One of the questions that many people have as they plan for retirement is whether they should fund a 401k or an IRA first. And, of course, the answer depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your retirement fund.

IRAs and 401ks have some different advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to you to determine what is most likely to be the best course of action for you. As you try to figure out what to do with your retirement money, here are some things to consider:

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Many of us are planing for that day when we can retire. Or at least work part-time doing something we actually enjoy. However, few of us will truly be ready for retirement when the time comes. This is because we so often neglect the basics of retirement planning. Indeed, there are plenty of neglected basics of good financial management and planning that can trip you up when it comes time to retire.

If you want to retire “on time,” you will need to make plans now to prepare. Put together a financial plan that takes into account your goals for retirement, and work toward making those goals a reality. As you prepare for a successful retirement in the future, here are some things to keep in mind:

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I really like it when major magazines do Q&A’s with regular people, like when Kiplinger talked with Dane Lacey, a 49 year old radiologist from San Diego. It’s somewhat deceptive though as a radiologist is hardly a job that any regular person can get into. It’s a specialty that involves using imaging to treat patients and something you need plenty of schooling to do properly. It’s, as you’d expect, a pretty high paying job since he was able to save $240,000 for retirement in a single year.

As I read the Q&A, I thought I’d write down some good takeaways as well as clarifications on what I found suspicious. In summary, I felt like there were some good lessons to learn from someone who earned a significantly above average income that anyone could use.

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Every year around this time the IRS releases updated retirement contribution and tax bracket information for the coming year. We probably won’t see much by way of tax bracket information since Congress has its work cut out for it, but earlier this month they released contribution and deduction limits for retirement account contributions for 2011. As you’d expect, not much changed since inflation was minimal.

There were no changes to the contribution limits and some phaseouts saw their ranges increase slightly.

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Can you believe it’s November already? As our thoughts go to preparing that gluttonous Thanksgiving meal and the feasts yet to come during the holidays, one thought you might want to spend a few cycles on is whether you want to convert your Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in 2010, rather than 2011. If you’re unfamiliar with this whole subject, I invite you to check out this Roth IRA conversion mini-roundup to familiarize yourself with the process.

This post will discuss the idea of whether you should convert your IRA to a Roth IRA this year, in 2010, or if you should wait until next year.

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A few years ago, when the economy was great, most of the people who didn’t save for retirement usually didn’t think about it. It’s difficult to think of the far future on a regular day, it’s even tougher to think about it when it’s sunny, beautiful, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. It’s toughest when the economy is rough, we’re all playing defense, and it doesn’t seem like we’ll even make it to tomorrow, let alone the next twenty or thirty years. It is, however, always important to think about saving for retirement and fortunately it’s not as expensive as you may think. You can afford to save for retirement, it will cost you very little, and I will explain why.

When you make contributions to an employer 401(k), you get an immediate tax deduction if it’s withdrawn from your paycheck. We’ll look at more examples below but if you contribute $100 a pay period and are in the 28% tax bracket, only $72 is deducted from your paycheck (you contribute $100 but get the deduction, so you pay $28 less in taxes). If your company offers a 401(k) and a company match, saving for retirement is even cheaper.

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Every week I get at least one email from a reader asking me which broker is the “best” for their Roth IRA. The number of emails jumps exponentially after the new year and, fortunately, falls after April 15th! You have until April 15th, 2011 to decide if and how much you will contribute to your Roth IRA for 2010. If this is the first year you’re contributing to a Roth IRA, you’ll also have to pick who you want to watch over your money.

Before you decide where to put your money, you really need to decide what you want to invest in. If you want to invest it in mutual funds, you’ll be best served going with the company that runs the funds you like. The two big names in the mutual fund space are Fidelity and Vanguard. If you really like their funds, I recommend you open a mutual fund account directly with them because you will be able to buy and sell shares for free.

If individual stocks are more your thing, then you’ll want to pick a broker that offers services you like at a cost that’s affordable. Discount brokers are all the rage these days, with sub-$5 stock commissions and all the research you could ever want. My personal opinion is that as long as you can satisfy the minimum balance requirements and the fees aren’t expensive, the broker is less important. I personally like TradeKing because their customer service has been rated one of the best and I’ve never had issues with it myself (I use their online chat feature all the time). They aren’t necessarily the cheapest anymore, there are a few even cheaper, but there’s a bit of an inertia effect there (I have my stocks there and I don’t trade much, so I don’t want to go through the process of moving them).

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You’ve probably heard that your most valuable asset is time. For new graduates, that line actually refers to two different ideas, both of which are critically important to understand. The first idea is that with few entanglements and draws on your time (mainly no kids), you can devote more of it to your career and engineer the largest advancements in your career.

The second refers to the power of compounding interest and that’s important to understand with regards to your retirement in forty+ years.
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