Attaining Financial Freedom

If you day-dream about financial freedom during your retirement, then it is probably true that you are also spending a good amount of time thinking about how you are going to fund a retirement free of financial worries. Maybe your job offers a 401k savings plan? If not, you can always open your own I.R.A. or Roth I.R.A. It is possible that you are one of the few workers that has a 401k plan which is run by a low-cost administrator. If so, then count your blessings. Unfortunately for most investors, the situation is such that their typical plan administrator charges a fee between.5% and 1%. To add insult to injury, the investment choices inside of the plan are very often limited and come burdened with expense ratios of 1% or more per year. These fees of 2% or more per year erode your ultimate return so that if the mutual funds that you have picked, advertise a historical return of say 7%, then the reality of the situation is that the return to you is more like 5%! This reduction is going to make it more difficult for you to reach your goal of financial freedom. Should you skip the 401k investing? Not so fast cowboy! At the very least, you should check to see if your employer offers any 401k matching benefits. If they do, you should take full advantage of it. For example, a typical match is 4%, which means your employer will donate $1.00 into your 401k for every $1.00 that you put in, up to 4% of your salary. Let's say you earn $50,000.00 per year. If you invest 4% of that, which is $2,000.00 per year, your employer will also match your investment with an equal $2,000.00. This is free money that you definitely do not want to pass up. Statistics show that this "free money" will help you to reach your goal of financial freedom and more than makes up for the shortcomings of the high administration fees mentioned earlier. Let's assume that you have the ability to save more than $2,000.00 per year in your 401k. After you invest up to the maximum of your employer match, you would be wise to shift further savings into a self-directed Roth I.R.A. This will give you the opportunity to reap the benefits of lower cost investing which is available inside one of these savings vehicles. It is very common to find mutual funds that meet or beat the stock market and have administration costs plus expenses that total much less than 1%. Lower costs today means more financial freedom for you tomorrow! The I.R.A./Roth I.R.A. contribution limits for 2013 are $5,500.00 per year for workers under 50 years of age and $6,500.00 per year if you are over 50. The 401k contribution limit for 2013 is $17,500.00. There are some exceptions and exclusions to these limits, so it is important that you check with your own accountant about your individual situation for reaching financial freedom.