Retirement could still be a long way from you or maybe it is just right around the corner. It really doesn’t matter as to how far or near it is, you must firmly start saving for the same from this very moment. But it is a fact that saving in current circumstances is not what it used to be earlier with immense rise in the living costs. Now you have to make investments to make your retirement successful, quite opposed to saving for it!
Let’s now look at retirement plans offered by the companies. Earlier these plans were quite sound but now after that Enron fiasco and whatever followed it, has made people wary of the company sponsored retirement plans. Now you have many other options of the retirement investment:
Firstly, you can make investments in bonds, mutual funds, stocks, money market accounts and certificate of deposits. You need not tell anybody that the returns from these schemes will be used towards your retirement. Here just let your funds grow over the time. When these investments mature you can make re-investments again and let these grow over the time.
You can also opt for IRA (Individual Retirement Account). This is very popular investment vehicle where no taxes are imposed on your money till you withdraw. Here you can deduct your contributions to IRA from the taxes which you owe. You can open the IRA in most of the banks.
The Roth IRA is a latest version of this retirement account. In this you pay taxes on the money you contribute to your account, but on withdrawals you will not have to pay any federal taxes. You can open Roth IRA at the designated financial institutions.
Another kind of popular retirement investment account is the 401(k). These accounts are offered through your employers, but you can even open this 401(k) on your own.
Another type of IRA is Keogh plan, which is most suitable for self employed persons. Small business owners may be interested in Simplified Employee Pension Plans (SEP). This is another version of Keogh plan which is much easier to operate than usual Keogh plan.
Whatever retirement plan you choose for yourself, you must make sure that you choose one! We again stress, that you should not depend on company retirement plans, inheritance or social security which may or may not come about. Just secure your financial future by making investments from today.
Michael has been writing articles online close to a decade. Check out his most recent site about retirement investing that goes into further details concerning gold investing.