Talking Retirement

Ten Percent Is Not Enough

Walter Updegrave, CNN/Money’s financial expert, has an excellent column that I encourage you to read in whole called Retirement: How much to save. The subtitle is “Ten percent is better than nothing, but it’s really only the beginning, our expert explains.” He gives a really powerful explaination of why we all need to make plans for how we should be saving and double check them. Two or three times. He then concludes that 15% is a better savings target.

But since 10 percent likely isn’t adequate unless you get a very early start or believe you can count on other generous company perks - like a traditional check-a-month pension or employer-paid retiree health care, both of which are becoming increasingly rare - then I think it’s a good idea to at least try to raise your target to 15 percent.

As for employer matching funds, I would not consider them part of the 10 percent or 15 percent or whatever percentage you save on your own.

Read the article. This is a well worth your time.