Social Security documents

After a Quick Tip Week’s post and a credit report update, our commercial break is over and back to our regularly scheduled post. 🙂

As a recap, we have organized our important documents in File Box 1 and File Box 2. In File Box 3, our system has been organized into 5 categories. We have completed the first category, social security documents. Today, we begin one of my favorite sections: retirement plan documents.

Though I will share the choices Paul and I have made, these decisions may not work for you. I am not a financial planner and am not giving you financial advice. I will share what I have learned along the way. If you have specific financial planning questions, I highly recommend researching your options.

Retirement Resources

In researching our options, I read numerous financial books of which The Road to Wealthby Suze Orman and Personal Finance For Dummiesby Eric Tyson are my favorites.

Upon narrowing down the information to our situation, I selected a few options. Then I took those options to my uncle who is a Chief Financial Officer. He then added some additional information to point us in the right direction.

Empowered with knowledge, Paul and I acted on the information we had. Most of these decisions were made the first year of our marriage. Now, 14 years later, we have evaluated our choices and found them working how we envisioned.

Retirement Research

With this category, I will do my best to give you the big picture and explain the options available. I realize how confusing stocks, bonds, 401K, load vs. no-load, IRAs, and numerous other terms scare people. I was there. I had no idea what these terms meant, so I educated myself.

I read and re-read until I understood how it works. My brain naturally thinks in an organized manner. With financial and legal systems working in an exact order, I understand these systems and enjoy them.

If you care not and just get confused, then let me break it down for you. Ignoring these items will not solve the problem. Retirement is coming and planning now is using time wisely.

Retirement Plan Documents

• Defining the Types of Accounts
• Allocating Your Money within an Account
• Selecting Beneficiary Designations
• Transferring Accounts
• Investing in Multiple Plans

In the coming weeks, I will explain the individual parts for the first 4 weeks, and then pull it all together in week 5, including a list the items I have filed in my File Box 3.

Weekly Project: Starting finding all your retirement documents.

You may not have many of these items or you may have many more. Whatever your situation, let’s get these documents organized to assist in using time wisely. Happy organizing!

Question: Do you enjoy figuring out the different retirement options, or do you run from the topic?

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