Issue 1, 2025

Did you leave money behind? You may have more retirement savings than you know Millions of U.S. workers have left behind retirement benefits they earned from former employers. This could be from retirement savings accounts or even pensions. According to some estimates, $1.65 trillion has been forgotten or left behind. How do you discover if some of those funds are yours? List all your former employers According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), those born between 1957 and 1964 held an average of 12.7 jobs from ages 18 to 56. Younger workers have proven to be very mobile in their careers as well. It is easier to leave that money behind from those early career job changes when you’re not thinking much about retirement. So, list out each of your former employers. Do you remember if you were part of their retirement savings plan or pension? If not, contact them to find out. Another way The U.S. Department of Labor’s Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database went live at the end of 2024. While it is still a work in progress, it’s worth checking out. Go to lostandfound.dol.gov for simple instructions on accessing the database. What if I find a missing account? If you found a missing retirement savings account – or even have a known one from a former employer – you may wish to consider the merits of putting the funds all in one place. Contact a counselor at your current retirement savings plan to explore the merits of rolling those funds into your account. When you’re ready to consider how to turn those savings into the retirement you’ve earned, check out the 60-minute Managing Your Retirement Income workshop on My Penny Earned. [Login required]

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Take the Risk Tolerance Assessment

Emotions, Raffles & Investing How comfortable are you with investment risk? Have you ever participated in a charity raffle? One in which there was one chance at a big prize – perhaps a new car – and many chances at smaller ones, such as a fruit basket. Raffles are about making risk-based choices regarding an amount of money you can afford to lose – a small charitable contribution. Investing for retirement has one thing in common with raffles: Our comfort with taking financial risks, with the possibility of both gains and losses. Depending on our relationship with money – how much we have and what we learned about it as children – we may be willing to risk losing some today in the hope of gaining more tomorrow. Investment Experience In many cases, those saving for retirement have stock, bond, and cash investment options available through their retirement accounts. The more informed or experienced you are in investing, the more confident you may feel in deciding how much of your retirement dollars to place in which option. We’re all familiar with the idea that the market – including our investments – can have periods of increase and times of loss. Your comfort with the possibility of losing money may be offset by your acceptance that you could gain more over time. And that leads to an important asset allocation question: How much time do you have? Your Age First, there’s the amount of time you have to save for retirement. Then there’s the amount of time you’ll spend in retirement. If you’re 30, you may have 40 years to put more in retirement savings. And, you may be comfortable with a greater chance of short-term market losses, believing you have the rest of your career to benefit from market gains. But, if you’re 60, you may be more concerned with preserving what you’ve saved so it will be available when you ease into retirement. Then there’s the question of how long you’ll live in retirement. We may know how long grandma or grandpa lived, but what does that mean for us? Is there a risk that you’ll run out of retirement savings? Will inflation eat at its spending power? Can you, or should you,  take on market risk while in retirement? Risk Tolerance And that gets us back to risk tolerance. This includes both the emotion and science of risk. For many, risk equates to the loss of invested dollars. But, there are other risks to consider such as inflation or living to be 100. There’s no tried-and-true method of accurately assessing your personal risk tolerance. But there are three things you may wish to consider: 1. Take the 13-question Risk Tolerance Assessment linked below. 2. Review the Managing Your Retirement Income course on My Penny Earned. Despite its name, it is among younger workers’ most requested courses. [Login required] 3. Schedule a conversation with your retirement counselor or advisor. Discuss what you learned about yourself from the Risk Tolerance Assessment. In that conversation: – Review your financial goals and how much time you have to achieve them. – Discuss your preferred style when it comes to managing your retirement savings. Would you rather 1) do it yourself, 2) get a little help, or 3) turn it over to an expert?

Risk Tolerance Assessment

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Holiday credit card blues? 5 steps to getting your credit card debt under control As you consider your next credit card payment, do you have holiday spending regrets? If so, you’re not alone. More than a third of Americans took on credit card debt in the just-ended holiday season, with many spending more than they planned to, according to a LendingTree survey.[1] Nationally, credit card balances grew by $24 billion during the holiday season, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.[2] So, you may ask, how can I get my credit card debt back under control? For many, the painful burden of credit card debt was already there. Holiday giving simply made it worse. So, while you may have some regrets about your holiday spending, this can be helpful. In his book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, author Daniel Pink found regret can be valuable. “It clarifies. It instructs. Done right, it needn’t drag us down; it can lift us up,” he wrote. How can it lift us up? By giving us lessons that motivate us to take action. Harness that regret with a little effort and determination to tackle debt issues and stay financially healthy. My Penny Earned’s Managing Credit Card Debt lesson provides five simple steps to ease credit card pain. [Login required]   Step 1: Create a Credit Card List Step 2: Understanding your Minimum Payments Step 3: Tap the Credit Card Brakes Step 4: Pay them Off Step 5: Don’t Lose Hope Get started with the first step here. ____________________ [1] LendingTree survey of 2,049 U.S. consumers, conducted in December 2024. [2] Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Center for Microeconomic Data.