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Need Help with Retirement Allocations

October 7th, 2008 at 04:50 pm

About 5 years ago I started my 401k (Fidelity through my employer with company match of .40) I used a chart to select my allocation that is semi-aggressive. I chose this as I was younger than 30 at that time and had some time on my side before retirement. Since then, I have not touched my allocations.

To be honest, I do not fully understand my 401k and plan to change that. I need your input to better my understanding. I cannot help but to think I am not doing the best for myself.

This is what I have in my 401k now (Please note that it is a combo of a traditional 401k and Roth 401k)
Assets: 70% Domestic Equities, 10.5% Foreign Equities, 13.5% Bonds, 5% Short Term, and 1% ‘Others”.
To be more specific: 30% FID Equity income, 23% FID CAP Appreciation, 18% Alger midcap, 16% TRP SM CAP Stock, and 13.5 % VANG TOT BD MKT INST.

Any help is appreciated and I do have other choices available.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Need Help with Retirement Allocations”

  1. Broken Arrow Says:
    October 7th, 2008 at 05:33 pm 1223400793
    1223400793

    How old are you again? What's your relative risk tolerance? What are you looking for in terms of adjustments? Did you know that some of the characters look like gibberish in your entry? Have you looked into Fidelity Freedom funds? Am I asking too many questions?

  2. gruntina Says:
    October 7th, 2008 at 05:52 pm 1223401961
    1223401961

    Hi BA - I am now age 32. I would like to think I am semi aggressive but sure is hard with today's economy. As far as terms of adjustments, I do not know, as I will admit I do not understand the meaning of that.

    Thanks for pointing out the gibberish. I think it was from using the single apostrophes.

    What is a Fidelity Freedom funds? I do not think you are asking me too many question. However, I am raising a white flag. That is a good thing as I need to learn to understand this type of stuff. I do not want to continue the blind leading the blind kind of thing. I hope I am not being super annoying by not knowing much.

  3. Broken Arrow Says:
    October 8th, 2008 at 05:16 pm 1223486163
    1223486163

    The Freedom funds are Fidelity's target retirement type funds. You just put your money into this one fund, and they will set your allocations as well as your rebalancing automatically. You don't have to think about it, you don't have to worry about it, and most important of all, you hopefully won't freak out and move your money from where it belongs to where it doesn't because the market is scaring you into doing something that's ultimately hurtful to your future.

    Not that I'm trying to point fingers at anyone or anything, but whenever I see it, it's all I can do to bite my tongue and not to say anything about it. Because I know they're worried and the last thing they need is some loud-mouth on the internet telling them they're going about it all wrong....

    Ahem. Anyways.

    You're young, you're fabulous, and you've got the right mindset about this. You'll be fine. But please please don't let the market scare you. You want to talk about scared. Try the Cold War. Not the Cuban Missile crisis, but the radar glitch at a remote Russian nuclear missile installation. That was scary.

  4. gruntina Says:
    October 11th, 2008 at 12:34 am 1223685254
    1223685254

    BA - I do not see a freedom fund as an option for me. Maybe there is another name for it?

    Anyways.. I would like to think that I have high risk tolerance. HOWEVER, My rate of return now is -39.9. Somehow I feel that is more Stupid than being a high risk taker!

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