DH has a TSP and has a decent chunk of change saved from his past 8 yrs in the CG. While that should be enough to ease my long term nerves about our future and sustain us by the time he decides to retire. (many many years from now) I can't shake the feeling that you can never be too prepared.

I just found out that I am eligible for a 401k plan from my employer and that my employer will match my contributions up to 50%.

I know we are young but this is the time to save and plan not 50 years from now and SS isn't going be any help by then.

My problem is that all the investment/ contribution options are confusing to us(especially me).

The forms list off so many different options for investment contributions. And I don't know what any of them are or what kind of effect they will have on the future of that money.

This is what they offer:
Guaranteed Income Fund
Balanced I/Wellington Mgmt.(GIF)
High Yield Bond(ITR)
Fidelity Contrafund fund(HYB)
Credit suisse International Focus ADV.(WIE)
Janus Account (JAN)
Corp stocks
Small cap value TCW (SV3)
Vanguard Wellington Admiral Shares (5v2)
S&P 500 Index fund (SMI)
Large Cap Growth Goldman Sachs (PCG)
American Century Ultra Account (TCU)
Fidelity Growth and Income Account (FGI)
Credit Suisse Emerging Growth (WEG)
Janus World wide Account (JWF)
Baron Asset Fund (BAS)
Mid Cap Growth Artisan Partners (MG1)

Hopefully somebody or anybody can make sense out of this b/c it's all Greek to me.
The book Military Advantage only said that the TSP is similar to a 401k in that you pick an amount but the military doesn't match the contribution.

I also checked out the Finance section of Military.com and checked out the FINRA link and basically got general info on what I already know. But I am looking for specifics.
I want to be responsible and save for the future but I just don't know how.

If anybody could just tell me what all those above options mean or define them or even let me know who to contact on base for specific info I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you.

(Part of me wishes that teachers would teach this sort of thing before their students graduated from High school. It would make decisions like this allot easier to understand.)



This forum was created for those who are new to or wish to learn more about these types of investments, including how to save money, by the use of a budget. Military.com does NOT and will NOT provide a qualified financial advisor to guide you or answer your questions. This is intended as a member to member support forum. Users BEWARE, that any advice posted here should be first verified with certified and/or qualified professionals, before making any decisions that may affect your financial stability. Stock and other equity questions will NOT be answered here.-USMCvet

This message has been edited. Last edited by: usmcvet,

Go back to your HR or plan administrator and ask if your employer provides a financial information/education package with the 401(k) plan administrator they contract to use. Some employers do this, and the cost is absorbed in the overall administrative expenses, or provided separately for a fee.

If the answer is no, additional help/eduction is not offerred, then ask, if among all the individual funds, if there are lifestyle or lifecycle funds. These funds will invest in a broad group of stock and bond indexs and are designed by style of investing (conservative, balanced or high risk) or the portfolio mix is set up to invest based on the amount of time you have before needing to use the money (so the fund may be named for the date closest to when you begin to draw retirment income - 2040, or 2045, 2050 fund, etc.).

Keep making yourself learn about stocks and bonds, so in time you can determine if you want to keep with the lifestyle funds (which are programmed to shift, all become more conservative as you reach your investment horizon), or begin making investments in the individual funds offerred and managing the risk versus return yourself.

If neither of these is an option, then beyond this forum here, you and hubby need to find yourselves a certified financial planner, a real one not selling you a package of his/her own company investments, but it will cost you, most likely a fee for them to look at all of your investments, pensions, etc. to help you focus on investing and reaching short-term and long-term financial goals (google, and you will find .net or .org web pages with information on finding a financial planner in your area).

Good luck, but please do something.

I can help you a little with understanding at a high level. These are Mutual Funds.

Basically a Mutual Fund is a basket of purchased stocks or bonds or combination of the two. The basket for the purpose of evaluation is lumped together and stock or ownership shares are sold for it. Much like a stock in a company. The price of the stock is listed next to the symbol.

Like a Company stock with a Mutual Fund you get a gain on your investment via a gain in the share price, a increase in dividend, etc.

So what I do is treat each Mutual Fund like a company, makes things a lot simplier.

Hope that helps you and lessens the confusion.

On what USMCVet posted. You should only act once your knowledgeable on what your acting on. When I started out with 401k's I went to a Magazine Stand and bought a issue of Kipplingers Personal Finance Magazine. It's cheap and it's a good intro to 401ks and investing and has recommendations for other reference material.

Good Luck!

do a little research by picking up a financial publication of some kind. it can be as simple as the money/business section of your local paper or a copy of the wall street journal.

i can't offer much as far as advice, but i would stay diverse and if you're young, stay in a lot of growth type funds. as you get older you'll transition to bonds and other more stable investments to preserve your savings.

good luck to you.

If you have a company big enough for a 401K, than your human resources department usually will have quarterly 'help sessions' sponsored by the 401K company. Also, most 401K sites have on-line resources that might help you decide how to invest.
Keep a few principles in mind - how long do you have to invest and how is your stomach for risk. For example - if you have 40 years and are OK with lots of risk, full stock mutual funds, international funds, or even directly investing into stocks is a good thing. If you are maybe 10 years from retiring or you can't stomach down years (like the past few) than bonds and money market funds with less volitility but guaranteed small returns might be for you. I've been in private world for 10 years, in a 403B (non profit version of 401K), so I've done lots of personal research.

Other thing between 401K and RothIRA - if you have matching program at work, definitely max this out and take advantage of that free money. Lots of experts will agree on this. If you can still contribute to anything, add to a personal Roth IRA if you don't make too much. Once you've maxed out your allowed contributions for IRA's, then put additional funds toward your 401K.

Just don't forget to re-assess your allocations towards any account about once a year. Re-balance your funds as you get closer to your retirement, decrease stock based funds. That way if another recession hits in 10 years and you are closer to retirement, you won't get hit as bad. I've heard one expert on CNBC say you should be almost all in bonds / cash with maybe only 10-20% left in stock based funds by the time you have 5 years left.

Super long winded opinion, but I've done a ton of personal research on this. I'm a bit nervous once my paperwork finishes and I should be on Army payroll in October. Haven't done a ton of TSP research yet. But I will keep contributing to my Roth..

CG wife,

Your request depends on many factors that you haven't and should not discuss in this forum. First you age/ time to retirement, tolerance for risk, amount already put away and an understanding of the assets in that portfolio.

Given you get an employer match, you need to contribute at least the minimum amount to obtain the full employer match. All the choices are mutual funds, though mutual funds are 5 letter designations versus what you wrote. The S&P 500 is a good core investment, though I would prefer to know the fund company offering the product. Also, the Vanguard Wellington fund is good as it is a mix of stocks and bonds that has traditionally had a return of around 8% per year without a lot of volatility. I would also consider an international fund once you get your feet wet, though I don't anything about the two choices you have with Credit Suisse via International Focus and Emerging Growth.

'On Target'- Motto of 1/84 FA (LAR)

MOD HAT OFF

CG Wife

Index tracking mutual funds have outperformed most managed funds in return over time. They have lower costs, and that is one reason for their advantage. Actively managed funds have lots of management fees and trading fees. We own both, but I have been leaning for the lower cost going forward in our own investing.