401k

How to 86 your 401(k)

  I want to thank Greg McFarlane , an advertising copywriter who lives in Las Vegas and Lahaina, for today’s guest post.  My hunch is that this post will whet your appetite for Greg’s recent book:  Control Your Cash: Making Money Make Sense, a financial primer for people in their 20s and 30s who know [...]

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Request for Advice: Is Using 401(k) Funds for College Education a Wise Move?

A friend recently sent me the following email: “… here’s a question to challenge your finance column. I’ll make it a little hypothetical. “Our son graduated from college and is working to save money for graduate school. In college, he accumulated over $20000 in student loans (avg. 7%) and desires to pay them down ASAP [...]

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Should You Roll Your 401(k) to an IRA? It’s Not A No-Brainer.

When I left my last place of employment,  I rolled all of my 401(k) funds into a traditional IRA. I figured doing so was a no-brainer, but I recently read an article in Kiplinger’s Retirement Report that, while validating my decision, also gives some reasons why a rollover is not always the best course of [...]

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4 Reasons You Should Not Use Your 401k to Pay Off Your Credit Card

Q:  We have $30,000 in credit card debt and it seems it will take forever to get it paid off.  Should I use money from my 401(k) to pay off that debt?  I am 35 years old. A:  I realize, when you see that money sitting in your 401(k), that there is a temptation to [...]

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