devastated with our retirement money that we have left
"I'm going to discuss this, in general, as specific investment advice isn't allowed here. What type of account is the $60K in now? I mean - Is it in a 401(k), IRA or regular account/CD/money market?  You are still working? Does your company offer any kind of matched 401(k)? If so, take advantage of that right up the level they'll match. If not, are you currently depositing to pretax IRAs? You can't just deposit that $60K into an IRA if it isn't already, but you can put $11k/yr ($5 for you, $6K for hubby if you make $11K or more this year.) Now, disclaimer, I am anti-annuity. Like many who are pro or con on issues, this is my nature. The one type of annuity I actually like is the Immediate Annuity. The link is not for an end company, it shows quotes from many and is meant as an example. Today, a 65 yr old man can get $600/mo with a $100K purchase. This is 7.2%, in an economy in which rates are sub 3%. You give up principal in exchange for this higher annual return.  This is a viable solution for the just-retired person whose money will run out when looking at a 4-5% withdrawal but 1% CD rate. In general, these products are no more complex that what I just described, unlike annuities sold to younger fold which combine high fees with returns that are so complex to describe that most agents can't keep their story straight.  Aside from the immediate flavor, all other annuities are partial sold (there's a quote among finance folk - ""annuities are sold, not bought"") based on their tax deferral features. I don't suspect you are in a tax bracket where that feature has any value to you.  At 48/54, with at least 10 years ahead of you, I'd research 'diversification' and 'asset allocation'. Even $60K is enough to proper invest these funds until you retire and then decide what's right for you.   Beginners' Guide to Asset Allocation, Diversification, and Rebalancing is an interesting introduction, and it's written by the SEC, so your tax dollars paid for it.  Some months ago, I wrote Diversifying to Reduce Risk, which falls short of a complete discussion of asset allocation, but it does illustrate the power of being in a stock/bond mix. The ups and downs were reduced significantly compared to the all stock portfolio.  (for follow up or to help others reply to you, a bit more detail on the current investments, and how you are devastated, eg was there a huge loss from what you had a few years ago?) Edit - The original poster hasn't returned. Posted the question and left. It's unfortunate as this was someone who would benefit from the dialog, and the answers here can help others in a similar position, but I feel more discussion is in order for the OP. Last, I caught a downvote on my reply today. I take no offense, but curious which part of my answer the DVer disagreed with." "It sounds like the kinds of planners you're talking to might be a poor fit, because they are essentially salespersons selling investments for a commission. Some thoughts on finding a financial planner The good kind of financial planner is going to be able to do a comprehensive plan - look at your whole life, goals, and non-investment issues such as insurance. You should expect to get a document with a Monte Carlo simulation showing your odds of success if you stick to the plan; for investments, you should expect to see a recommended asset allocation and an emphasis on low-cost no-commission (commission is ""load"") funds. See some of the other questions from past posts, for example What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money? A good place to start for a planner might be http://napfa.org ; there's also a franchise of planners providing hourly advice called the Garrett Planning Network, I helped my mom hire someone from them and she was very happy, though I do think your results would depend mostly on the individual rather than the franchise. Anyway see http://www.garrettplanningnetwork.com/map.html , they do require planners to be fee-only and working on their CFP credential. You should really look for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) credential. There are a lot of credentials out there, but many of them mean very little, and others might be hard to get but not mean the right thing. Some other meaningful ones include Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) which would be a solid investment expert, though not necessarily someone knowledgeable in financial planning generally; and IRS Enrolled Agent, which means someone who knows a lot about taxes. A CPA (accountant) would also be pretty meaningful. A law degree (and estate law know-how) is very relevant to many planning situations, too. Some not-very-meaningful certifications include Certified Mutual Fund Specialist (which isn't bogus, but it's much easier to get than CFP or CFA); Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) which mostly means the person is supposed to understand securities fraud laws, but doesn't mean they know a lot about financial planning. There are some pretty bogus certifications out there, many have ""retirement"" or ""senior"" in the name. A good question for any planner is ""Are you a fiduciary?"" which means are they legally required to act in your interests and not their own. Most sales-oriented advisors are not fiduciaries; they wouldn't charge you a big sales commission if they were, and they are not ""on your side"" legally speaking. It's a good idea to check with your state regulators or the SEC to confirm that your advisor is registered and ask if they have had any complaints. (Small advisors usually register with the state and larger ones with the federal SEC). If they are registered, they may still be a salesperson who isn't acting in your interests, but at least they are following the law. You can also see if they've been in trouble in the past. When looking for a planner, one firm I found had a professional looking web site and didn't seem sketchy at all, but the state said they were not properly registered and not in compliance. Other ideas A good book is: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People/dp/0743269942 it's very approachable and you'd feel more confident talking to someone maybe with more background information. For companies to work with, stick to the ones that are very consumer-friendly and sell no-load funds. Vanguard is probably the one you'll hear about most. But T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, USAA are some other good names. Fidelity is a bit of a mixture, with some cheap consumer-friendly investments and other products that are less so. Avoid companies that are all about charging commission: pretty much anyone selling an annuity is probably bad news. Annuities have some valid uses but mostly they are a bad deal. Not knowing your specific situation in any detail, it's very likely that 60k is not nearly enough, and that making the right investment choices will make only a small difference. You could invest poorly and maybe end up with 50K when you retire, or invest well and maybe end up with 80-90k. But your goal is probably more like a million dollars, or more, and most of that will come from future savings. This is what a planner can help you figure out in detail. It's virtually certain that any planner who is for real, and not a ripoff salesperson, will talk a lot about how much you need to save and so forth, not just about choosing investments. Don't be afraid to pay for a planner. It's well worth it to pay someone a thousand dollars for a really thorough, fiduciary plan with your interests foremost. The ""free"" planners who get a commission are going to get a whole lot more than a thousand dollars out of you, even though you won't write a check directly. Be sure to convert those mutual fund expense ratios and sales commissions into actual dollar amounts! To summarize: find someone you're paying, not someone getting a commission; look for that CFP credential showing they passed a demanding exam; maybe read a quick and easy book like the one I mentioned just so you know what the advisor is talking about; and don't rush into anything! And btw, I think you ought to be fine with a solid plan. You and your husband have time remaining to work with. Good luck." I'll be blunt. When you say: I am 48 and my husband is 54. We have approx. 60,000.00 left in our retirement accounts. We want to move our money into something so our money will grow. We've   been looking at annunities. We've talked to 4 different advisors about   what is best for us. Bad mistake, I am so overwhelmed with the   differences they all have til I can't even think straight anymore. @Havoc P is correct: ...It's very likely that 60k is not nearly enough, and that making the right investment choices will make only a small difference. You could   invest poorly and maybe end up with 50K when you retire, or invest   well and maybe end up with 80-90k. But your goal is probably more like   a million dollars, or more, and most of that will come from future   savings. This is what a planner can help you figure out in detail. TL; DR Here is my advice: The answers you've received already are very good. I truly sympathize with your situation. In general, it makes sense to try to build off of existing relationships. Here are a few ideas: I don't know if you work for a small or large company, or local/state government. But if there is any kind of retirement planning through your workplace, make sure to investigate that. Those people are usually already paid something for their services by your employer, so they should have less of an interest in making money off you directly. One more thought: A no-fee brokerage company e.g. Charles Schwab. They offer a free one hour phone call with an investment adviser if you invest at least $25K. I personally had very good experiences with them. This answer may be too anecdotal and not specifically address the annuity dilemma you mentioned. That annunity dilemma is why you need to find someone you can trust, who is competent (see the credentials for financial advisers mentioned in the other answers), and will work the numbers out with you. Get a job, if you don't have one right now. Take deductions from your paycheck for an IRA or 401K if the company has one.
so if we rent it out we don't want to just charge what we're paying on our mortgage - we'd definitely be losing money if we did that. I think you're overlooking one thing: your profit/loss is not monthly. Your profit is the property that's left after the mortgage ends. Even if you have to add extra $100 every month because you rent lower than the mortgage + maintenance + taxes, after 30 years you're left with property worth ie.$200k while you've paid for it ie. 30 years * 12 months * $100 = $36k. You can rent it lower than your costs and still make a profit in the long run. "Since your question was first posted, I happened to watch PBS FRONTLINE's The Retirement Gamble, about ""America's Retirement Crisis"" and the retirement industry.  You can watch the entire episode online at the previous link, and it's also available on DVD. Here's a link to the episode transcript. Here's a partial blurb from a post at PBS that announced the episode: If you’ve been watching any commercial television lately, you are well   aware that the financial services industry is very busy running   expensive ads imploring us to worry about our retirement futures. Open   a new account today, they say. They are not wrong that we should be doing something: America is   facing a retirement crisis. One in three Americans has no retirement   savings at all. One in two reports that they can’t save enough. On top   of that, we are living longer, and health care costs, as we all know,   are increasing. But, as I found when investigating the retirement planning and mutual   funds industries in The Retirement Gamble, which airs tonight on   FRONTLINE, those advertisements are imploring us to start saving for   one simple reason. Retirement is big business — and very profitable. (... more... ) There's another related PBS FRONTLINE documentary from back in 2006, Can You Afford To Retire? You'll find a link on that page to watch the program online. Finally, I'm also aware of but haven't yet seen a new documentary called Broken Eggs: The Looming Retirement Crisis in America. Looks like it isn't available for online streaming or on DVD yet, but I expect it would be, eventually." We're in our fifth year of business.  We never had a business plan and never took out a loan.  We started tiny, and grew to be small.  Many of our competitors have left the field, mostly due to debt and a local market that can be very hard to predict.  I like this guy's focus on entrepreneurship for low-income people.  For most of us, if you can start a business that ends up being a fairly decent-paying job for yourself and maybe a couple other people, that's good enough.  Jobs for average people are disappearing, but those with the dedication and discipline can scratch out an alright living running their own show. We had this happen to us 2 months ago.  There is basically a criminal organization called United telecom they are partnered with. United Telecoms business model is switching your long distance without your permission.  We get a bill and each phone line has all these extra charges that add up to about $100.  I call to find out what is happening and I find out we have been slammed (long distance switched without our permission).  Apparently they call and ask if this is business X and if you say yes they are recording it and use that as evidence that you agreed to have your long distance switched.  I spent close to six hours on the phone getting our account back in order.  One of the people I spoke with at Centurylink said they got a lot of calls about United Telecom.  It sounded like switching long distance services was a standard business practice for them.   When I spoke with United Telecom, it was way to easy.  The person that answered the phone removed our charged without any questions. I thought that was strangely easy.  If this is actually how they make money, why would they back it off so easily?  So I called Centurylink back because I figured there had to be something else they left out when I spoke with them earlier.  After some digging, bundled up in an other charges section was about $5 for switching our long distance service.  It took me almost a whole day to get this straightened out. I spoke with 16 different people at Centurylink.  It became hilarious.  I had them on speaker phone and we would just start laughing.  One minute sir, I will connect you to business services.  Here is the direct phone number in case you get disconnected. 20 minutes of being on hold, then, I am sorry sir this is residential I will have to transfer you to business.  Same freaking thing, over and over and over.  I assume most people just give up or don't have the time to sort this stuff out.  TL;DR It seems like Centurylink continues to allow United Telecom to switch long distance services for their clients, because it generates significant revenue for them.  [edit] If you don't want this to happen to you, put a lock on your services.  It takes two part authentication to change anything after that. "I assume you get your information from somewhere where they don't report the truth. I'm sorry if mentioning Fox News offended you, it was not my intention. But the way the question is phrased suggests that you know nothing about what ""pension"" means. So let me explain. 403(b) is not a pension account. Pension account is generally a ""defined benefit"" account, whereas 403(b)/401(k) and similar - are ""defined contribution"" accounts. The difference is significant: for pensions, the employer committed on certain amount to be paid out at retirement (the defined benefit) regardless of how much the employee/employer contributed or how well the account performed. This makes such an arrangement a liability. An obligation to pay. In other words - debt. Defined contribution on the other hand doesn't create such a liability, since the employer is only committed for the match, which is paid currently. What happens to your account after the employer deposited the defined contribution (the match) - is your problem. You manage it to the best of your abilities and whatever you have there when you retire - is yours, the employer doesn't owe you anything. Here's the problem with pensions: many employers promised the defined benefit, but didn't do anything about actually having money to pay. As mentioned, such a pension is essentially a debt, and the retiree is a debt holder. What happens when employer cannot pay its debts? Employer goes bankrupt. And when bankrupt - debtors are paid only part of what they were owed, and that includes the retirees. There's no-one raiding pensions. No-one goes to the bank with a gun and demands ""give me the pension money"". What happened was that the employers just didn't fund the pensions. They promised to pay - but didn't set aside any money, or set aside not enough. Instead, they spent it on something else, and when the time came that the retirees wanted their money - they didn't have any. That's what happened in Detroit, and in many other places. 403(b) is in fact the solution to this problem. Instead of defined benefit - the employers commit on defined contribution, and after that - it's your problem, not theirs, to have enough when you're retired." So to translate that to US English: taking an early retirement in lieu of impending layoffs.  If you have a layoff you're saying you have no need for the work and if you replace the workers then they come back to sue you (which seems to be what you're saying, and we have the same concept) but an early retirement is a voluntary exit with a compensation package such that any right to sue is forfeit because it was a consensual exit rather than mandatory.  Got it.  Thanks. :) I bet you're retired on a pension? Or just stupid? What? I need to no. Just because you tack a term to it, doesn't make it invalid.  You should DIE when you are no longer productive. Look at the DEBT you're handing to the future, while your employers run away with the EQUITY! Yep. My dad lost his (really high paying) job in 2009 and it took him 9 months to find it. They had to sell off a lot of stock to get through it, at a time when the stocks were half of what they were a year earlier. Now he's 64 and not even considering retiring before 70 or death, whichever comes first.   I definitely believe that the death of the pension is going to be the worst thing for boomers. My generation never grew up with them - for us they're like a fairy tale. But many boomers grew up where nobody ever saved for retirement and always kicked the can down the road. SS is really only enough to keep seniors from starving to death, and not much more.