shop for.

Courtesy of StockCharts.com

Nearly two-thirds of employers that offer traditional pensions have closed their plans to new hires or frozen them for all employees, or plan to do so in the next two years, according to a study released Tuesday.

The survey by the industry-supported Employee Benefit Research Institute and Mercer Human Resources Consulting shows that most companies that close off their pensions seek to partially offset the loss to employees by increasing contributions to firm-sponsored 401(k)s, where employees are responsible for managing their own retirement money.

Courtesy of latimes.com

I just glanced at the Weather Channel....it looks blistering hot all over the country! 

The Business Week Annual Retirement Guide is on my desk right now....here's the online version.

New research suggests there could be an optimal strategy for couples trying to decide when to collect Social Security. In short: A wife should jump early, and her husband should wait.

Their conclusion: Wives generally should claim benefits at 62 (the earliest eligibility age), and husbands generally should delay filing until 69.

Some guidance came in the June issue of the Journal of Financial Planning. Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, and Mauricio Soto, a researcher at the center, set out to determine the best age for women to claim Social Security. In doing so, the pair also calculated how a wife and husband could accumulate as many Social Security dollars as possible during their years together -- and during the life of the surviving spouse -- given various differences in ages and pre-retirement income.

Courtesy of the Sunday Wall Street Journal

Journal of Financial Planning Summary When Should Women Claim Social Security Benefits?