Two big factors weigh
heavily on your retirement savings needs: how many years you're going to spend in retirement and how much you're going to need to withdraw each year.
You can view the possibilities based on whether you are opening a taxable investment account, or whether you plan to
focus on retirement savings.
For example, if you spend your working years in a high - income - tax state, such as New York or California, and you then retire in a low - income - tax state, such as Florida or Texas, you have the option of avoiding state income
taxes on both retirement savings as well as retirement income.
Conflicts of interest likely lead, on average, to 1 percentage point lower annual
returns on the retirement savings of middle - class families, according to a recent report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
In the latest edition of the journal Health Economics, researchers Vicki Bogan of Cornell University and Angela Fertig, research investigator at Medica Research Institute, find that mental health problems have a large and significant negative
effect on retirement savings.
This downturn would have had no long - term impact
on the retirement savings of someone in individual bonds (unless he or she had been forced to sell).
Financial planners normally advise clients to hold off collecting benefits as long as possible because the larger benefit check will come in handy if the person lives longer and runs
low on retirement savings later in life.
But millions of Americans also work with financial advisers and
stockbrokers on retirement savings, and there is a big difference between the two that retirement savers should know about.
A lot of people are behind
on retirement savings because of other pressing financial matters, said Vic Patel, the New York - based founder of Forex Training Group.
«If your employer offers a company match
on a retirement savings plan, whether an RRSP, defined contribution pension or other savings plan, take it,» Heath says.