Format for printing

Part 1: What's the best plan for you?

In order to help you determine what is the most effective investment plan for you, answer the questions in your workbook on page 17. These exercises will help you figure out which of your retirement investments you are currently maximizing and which plans you might be better putting money in.

A lot of that decision comes down to the choices in your employer's 401(k) plan and your ability to make regular contributions to your savings if they aren't being taken out automatically for you.

The key component here is to check the performance and costs of the funds provided by your employer.

• Do you know the five-year and ten-year performance of each of those funds? They should be provided by your employer, but, if not, look them up.
  
  
• Use the PersonalFund Mutual Fund Cost or Folio[fn] calculators, or for more details on the fund, visit Morningstar to get information on what kinds of companies are held in those funds, and their year-by-year performance.
  
  
• Once you've got that information, you'll be in a much better position to decide which of the two lists in this lesson is the one that best works for you.

We should point out that the expenses charged by your 401(k) provider may differ markedly from those you see at PersonalFund or FOLIOfn, since a particular 401(k) plan may charge higher (or lower) fees for those same funds. Still, the calculators should provide a reasonably good benchmark until you check with your plan administrator.

Do you treat long-term and short-term savings differently? Answer here.

After (or even before) checking out the calculators, your fund performance, and your employer, see what people are saying on the Investing for Retirement board.