By Doug Young

retirement

Why Bother Making Retirement Plans?

It’s never too early to start planning for your retirement, and you definitely want to make sure you have yourself a nice nest egg set aside so that you can truly enjoy the golden years of your life.

You don’t want to have to worry about money troubles when you are older and you will not have the skills any longer to compete in the workforce. So it’s very important that you take care of all of your financial issues now so that you are safe and secure when the time comes for you to sit back and enjoy your retirement.

You need to work on ways to secure your retirement right now because you’re going to have a lot of other things that you need to focus on as you get older. One of the main things that you may well want to do is spend time with your grandchildren and you may even need to help out your children by supporting them in a role as a babysitter or caretaker for their little ones while they are working and doing what’s necessary to support their family. You’ll only be able to do that if you take care of your financial retirement planning now so that they aren’t an issue once you reach that point in your life.

Don’t leave your retirement to chance.  You don’t want to end up flipping burgers just to get by in your twilight years, do you!

There are traditional retirement plans that everyone knows and talks about and there are non-traditional ones that just a select few savvy people are aware of and are taking advantage of right now…

What Are Some Of The Traditional Types Of Retirement Plans and Accounts?

There are different types of retirement plans and accounts out there for you to choose from. So let’s first take a closer look at some of the more traditional ones:

  • the first type of retirement plan worth mentioning is called a simple IRA. If you need to choose this option then you are going to find yourself in a situation where you work for a company with less than 100 employees. You will not be forced to contribute into this plan at all, so you definitely want to make sure that you take the maximum advantage of all of the options available to you that you will get with this type of an IRA. Your employer will have to contribute though, so you will at least get that benefit to help you build your future after you retire.
  • The second type of pension plan that I’ll discuss is called a simplified employee pension, or SEP for short. This is what a lot of small businesses will offer because this only works for a company that has less than 25 people. There are some very specific requirements that need to be met, and you will need to be with your company for at least three years before you are eligible to receive any of the contributions. Your employer will decide on the amount of the contributions each year, so you’ll have to discuss that together and come to a mutual agreement.
  • A 401(k) is the third option. Any contributions made are often growth tax-deferred and if you withdraw this money before you reach retirement age you are going to suffer some very severe penalties. The options for 401(k)s most often are simple 401(k), traditional 401(k) or safe harbor 401(k) plans. Occasionally a company will also have a Roth 401(k) plan, with which you can make further contributions of either your pretax or after-tax salary.
  • If you’ve worked for the US Government, either as a civilian or in the uniformed military then it’s likely that you will have a Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). There are lots of rules governing these, particularly when it comes to making a TSP withdrawal.

How Traditional Retirement Accounts Are Losing Value

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What Are The Non-Traditional Retirement Plans That I Should Know About?

An increasingly popular opportunity available right now is to begin investing your money in precious metals as a key piece of your retirement plan. The potential precious metals that you can invest in are gold, silver, platinum and palladium. These are very good investment opportunities to take full advantage of during a struggling economy.

Take gold for example. It has traditionally had what is commonly referred to as a ‘negative correlation’ with the dollar’s value, bonds, stocks and shares. This technical term means that when these more traditional types of investments go down, gold goes in the opposite direction and up in value. You’ve probably read that the US National Debt has soared to a staggering $31 trillion and is rapidly spiralling out of control.

What you may not know is that the value of gold went up each and every year between 2001 and 2012. It then pulled back for several years but during 2020 it reached new highs again. In 2023 it repeated that. This demonstrates that gold should be seen as a long term investment which makes it a good fit for retirement plans. Historically the price of gold has always gone up over time.

Maybe you also were not aware that emerging countries like China, India and Russia are replacing their reserves of paper money with gold as quickly as they can. Or that super wealthy individuals all around the world are doing the same?

Well what not everyone lets on is that everyday folk like you and me can protect our wealth, savings and future prosperity too by investing in gold and silver and that we can also incorporate these precious metals investments into our retirement plans.

Yes, that’s right. We can use these forms of investment to hedge against the current inflation and the threatened hyperinflation that our governments are leading us to by printing more and more money. And the even better news is that if set up correctly we can use a precious metals retirement plan to legally invest in precious metals now and not have to pay any tax on our gains until we retire.

How Can Gold Protect Your Retirement?

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What’s The Best Way To Invest In Precious Metals For My Retirement?

The main way is to open up a self-directed IRA account that allows you to purchase and hold gold and other precious metals as part of this investment vehicle.

You see, not every IRA account will allow you to have gold or precious metals as part of your holdings, so you have to open up a particular type that is most often referred to as a Gold IRA Account. This is the best way of gold investing when you are doing it from the perspective of a way to help solidify your retirement and to help your retirement account grow.

How To Buy Gold With an IRA

Talk to an expert, someone who knows the ins and outs of transferring or rolling over IRAs and 401ks or of setting up a precious metals retirement plan from scratch. And someone who knows exactly which types of gold and precious metals you are allowed to incorporate into one of these retirement plans. Many of the leading Gold IRA Companies are staffed with the sort of experts that you need to be talking to.

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About the Author: Doug Young
Doug YoungDoug is a highly experienced professional and widely trusted authority in financial investing, commodity trading, and precious metals. With over 20 years of expertise, he helps others make informed decisions by sharing a combination of personal experience, extensive knowledge and meticulously researched information on gold IRAs, precious metals investing and retirement planning. He regularly writes news items on these topics. He has considerable experience of evaluating Gold IRA and Precious Metals Companies, gained over a period spanning more than a decade.

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