The Dow had a historic one day gain of 936 points and my account also had a historic one day gain of $83k. Don’t let this number impress you, the gains were made by long term mutual funds I’ve been holding.

The funds are still way off from their highs and it will probably take 1-3 years before they retest their highs. Let this be a lesson to everyone who thought that mutual funds were safe and that tucking money away into a 401k was a safe way to retirement.

Millions of Americans have seen their retirements wiped out in the last few weeks. So what is a safe way to save for retirement? If you do have a 401k through your company, investment a minimum amount. Take some money out of your salary and invest it yourself. No one will ever watch your money better than yourself.

If you don’t know how to invest this money, get a book, search online, there is always a way if there’s a will.

By Dr. Scott Brown

Let me tell you about some legal ways to avoid getting taxed on profits from the stock market. You can make a lot of money now with the stock market as low as it is at this time as I teach you in my home study course. The very best way is to buy and sell your stock through Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

IRAs can help you legally avoid taxes and add a fantastic boost to your retirement plans. The IRA was originally developed in 1974 for people not covered by a company pension plan. “The individual retirement account legislation allowed the average person a chance to put money into a tax-advantaged account,” according to Bruce Grace, a Chartered Financial Analyst and Assistant Professor of Finance at Morehead State University.

This is a huge benefit to individuals, regardless of whether they have company-established pension plans or not. “The Roth IRA may be an even a better deal for those who think they will be in a higher tax bracket at retirement,” Grace added. I personally go a step further and mean it when I tell you that “the Roth Ira is literally the best thing since sliced bread” and I guarantee you is “neater than peanut butter”.

It may seem a little confusing because since the original enactment of IRA legislation, several types of IRAs have been developed with a variety of characteristics that can meet your investment and retirement needs.

The most common forms of the IRA are as follows. The traditional IRA gives you a tax deduction on all of your contributions to the account during your working years and taxes what you take out of the account in your retirement. The Roth IRA does not give you a tax deduction during your working years but you pay no taxes on withdrawals while you are retired.

The 401(K) is an IRA that your employer may or may not offer instead of a pension where, unfortunately, you are generally restricted to investing in mutual funds. The Roth 401(k) is very new and is much better than the standard 401(k) but the jury is out as to whether corporate insiders will adopt it for their employees. The SIMPLE and SEP IRAs are very nice supplemental tax shelters for small business owners and family businesses. Finally, the Education IRA gives you a way to save for a child’s college studies.

By Daniel Lamaute

A SEP is a special type of IRA. Under a SEP plan the employer creates an IRA account for each eligible employee, hence the name SEP-IRA. A SEP is funded solely with employer contributions. Employees do not make contributions to their SEP-IRA retirement account. Any money that goes into a SEP automatically belongs to the employee. Thus, the employee has the right to take his SEP IRA account money with him whenever he stops working for the company.

Any size business can establish a SEP, but the SEP retirement plan is utilized mostly by the self-employed and the small business with few employees. The SEP IRA rules dictate that if the business contributes for one employee, (i.e., the owner), then the business must contribute proportionately for all of the employees. With few exceptions, anyone who works for the business must be included in the SEP. However, you can exclude from participating in the SEP plan anyone who:

1. Has not worked for the company during three out of the last five years.

2. Has not reached age 21 during the year for which contributions are made.

3. Received less than $450 in compensation (subject to cost-of-living adjustments) during the year.

SEP IRA contributions to each employee for 2004 cannot exceed the lesser of $41,000 or 25% of pay for W2 recipients (20% of income for sole proprietors). The SEP IRA contribution limit goes up to $42,000 for 2005, and is subject to cost-of-living adjustments for later years. SEP-IRA rules do not provide for additional catch-up contributions for those 50 years old or over.

A growing number of self-employed individuals with no employees are abandoning the SEP-IRA for a newer type of retirement plan called the Solo 401(k) or Self-Employed 401(k). The two main reasons for the switch are 1) they can generally contribute much more to a Solo 401(k) than they can under a SEP IRA, and 2) Loans are allowed under a Solo 401(k), whereas loans are prohibited under a SEP-IRA.

Example: Henry, age 52, a realtor received $60,000 in compensation from self-employment income in 2004. For 2004, he could contribute a maximum of $27,152 in a Solo 401(k) versus a maximum of $11,152 under a SEP IRA.

However, the Solo 401(k) does not work for businesses with employees. Thus, if your company plans to hire employees or has a handful of employees, the SEP IRA may be your best choice as a retirement plan that is inexpensive and simple to operate.

By Charles O’Melia

For a successful retirement investment plan to work in the stock market, some ‘reasonably sure’ assumptions would have to be made:

The retirement investment plan must take into consideration the one prevailing constant in any stock market security – risk and uncertainty. Understanding that risk and uncertainty are the key factors that propels the return on investment in the stock market far beyond the returns of Passbook Savings Accounts, CD’s or Bonds are a start. The plan’s key factor would be to use the risk and uncertainty of a stock market security to its advantage. Read the rest of this entry »

By Al Thomas

You are 55 years old (or somewhere aroundthere) and your company is going to force you toretire at 65. You have $35,000 saved in your401K and that’s all. The house will be paid forby then so you will have a place to live. Thecompany pension will pay about $1,000/month andso will Social Security. What will my life stylebe like at that time?

Let me give you a clue. You are going to needjust about as much as you are making now evenwith the house paid for. If you are lucky youmight have health insurance with your pension,but don’t count on it. You hope Uncle Sam willhelp out. But don’t count on it. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rick Hoogendoorn

For most people, there is a direct correlation between how worried they are about retirement income, and how much they can actually do about it. This is because the more worried you are, the closer you probably are to retirement, and the less time you have to do anything – like save up. Effective ’saving up’ requires time. Time so your money can grow. Save an extra $200 a month, three years before retirement (at age 62), and you’ll amass a grand total of $7,887 (averaging 6% growth). Not likely to have a big impact on your retirement lifestyle.

But what if you invested for retirement when you were NOT worried about it? What if you, say, quit smoking a pack a day at age 45 and took the money and invested that instead? (For the purposes of this illustration, let’s assume a pack costs $7.00 and you smoke a pack a day so you invest, for easy figure’s sake, $200 per month. Again, average compound rate of return is 6%.) Read the rest of this entry »