Free Money for Your Retirement?

It can be more than a little discouraging to start making retirement planning calculations YouÂ’ll usually find that to achieve the annual retirement income you want, you need to be saving a lot more than is practical

Suppose, for example, that you use a program like Quicken or Microsoft Money to determine that your retirement savings should equal to $5,200 a year—which is the same as $450 a month (This savings amount will produce roughly $15,000 a year of retirement income if you save for 20 years, increase your savings with inflation, and earn 9 percent)

Okay That’s great information to have But practically speaking, where do you find this money? Well first you want to get the free money that’s available

The first source of free retirement money

While $450 a month seems like a lot of money, you may be able to come up with this figure more readily than you might think Say, for example, that you work for an employer whoÂ’s generous enough to match your 401(k) contributions by 50 percent In other words, for every dollar you contribute, your employer contributes $50

In this case, you need to come up with $300 a month to have $450 a month added to your retirement savings To make this calculation, you divide the monthly savings amount, $450, by 1 + the employerÂ’s matching percentage, 50% The formula $450/(1+50%) equals $300

The second source of free retirement money

Also suppose that you pay federal and state income taxes of 33 percent and that you can deduct your 401(k) contributions from your income In this case, the actual monthly out-of-pocket amount you need to come up with equals $200, not $450 To make this calculation, you multiply your share of the needed monthly savings, $300 in this example, by 1minus the 33% marginal tax rate, which equals 67%

In this case, the actual amount you need to come up with on a monthly basis equals $200 because $300 times 67% equals (roughly) $200

Sometimes, most of your retirement savings money can come from others

Admittedly, $200 a month is still a lot of money But itÂ’s also a lot less than the $450-per-month savings you need to add to your retirement savings In fact, most of the money in this example you need to save comes from other sources!

The preceding calculations argue for two tactics when saving for retirement First, if an employer offers to match your contributions to something like a 401(k) plan, it will almost always make sense to accept the offer—unless your employer is trying to force you to make an investment that is not appropriate for you

TIP If you do want to contribute $300 a month to a 401(k) plan and need to reduce your income taxes withheld by $100 a month to do so, talk to your employerÂ’s payroll department for instructions You may need to file a new W-4 statement and increase the number of personal exemptions claimed

Second, any time you get a tax deduction for contributing money to your retirement savings, itÂ’s almost certainly too good a deal to pass up As described in the preceding example, you can use the income tax savings because of the deduction to boost your savings so they provide for the desired level of retirement income

Article Source: http://wwwarticledashboardcom

Kirkland WA certified public accountant writer Stephen L Nelson CPA has written more than 150 books His bestselling book is Qu Determining How Much Life Insurance You Needicken for Dummies, which sold more than 1,000,000 copies His books have sold more than 4,000,000 copies in English and have been translated into more than a dozen other languages His web site is wwwstephenlnelsoncom

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