HOW MUCH MONEY DO I NEED FOR RETIREMENT?

RETIRE USING THE 4% RULE

The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement

The average American retirement lasts about 18 years. Most Americans will need high priced long term health care.

The 4% Rule: The Easy Answer to “How Much Do I Need for Retirement"

The Safe Withdrawal Rate
is the maximum rate at which you can spend your retirement savings, such that you don’t run out in your lifetime. 
Just take your annual spending level, and multiply it by 25. -- SPEND
That’s how much you need to retire, at the most.

A $25,000 A YEAR SPENDER NEEDS $625,000 TO RETIRE.
I’ve got more than that, plus various safety margins in the lifestyle, so all is good.  Without undue risk, and as long as you have skills that can be used to earn money eventually in the future (hint: you do), I can even advocate an SWR of 5%. In other words, get your expenses down to $25k, and you can quit your job on $500k or less. Then you can use the methods described in First Retire, then Get Rich to gradually increase your safety margin (and effectively decrease your withdrawal rate) as you age.  So there’s no need to debate. 4% is a perfectly good answer, which means 25 times your annual expenses is a perfectly good goal to save for. Along the way, you might find your annual expenses melting away, which makes things ever-more-attainable (as shown in the shockingly simple math behind early retirement post). But worry, you must not.

Early Retirement 
How Has The 4% Rule Held Up Since The Tech Bubble And The 2008 Financial Crisis? (Just Fine) https://archive.is/0qm2c

SOCIAL SECURITY

52% of American households with someone 55 or older have nothing saved for retirement

By 2020, the wealth of those currently 52 to 70 will peak at more than 50 percent of the nation's assets, according to the Deloitte Center for Financial Services. 61% of grandparents financially supported adult children in the previous year, according to the "Family Support in Graying Societies" report of the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center.  

During the same time frame, 39% helped with errands, housework and home repairs, and 33% pitched in to look after the grandkids.

Grandparents are the account owners of 13 percent of the almost 13 million 529 accounts as of June 2016, according to research firm Strategic Insight. As the account owner, you also have discretion over which investment options to select within those funds.

apply to social security

How much can you earn  and still get benefits?  

If you were born January 2, 1943,  through January 1, 1955, then your full retirement age for retirement insurance benefits is 66.

• If you work, and are full retirement age or older, you  may keep all of your benefits, no matter  how much you earn.
• If you’re younger  than full retirement age, there is a limit  to how much you can earn and still receive full Social Security benefits.
• If  you’re younger than full retirement age  during all of 2015, we must deduct $1 from your benefits for each $2 you earn  above $15,720.
• If you reach full retirement age  during 2015, we must deduct $1 from your benefits for each $3 you earn above  $41,880 until the month you reach full retirement age.

When to start your Claim?
Payments increase by 8 percent for each year of delayed claiming up until age 70. After age 70 there is no additional financial incentive to delay starting your payments.

The easiest way to apply for Social  Security retirement benefits  www.socialsecurity.gov/  

If you do not  have access to the Internet,you can call
1-800-772-1213 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, to apply by phone.
You also can apply at any Social Security office. To avoid having to wait, call first to make  an appointment.

Social Security benefits are not intended to be  your only source of income when you retire.
On average, Social Security will replace about 40 percent of your annual pre-retirement earnings. You will need other savings, investments, pensions, or retirement accounts to live comfortably when you retire. 

The full retirement age is 66 for most baby boomers and 67 for everyone born in 1960 or later.
If your full retirement age is 66benefits will be reduced:

25 percent at age 62;
20 percent at age 63; 
13⅓ percent at age 64; or 
6⅔ percent at age 65
Full retirement age is between 66 and 67.
Benefits by year of birth

 

REQUEST A COPY OF YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY STATEMENT

Social Security Statement Samples PDF

Can I create a my Social Security account if I have a security freeze or a fraud alert on my credit
report?>

NO YOU cannot create my Social Security account online if you have a security freeze, fraud alert, or both on your credit report. You first must ask  to have  the freeze or alert removed.  To create a my Social Security account in person without removing the security freeze or fraud alert, visit your local Social Security office.

Print out the request form

MAIL IT TO:
Social Security Administration
Wilkes Barre Data Operations Center
P.O. Box 7004
Wilkes Barre, PA 18767-7004

FINRA AND THE SEC  ARE USELESS BECAUSE THEY DON'T SHUT THEM DOWN

When selecting anyone to advise you with your Social Security or Taxes make sure:

Check his or her background. Because advisors may carry multiple licenses, we suggest checking all three of the resources below.

1. Investment Advisor Search - Adviserinfo.sec.gov 
   Registered Investment Advisors and their representatives are listed in Investment Advisor Search.
2. FINRA BrokerCheck - Brokercheck.FINRA.org
   Broker Dealers and their representatives are listed in FINRA BrokerCheck.
3. 2017 Special Report: Wall Street's self-regulator allows safe havens for tainted brokers
4. 2017 FINRA, the primary regulator of U.S. brokerages, requires brokers to disclose incidents in their past that might give investors concern. At least 30 percent of brokers at the 48 firms listed below have a history of such FINRA-mandated disclosures. cached and found here
5. National Association of Insurance Commissioners - http://www.naic.org/state_web_map.htm 
   Because insurance is regulated at the state level, you'll need to visit the web site for your state department of insurance. The NAIC offers a web site to help you find your state's web site.

Does Your Tax Preparer Know What They're Doing?​

The problem is that it’s hard to be sure your preparer knows what he or she is doing. Almost anyone can claim to be a tax preparer; no CPA, law degree, or formal education is required. Pretty much the only thing you need to open up shop is a tax identification number, which the IRS gives out for a $50 fee. Consumer groups are pushing federal and state lawmakers to impose tighter rules on preparers, requiring certification and education. IRS database of tax professionals who voluntarily provided proof of their education and credentials. In addition to CPAs and attorneys, the list includes “enrolled agents,” who go through at least 72 hours of tax courses every three years.

​WHERE SHOULD YOU LIVE?

Which States Are Givers and Which Are Takers?  
How much the federal government spends per person in each state compared with the amount its citizens pay in federal income taxes.

2015 Best & Worst States to be a Taxpayer

Living in Central America 
Rising costs of housing and social norms that discouraged savings have also contributed to the lack of a nest egg. “Boomers’ retirement savings, on average, is about $50 grand,” says Putnam. “And then, you have coming up behind them a generation that has massive student debt. The boomers didn’t save, and their millennial kids have student loans. The idea of kids helping their parents in the future, or transferring their funds into their parents’ care, is probably unrealistic. So the issue of retirement and money will be huge.”  The rising cost of health care is the other side of this daunting challenge. “We are medical refugees,” says Peter Wendt, who moved to Panama City with his wife from California nine years ago when both were still in their early 60s. (They now live in Boquete.) “Our decision to move abroad was twofold: to live a great quality of life at minimal cost, and most importantly, to find excellent health care at minimal cost.”

Saving Decisions 401K

SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website

Prioritizing financial goals is as important as having them.

Some reasons you might not want to max out your 401K:

Being a good economist, I aspire to smooth my consumption despite large swings in earnings. That has led me to place a high premium on liquidity. Retirement accounts lock up my money until age 59.5, unless I’m willing to pay 10% in penalties to take it out earlier. About 25% of Americans have less than $500 in the bank. Lack of liquid savings in part, explains why so many people take money out of their retirement accounts early and pay penalties that eat into their meagre savings.

2015 The growing wealth gap that nobody is talking about

If you’re over 62, your odds of having at least $1 million in net wealth (your total assets minus your total debt) are relatively achievable -- about 1 in 7.

But if you are under 40, your odds are low: 1 in 55. Young people have always been poor, but today's young people are poorer than most. 

Tips for pessimistic millennials
- Take advantage of your time and energy to make as much money as possible.  Not all of your income has to come from one source. You can rent out your apartment via Airbnb, find side gigs at TaskRabbit.com, a tutoring job via tutor.com and discover freelance opportunities at upwork.com.
- Buy a home because you want to live in it, not because you assume you will make a profit, experts say. Make sure you are not borrowing more than you can pay off.
- diversify your investments
- SAVE SAVE SAVE
- Make a Financial Plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/us-money-millennials-idUSKCN0QB1O020150806

An analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Center for Retirement Research

2013 pre-retirement households (age 55-64) with annual income below $39,000 had median total retirement savings of $13,000 in 401(k) and IRA accounts; middle-class households (income from $61,000 to $100,000) had median savings of $100,000.
Only in the highest-income band ($138,000 or more) were accumulations significant at a median of $452,000.
reuters.com/article/2015/05/28/us-column-miller-retirementinequality-idUSKBN0OD2FN20150528

charitable donations

Buying a Home

From Freakonomics 

Real-estate sales, however, are a matter of public record. And real-estate agents often do sell their own homes. A recent set of data covering the sale of nearly 100,000 houses in suburban Chicago shows that more than 3,000 of those houses were owned by the agents themselves.
Before plunging into the data, it helps to ask a question: what is the real-estate agent’s incentive when she is selling her own home? Simple: to make the best deal possible. Presumably this is also your incentive when you are selling your home. And so your incentive and the real-estate agent’s incentive would seem to be nicely aligned. Her commission, after all, is based on the sale price. 
But as incentives go, commissions are tricky. First of all, a 6 percent real-estate commission is typically split between the seller’s agent and the buyer’s. Each agent then kicks back half of her take to the agency. Which means that only 1.5 percent of the purchase price goes directly into your agent’s pocket. So on the sale of your $300,000 house, her personal take of the $18,000 commission is $4,500. Still not bad, you say. But what if the house was actually worth more than $300,000? What if, with a little more effort and patience and a few more newspaper ads, she could have sold it for $310,000? After the commission, that puts an additional $9,400 in your pocket. But the agent’s additional share—her personal 1.5 percent of the extra $10,000—is a mere $150. If you earn $9,400 while she earns only $150, maybe your incentives aren’t aligned after all. (Especially when she’s the one paying for the ads and doing all the work.) Is the agent willing to put out all that extra time, money, and energy for just $150?
There’s one way to find out: measure the difference between the sales data for houses that belong to real-estate agents themselves and the houses they sold on behalf of clients. Using the data from the sales of those 100,000 Chicago homes, and controlling for any number of variables—location, age and quality of the house, aesthetics, and so on—it turns out that a real-estate agent keeps her own home on the market an average of ten days longer and sells it for an extra 3-plus percent, or $10,000 on a $300,000 house. 
When she sells her own house, an agent holds out for the best offer; when she sells yours, she pushes you to take the first decent offer that comes along. Like a stockbroker churning commissions, she wants to make deals and make them fast. Why not? Her share of a better offer—$150—is too puny an incentive to encourage her to do otherwise.

BROKERS 

Check your fund manager’s privilege: James Saft
You might want to consider firing your money manager in favor of a woman or someone from a less wealthy background. Fund managers from families in the top 20 percent of parents’ income underperform those from the bottom 20 percent by 1.54 percentage points annually by a standard measure of risk-adjusted return, the study found.  “We argue that managers born poor face higher entry barriers into asset management, and only the most skilled succeed.

2016 NEW RULE

NEW RULE: REQUIRES BROKERS TO PUT YOUR INTERESTS FIRST 

U.S. brokers managing retirement accounts must adhere to tough new standards under an Obama administration rule released Wednesday that aims to protect millions of savers from conflicted investment advice. The increased obligation for brokers, known as a fiduciary duty, requires them to put customers’ interests ahead of their own. The White House contends it will collectively add billions of dollars annually to retirees’ nest eggs by eliminating hidden incentives that cause brokers to push investment products with higher fees and commissions. The regulation will have the broadest impact on IRAs, as the number of 401(k) plans affected by it was shrunk in the final version.

What the new U.S. fiduciary rule means for you
After years of debate, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a new rule on Wednesday that requires financial advisers who handle retirement accounts to act as "fiduciaries," which means putting the best interests of their clients first.

U.S. weakens retirement advice rule, responding to industry
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0X3122
A new U.S. rule aimed at protecting retirement savers from profit-hungry brokers turned out to be much weaker than an initial proposal after the Obama administration bowed to pressure from the financial services industry.
 

 

2014 OLD RULE Brokers are NOT REQUIRED TO ACT IN YOUR INTEREST when advising on you on what to do with your retirement money.
Brokers can send their local representatives to meet with you and they make it seem like this normal thing — you fill out the forms because you are retiring, and then a few years later, you meet with me and you don’t even realize you were sold two variable annuities inside an I.R.A.
 

2016 Update:  Fiduciary rule could make good for investors
At long last, investment advisers may be required to put your best interests ahead of their own.  The U.S. Department of Labor is applying the finishing touches to the so-called fiduciary rule - a geeky-sounding phrase that actually will mean a great deal to anyone with a 401(k) or Individual Retirement Account (IRA).  This rule will reshape the retirement advice business because it will require banks, brokers, mutual fund companies and insurance agents to keep fees low and protect your savings from excessive risk when they advise you, rather than focus on how much they can earn in commissions.  (A specific subset of advisers called Registered Investment Advisers, or RIAs, who typically work independently or for smaller firms, already are subject to a fiduciary duty standard.)  Opponents failed to stop the Labor Department last month, when Congress declined to add a rider to the omnibus federal spending bill that would have halted the rulemaking. If they try again, President Barack Obama is ready to veto any subsequent legislation aimed at halting the process.

April 10 2017 The Labor Department’s conflict-of-interest rule goes into effect.

 It’s the day when financial professionals who provide advice about the investments and insurance inside your IRA and 401(k) have to start acting in your best interest, as a fiduciary. What’s more, it’s also the day when advisers can only charge reasonable fees or earn reasonable commissions when managing your retirement account. BUT  watch out  there will be times when you might have to sign a BIC. That’s a contract that, in effect, says an adviser can charge you a commission to buy (and/or sell) investments and insurance for your retirement account and that you agree it’s in your best interest.

About the Stock Market

An old rule of thumb is that your stock allocation percentage should be 100 minus your age.
That is, a 30-year old should have 70% stocks / 30% bonds, and a 70-year old should have 30% stocks / 70% bonds. ~ http://www.mymoneyblog.com/

2015 U.S. public pension holdings drop to $3.2 trillion in third-quarter
The holdings of the largest 100 U.S. public pension systems dropped 4.9 percent to $3.2 trillion in the third quarter from the previous quarter because of negative earnings, according to U.S. Census Bureau data published on Wednesday.  Earnings fell from a gain of $32.6 billion in the second quarter of 2015 to a loss of $145.9 billion in the third. Total holdings were also 2.5 percent lower than the same quarter last year.

2015 About Hedge Funds

"The goal now seems to be that institutions want hedge funds to simply avoid any and all headline risk while earning a steady annual return stream.  The narrative shift is a classic performance chase by both investors and portfolio managers alike. Both sides are to blame here." “Hedge Fund” is a misnomer. Everyone wants to make hedge funds an asset class. It’s not. It’s a fund structure. The options and combinations are nearly endless.
 

Read Flash Boys and remember “The hidden passages and trapdoors that riddled the exchanges enabled a handful of players to exploit everyone else; the latter didn’t understand that the game had been designed precisely for the former.”

• 'Flash' events hurt market liquidity for days: N.Y. Fed blog | Reuters http://ow.ly/R5K9F
• Flash Boys Puts a Flashlight on Dark, Predatory HFT Trading | Dennis M. Kelleher
• Fidelity warns that Baby Boomers may have too much in stocks 
  Baby Boomers may be too heavily invested in stocks, as the average 401(k) balance has surged 50 percent over the past five years.  Fidelity said it compared average asset allocations to an age-based target date fund and found 18% of people ages 50 to 54 had a stock allocation at least 10 percentage points or higher than recommended. For people ages 55 to 59, that figure increased to 27 percent.  An additional 11 percent of people ages 50 to 54 had 100 percent of their 401(k) assets in stocks, while 10 percent of people ages 55 to 59 had all of their 401(k) assets in stocks.  “One thing we learned from the last recession is that having too much stock, based on your target retirement age, in your retirement account can expose your savings to unnecessary risk." 

Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt told a group of U.S. state securities regulators that supporters of the proposed rule need to do more to "push back" against a political system that is "really rotten." 

Ex-SEC head blasts U.S. lawmakers for not backing Labor Dept. rule
Levitt, the SEC's longest-serving chairman, was speaking at a meeting of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), with members from U.S. states, Canada and Mexico.  The Department of Labor has been working for several years to overhaul regulations on how brokers advise clients on workplace retirement plans such as 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts.  The plan is designed to reduce potential conflicts of interest because advisers who offer rollover advice to retirees stand to benefit financially. Brokers would have to act as fiduciaries, or give advice that is in their clients' best interests. The move could save investors billions of dollars, supporters said.

Most seasoned holders of bitcoin are aware of IRS Notice 2014-21. For those unaware, the notice holds that for US tax purposes, bitcoin is to be treated as property rather than currency. The notice is wrongheaded, foolish and probably was issued with intent to slow down bitcoin adoption. Nonetheless, we’re stuck with it until bitcoin adoption increases to the point where the IRS recognizes it as a currency.  Much ink has been spilled about the more obvious consequences of bitcoin’s classification as property, namely:
1. Whenever bitcoin is spent on goods or services, the spender must recognize taxable income or loss on the difference between tax basis (usually the price at which he acquired the bitcoin) and the fair market value of the bitcoin at the time spent.
2. Bitcoin miners must recognize ordinary income equal to the fair market value of the bitcoin mined at the time of mining.
3. If your employer pays you in bitcoin, such payments must be reported on your W2 and are subject to tax withholding in US dollars.

Five steps you need to take now in your estate plan.  
1. Get your step-up in your estate plan, and watch your step-down
2. Make sure your executor or trustee is aware that your bitcoin exists
3. Make sure your executor or trustee can get your private key
4. Make sure power of attorney allows your agent to access your bitcoin
5. Beware of the Prudent Investor Act

401(k)

WHEN IS IT OK TO TAP YOUR IRA

You can take money out of a 401(k) without penalty starting at age 59-and-a-half. You can also roll 401(k) money into an IRA and use it for a down payment on a first home or for tuition without penalty.  A lot of companies also offer Roth 401(k) options, where you may be able to withdraw principal at any time without taxes or penalty. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/money-guides/when-it-s-ok-to-tap-your-ira-1.aspx

U.S. workers miss billions in retirement matches: study

The vast majority of 401(k) plans offer to match employees' contributions, most commonly matching dollar for dollar up to 6 percent of annual pay, according to payroll processor Aon Hewitt. The second-most-common match offers 50 cents for each dollar employees contribute, up to 6 percent of pay.

Younger and lower-paid workers are most likely to miss out on matching funds, Financial Engines found. Those paid less than $40,000 are four times more likely to get less than the full match, compared with those earning more than $100,000 (42 percent vs. 10 percent). Meanwhile, employees under 30 were twice as likely as those over 60 to miss out (30 percent vs. 16 percent).

Youthful ignorance can be the most costly, since the missing money would have had decades to compound. For example, every $1,000 not contributed to a retirement plan in one's 40s means about $2,700 less in a retirement fund 20 years later, assuming 5 percent real returns annually. The same $1,000 contributed in one's 30s might have grown to nearly $4,500. In one's 20s, failure to contribute $1,000 could mean $7,300 less in retirement money.

Three tax loopholes for the merely middle class

2015 Retirees get big lessons on loopholes from budget deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0SR2CB20151102  
Even people decades away from retirement should pay close attention to how Congress just ended two lucrative ways of taking Social Security benefits, known jointly as the "claim now, claim more later" strategy.

Retirement Account Rollovers

Dec 23, 2014 Should you roll over your federal government retirement account into an individual retirement account?

IRA providers are salesmen and will not tell you the truth about rollovers from workplace retirement accounts to IRAs

Turner contacted seven mutual fund companies, seven banks and one insurance company. Most of the call center “advisers” didn’t offer fee comparisons and tended to focus on the narrow number of investment choices in the TSP compared with the myriad options available to IRA account holders. One offered Turner a $600 cash incentive to roll his account over, plus 300 free stock trades. Some companies gave him false information - one claimed he could reduce his fees while rolling over; one claimed that Turner had no control over his investments in the TSP.

Turner, who once worked at the U.S. Department of Labor, is director of the Pension Policy Center, an independent think tank in Washington. The calls were research for a paper on what he calls an “extreme case of bad advice." Eleven of the 15 companies he contacted advised him to roll over his funds from the federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a move that would have cost thousands of dollars in higher fees over 10 years. Four declined to provide specific advice but pushed the idea that rollovers are desirable.

When you retire or change jobs, you can roll over savings from your 401(k) into a traditional or Roth IRA - and that is big business. Nine of 10 new IRA accounts are rollovers, according to the Investment Company Institute (ICI). Households transferred $288 billion from workplace plans to IRAs in 2010, according to the most recent ICI data - but made only $12.8 billion in direct contributions. And the rollover numbers are expected to swell as more boomers retire.

A rollover can make sense if you’re in a 401(k) plan with bad investment choices or high fees, or if you want to take advantage of the tax features of a Roth. But staying in the 401(k) is usually an option, and often a good one. Big plans can negotiate low fees. And 401(k) plans are subject to the fiduciary requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), meaning they must put the interests of account holders first. Not so with IRAs.

With the TSP, the choice is clear. The plan has a simple set of investment choices and ultra-low fees; its average net expense ratio last year was just under three basis points (a basis point is 1/100th of 1 percent). That’s much lower than most 401(k) plans, which had average mutual fund expense ratios of 58 basis points in 2013, according to the ICI. And IRA expenses are 25 to 30 basis points higher than 401(k)s, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Fees are a big issue.

Turner calculates that a $150,000 rollover from the TSP would be 4.4 percent poorer after 10 years if rolled over to an account charging 50 basis points; the loss would be 8.9 percent in an account levying 100 basis points, and 13.2 percent at 150 basis points. (He assumed a 5 percent annual rate of return.)

“This is something that’s difficult for many people to understand,” he says. “Normally if you hear something has a 1 percent fee, that sounds almost like nothing. But it makes a big difference over a long period of time.”

And you should beware the pitfalls of the "investment choice" argument. Often it’s a come-on to get investors into higher-cost actively managed mutual funds or to trade stocks, when most would be better off with a simple menu of low-cost passive mutual funds.

The red flags here are clear. There’s also a lesson if you happen to be in the TSP: Stay right where you are.
reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-column-miller-retirement-idUSKBN0K110020141223

PENSIONs

7 Ways Private Equity Is Gaming Your Pension By choosing private equity, plans keep workers in the dark
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-23/7-ways-private-equity-is-gaming-your-pension

12/22/14 Cromnibus Pension Provisions Gut 40 Years of Policy, Allow Existing Pensions to Be Slashed
Even if you're retired and vested in a private pension plan, your benefits could be cut by the Kline-Miller amendment.

November 10, 2014 by Todd Feathers With Equitable Sharing, forfeiture restrictions are lifted so long as the DOJ gets a cut.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/nov/10/asset-forfeiture-article/
Most states have strict laws concerning seized funds – here's how police and the feds work together to get around them.  The Department of Justice makes billions of dollars each year through deals with state and local police forces that can act as loopholes in more stringent state laws governing how much money police get to keep when they take a person's property without pressing charges.

QLAC

QLACs are a variation on a broader product category called deferred income annuities

http://www.qlacs.net/ 
Qualified Longevity Annuity Contract, that would provide a steady monthly payment until you die which let buyers pay an initial premium or make a series of scheduled payments and set a future date to start receiving income. Deferred annuities are less expensive to buy than immediate annuities, which start paying out monthly as soon as you purchase them. You can purchase the plans at or near your retirement age, typically 70, with payouts starting much later, usually at 80 or 85.  The advantage of these QLAC plans is that they provide some guaranteed regular income until death, so they can supplement Social Security. And the deferred feature allows you to generate much more income per dollar invested.
They CAN be purchased and held inside tax-deferred IRAs and 401(k) plans.  
The problem it had to fix was that required minimum distributions mean that 401(k) and IRA participants must start taking withdrawals at age 70-1/2, which conflicts with the later payout dates of longevity annuities.
The new rules state that if a longevity annuity meets certain requirements, the distribution requirement is waived on the contract value (which cannot exceed $125,000 or 25 percent of the buyer's account balance, whichever is less).   That not only makes a deferred annuity possible inside a tax-deferred plan, it also can encourage their use for anyone interested in reducing the total amount of savings subject to mandatory distributions. 
Sixteen insurance companies are now selling QLAC variations, up from just four in 2012.  Employer sponsors of 401(k) plans are showing more interest in adding income options to their plans, but they have been slow to add annuity options. Still, MetLife Inc is one insurance company testing this market, with a 401(k) product introduced last month.

POSSIBLE INVESTMENT IDEAS  FOR YOUR MONEY 

2015 The Four Horsemen: Amazon | Apple | Facebook (owns Instagram)  | Google ----> Who Wins/Loses
Scott Galloway trademark analyst.

The new 'Horsemen of the Nasdaq' - how long will they ride?  
Will the tech leaders of today be the has-beens of tomorrow?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0M12D420150305

Hard-won lessons about money and investing by Matt Cutts

• Comments on Hard-won lessons about money and investing

RETIRE USING THE 4% RULE

The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement

The average American retirement lasts about 18 years. Most Americans will need high priced long term health care.

The 4% Rule: The Easy Answer to “How Much Do I Need for Retirement"

The Safe Withdrawal Rate
is the maximum rate at which you can spend your retirement savings, such that you don’t run out in your lifetime. 
Just take your annual spending level, and multiply it by 25. -- SPEND
That’s how much you need to retire, at the most.

A $25,000 A YEAR SPENDER NEEDS $625,000 TO RETIRE.
I’ve got more than that, plus various safety margins in the lifestyle, so all is good.  Without undue risk, and as long as you have skills that can be used to earn money eventually in the future (hint: you do), I can even advocate an SWR of 5%. In other words, get your expenses down to $25k, and you can quit your job on $500k or less. Then you can use the methods described in First Retire, then Get Rich to gradually increase your safety margin (and effectively decrease your withdrawal rate) as you age.  So there’s no need to debate. 4% is a perfectly good answer, which means 25 times your annual expenses is a perfectly good goal to save for. Along the way, you might find your annual expenses melting away, which makes things ever-more-attainable (as shown in the shockingly simple math behind early retirement post). But worry, you must not.

Early Retirement
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/

How Has The 4% Rule Held Up Since The Tech Bubble And The 2008 Financial Crisis? (Just Fine)