Should I scale down my 401k?
Because stock markets don't always go up, sometimes they go down. Sometimes they go way down. Between 2007 and 2009 the S&P 500 lost over half its value. So if in 2007 you thought you had just enough to retire on, in 2009 you'd suddenly find you had only half of what you needed! Of course over the next few years, many of the stocks recovered value, but if you had retired in 2008 and depended on a 401k that consisted entirely of stocks, you'd have been forced to sell a bunch of stocks near the bottom of the market to cover your retirement living expenses. Bonds go up and down too, but usually not to the same extent as stocks, and ideally you aren't selling the bonds for your living expenses, just collecting the interest that's due you for the year. Of course, some companies and cities went bankrupt in the 2008 crisis too, and they stopped making interest payments.  Another risk is that you may be forced to retire before you were actually planning to. As you age you are at increasing risk for medical problems that may force an early retirement. Many businesses coped with the 2008 recession by laying off their older workers who were earning higher salaries. It wasn't an easy environment for older workers to find jobs in, so many folks were forced into early retirement. Nothing is risk free, so you need to make an effort to understand what the risks are, and decide which ones you are comfortable with. the whole room basically jumped on me I really have an issue with this. Someone providing advice should offer data, and guidance. Not bully you or attack you.  You offer 3 choices. And I see intelligent answers advising you against #1. But I don't believe these are the only choices. My 401(k) has an S&P fund, a short term bond fund, and about 8 other choices including foreign, small cap, etc. I may be mistaken, but I thought regulations forced more choices. From the 2 choices, S&P and short term bond, I can create a stock bond mix to my liking. With respect to the 2 answers here, I agree, 100% might not be wise, but 50% stock may be too little. Moving to such a conservative mix too young, and you'll see lower returns.  I like your plan to shift more conservative as you approach retirement.   Edit - in response to the disclosure of the fees -  1.18% for Aggressive, .96% for Moderate I wrote an article 5 years back, Are you 401(k)o'ed in which I discuss the level of fees that result in my suggestion to not deposit above the match. Clearly, any fee above .90% would quickly erode the average tax benefit one might expect. I also recommend you watch a PBS Frontline episode titled The Retirement Gamble It makes the point as well as I can, if not better.  The benefit of a 401(k) aside from the match (which you should never pass up) is the ability to take advantage of the difference in your marginal tax rate at retirement vs when earned. For the typical taxpayer, this means working and taking those deposits at the 25% bracket, and in retirement, withdrawing at 15%. When you invest in a fund with a fee above 1%, you can see it will wipe out the difference over time. An investor can pay .05% for the VOO ETF, paying as much over an investing lifetime, say 50 years, as you will pay in just over 2 years.  They jumped on you? People pushing funds with these fees should be in jail, not offering financial advice. IMHO your thinking is spot on.  More than likely, you are years away from retirement, like 22 if you retire somewhat early.  Until you get close keep it in aggressive growth.  Contribute as much as you can and you probably end up with 3 million in today's dollars.   Okay so what if you were retiring in a year or two from now, and you have 3M, and have managed your debt well.  You have no loans including no mortgage and an nice emergency fund.  How much would you need to live?  60 or 70K year would provide roughly the equivalent of 100K salary (no social security tax, no commute, and no need to save for retirement) and you would not have a mortgage. So what you decide to do is move 250K and move it to bonds so you have enough to live off of for the next 3.5 years or so.  That is less than 10% of your nest egg.  You have 3.5 years to go through some roller coaster time of the market and you can always cherry pick when to replenish the bond fund. Having a 50% allocation for bonds is not very wise.  The 80% probably good for people who have little or no savings like less than 250k and retired.   I think you are a very bright individual and have some really good money sense. "See if they offer a ""Target Date"" plan that automatically adjusts throughout your career to balance gains against preserving what you've already built up.  You can adjust for more or less aggressive by selecting a plan with a later or sooner target date, respectively. (But check the administrative fees; higher fees can eat up a surprisingly large part of your growth since they're essentially subtracted from rate of return and thus get compounded.) If they don't have that option, or charge too much for it, then yes, you may want to adjust which plan your money is in over time; you can usually ""exchange"" between these plans at no cost and with no tax penalty. NOTE: The tax-advantaged 401(k) investments should be considered in the context of all your investments. This is one of the things an independent financial planner can help you with. As with other investment decisions, the best answer for you depends on your risk tolerance and your time horizon."
From Getting Rid of PMI: Per the federal Homeowners' Protection Act, you can ask that your PMI be canceled when you've paid down your mortgage to 80% of the loan, if you have a good record of payment and compliance with the terms of your mortgage, you make a written request, and you show that the value of the property hasn't gone down.  What's more, when you've paid down your mortgage to 78% of the original loan, the law says that the lender must automatically cancel your PMI. (So in this case to prove it hasn't gone down, an appraisal is in order) But all of this doesn't answer the question. The PMI is a separate line item, once it's removed, your total monthly payment drops. You are welcome to keep it in, and indicate it should be a prepayment of principal, if that's your wish, but that's up to you, it's not automatic.  In researching this the first time, I ran into an article How to Calculate PMI Costs in which an example is given where a 91% LTV $200K loan has a PMI cost of $1000/yr. So, the impact of not having that extra $20K or so is to pay what amount to an extra 5% on the last $20K of the loan. The PMI doesn't scale over time. When you are $10K away from 80% LTV, you still pay the $1K/yr. For this reason, if you absolutely must go over 80% LTV, I'd suggest shopping for a bank that will permit the excess to be a home equity loan.  At least the payoff of that 2nd loan in totally in your control. "No, Skiffbug is not English.   Second, it's very clear that the type of method considered ""special"" by the tax code is clearly not labor, but capital gains and gains from ""carried interest"".  If you actually take 3 seconds to read my comment, I am saying both should be treated in exactly the same way, and taxed at the same progressive scale." Yes you can rollover as many different 401ks into a single IRA account.  I have done it personally and it really cuts down on the overhead of keeping up with lots of different accounts.  Your brokerage or mutual fund company should be able to help you with it.  If you are using a company that just gives you forms and those forms don't mention an easy way to combine.  Then I suggest rolling over one 401k first then once that's finished you can rollover the other 401k into that same account. I would definitely pay down the debt first.  If it is going to take 15 years to do so, you probably need to allocate more money to paying down debt. Cut expenses by going out to eat less, and keeping spending to the bare necessities.  You might even consider getting a second job, just for paying down the debt.  If that isn't enough, consider selling off some assets.  You should be able to come up with a plan to be debt free (excluding maybe a regular mortgage) within 3-5 years. Once the only debt you have is a home mortgage, then its time to look at putting money towards retirement again. Note, you should not take money out of a 401k or IRA to pay off debt.  The costs for doing so are nearly always too great. With a match, the 401(k) becomes the priority, up to that match, often ahead of other high interest debt.  Without the match, the analysis is more about the cost within the 401(k). The 401(k) is a tax deferred account (let's not go on a tangent to Roth 401(k)) so ideally, you'd be skimming off money at 25% and saving it till you retire, so some of it is taxed at 0, 10, 15%. If the fees in the 401(k) are say 1.5% between the underlying funds and management fee, it doesn't take long to wipe out the potential 10 or 15% you are trying to gain.  Yes, there's a risk that cap gain rates go away, but with today's tax law, the long term rate is 15%. So that money put into a long term low cost ETF will have reinvested dividends taxed at 15% and upon sale, a 15% rate on the gains. There are great index ETFs with sub - .1% annual cost.  My simple answer is - If the total cost in that 401(k) is .5% or higher, I'd pass. Save the money in an outside account, using IRAs as best you can.  (The exact situation needs to be looked at very carefully. In personal finance, there's a lot of 'grey'. For example, a frequent job changer can view the 401(k) as a way of saving pretax, knowing the fee will only last 2 years, and will end with a transfer to the IRA) "Early this year I wrote an article Are you 401(k)o’ed?  I described the data from a 401(k) expense survey and the punchline was that the average large retirement plan (over 1000 participants) expense was 1.08%, and for smaller plans it rose to 1.24%.  As I commented below, if one's goal is to make deposits with income that avoid a tax of 25%, and hope to withdraw it at retirement at 15%, it doesn't take long for a 1% fee to completely negate the benefit of pretax savings.  These numbers are averages, in the same article, I mention (ok, I brag) that my company plan has an S&P fund that costs .05%. That's 1% over 20 years.  The sound bite of ""deposit to the match"" needs to be followed by ""depending on the choice of investments and their expenses"" within the 401(k).  Every answer here has added excellent points, fennec's last sentence shouldn't be ignored, there's a phaseout for IRA deductibility, and another for Roth eligibility. For Married filing joint, IRA deduction starts to be lost at $92K, and Roth deposit disallowed at $173K. This adds a bit to the complexity of the decision, but doesn't change the implication of the 1%+ 401(k) fees." With an appropriate selection within a 401K and if operating expenses are low, you get tax deferred savings and possibly a lower tax bracket for now.  The returns vary of course with market fluctuations but for almost 3 years it has been double digit growth on average.  Some health care sector funds were up over 40% last year.  YMMV.  With stocks and mutual funds that hold them, you also are in a sense betting that people want their corporations to grow and succeed.  Others do most of the work.   Real estate should be part of your savings strategy but understand that they are not kidding when they talk about location.  It can lose value. Tenants tend to have some problem part of the year such that some owners find it necessary to have a paid property manager to buffer from their complaints.  Other owners get hauled into court and sued as slum lords for allegedly not doing basics. Tenants can ruin your property as well.  There is maintenance, repair, replacement, insurance against injury not just property damage, and property taxes.  While some of it might be deductible, not all is.   You may want to consider that there are considerable ongoing costs and significant risks in time and money with real estate as an investment at a level that you do not incur with a 401K.  If you buy mainly to flip, then be aware that if there are unforeseen issues with the house or the market sours as it can, you could be stuck with an immovable drain on your income.  If you lose your job could you make payments?  Many, many people sadly lost their homes or investment properties that way in 2008-2010. What is the question? Are you just trying to confirm that for self-employed, a Solo 401(k) is flexible, and a great tool to level out your tax rates? Sure. A W2 employee can turn on and off his 401(k) deduction any time, and bump the holding on each check as high as 75% in some cases. So in a tight stretch, I'd save to the match, but later on, top off the maximum for the year. To the points you listed - Your observation is interesting, but a bit long for what you seem to be asking. Keep in mind, there are 2 great features that you don't mention - a Roth Solo 401(k) flavor which offers even more flexibility for variable income, and loan provisions, up to $50,000 available to borrow from the account. My fellow blogger The Financial Buff offered an article Solo 401k Providers and Their Scope of Services that did a great job addressing this.