Quotes About Retirement

I don't have any desire to retire in the sense of not doing anything. As long as the Lord gives me strength I want to keep writing and keep preaching.

If you'll have enough saved and nobody has to take on debt and you want to retire, shoot go for it.

Take free money. No matter how in debt you are, if your employer offers a matching contribution on a 401(k) or other retirement vehicle, you must sign up and contribute enough to get the maximum company match each year. Think of it as a bonus.

you have less than $100,000 in a Roth IRA:

Making smart choices in your 50s and 60s will give you the gift of not having to worry about finances in your 70s, 80s, and 90s.

you will not owe any withdrawal penalties.

If you do not need to live off your pension and you want to leave this money to your heirs, you would be better off taking the lump sum and doing a rollover rather than opting for the annuity payment.

Before you start to save one penny for a child's future college costs, I insist that you have the following financial priorities taken care of: You do not have credit card debt. You have an eight-month emergency savings fund. You have a term life insurance policy. You are saving for retirement; aiming to set aside 15% of your gross salary. Until all of that is in place you are not to think about saving for college.

Many of you have heard me say this repeatedly over the years: There is financial aid for college. There are loans for college. But there is no aid or loans to help you in retirement. There is no aid if you run into a rough patch and you do not have sufficient funds in an emergency savings account to navigate your way out of trouble.

Once you have a trust, you must decide what assets to put inside the trust. This is called funding the trust, and it requires changing the title of ownership of that asset to the trust. Common assets that you will want to consider owning inside the trust include any real estate you own, and bank and investment accounts that are not retirement accounts.

There are no loans for retirement.

If you want to own individual stocks your portfolio should have a minimum of 10 to 12 stocks. It is never smart to have a larger portion of your retirement funds invested in one stock. No matter how stable that stock looks, we can never be sure of its future. If the money you want to devote to stocks is not enough to buy that many individual shares, then I recommend you focus on dividend-paying ETFs.

am not suggesting you keep all your money in stocks. No way! My message is that you should keep some money in stocks. If you are in your 50s and 60s today, depending on your situation, you should already have a significant portion of your portfolio—maybe half—invested in bonds. But the other half of your investable assets most likely are in stocks.

Retirement saving must take precedence over paying for college.

If you have been following my advice for years, you are well aware that I think a Roth IRA is the best retirement account you can have.

At a minimum I want you to figure out a way to set aside 15% of your pre-tax salary each and every year, starting as early as possible. If you wait until your 40s and 50s to get serious about saving, you will need to set aside 25% or more of your gross salary.

STEP 1. Save in a 401(k) plan if your employer offers a matching contribution. Contribute enough to qualify for the maximum company match.

STEP 2. Contribute to a Roth IRA.

STEP 3. Increase your 401(k) contributions.

A general rule of thumb worth considering is to subtract your age from 100. So if you are 35, consider a portfolio that has 65% or so in stocks.

The only way to counteract feelings of helplessness, indecision, and defeatism is to act. The most powerful attitude you can own when it comes to your future is self-reliance, because when it comes to your retirement, it's really up to you to take care of you.

Life insurance is meant to provide financial protection for those who are dependent on you at a point in your life when you have yet to build up other assets. Once you have accumulated assets that your dependents can fall back on—say, a sizable retirement fund or other significant investments—you no longer need life insurance.

You can open a Roth IRA account at almost any financial institution, from credit unions to discount brokerages such as Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, and Vanguard.

Ellevest is a robo-advisor that fine-tunes its algorithms for female clients to take into account that women typically have different lifetime salary patterns and longer life expectancies.