401k Archives • Bitches Get Riches

You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 Piggy 5 Comments

I don’t give a flying nun about inheriting money when my parents eventually buy the farm. As far as I’m concerned, it’s their hard-earned dough. They should use every blessed penny to enjoy their retirement and live comfortably until the day they die.

In fact, I truly hope they do!

They can give me a much greater gift instead of an inheritance: the knowledge that their retirement and passing won’t be a financial burden on me.

Knowing that my parents have a solid retirement plan will grant me enormous peace of mind. I can’t imagine a more generous gift than the ability to enjoy our last years together without worrying about how to pay for their care. I want to compete with my mom at nightly Jeopardy! when she’s shrunken and toothless, not take a second job to keep her TV on! (Note: There would be no competition. My mother is a ruthless, cutthroat home Jeopardy! contender. Fools and kings have fallen before her. She’s banned from pub trivia in three states.)

A solid retirement plan for my parents will also allow me to focus on growing my own wealth. That way, when I get to the age where I’m allowed to be embarrassingly blunt in public, I won’t be dragging down the finances of my younger relatives.

Procrastinating on Opening a Retirement Account? Here’s 3 Ways That’ll Fuck You Over.

June 8, 2022June 8, 2022 Piggy 3 Comments

If I had to rank all the things I love to do in my precious free time, where would opening a retirement account fall? Let me see, hmm… above a root canal, but below politely accepting a religious tract from a door-knocking missionary. (What can I say? Some of them have pretty nice artwork!)

Have you been procrastinating on opening your retirement account? Feeling lazy? Avoidant? Afraid of the paperwork? Feel like you’d rather use that money on stuff you need or want right now? Obviously, I feel you.

But buck up, son! I’m about to tell you why you can’t afford not to open a retirement account.

Wait… what’s a retirement account again?

To recap with a vast simplification: Americans have access to two main kinds of retirement accounts.

First, a 401(k)—or 403(b), if you work for a nonprofit—is a retirement fund facilitated by your employer. You set it up so they can take money directly out of your paycheck and squirrel it safely away for you to use when you’re terrorizing orderlies in the nursing home. That way you can focus on maintaining your record as Wheelchair Drag Race Champion of Shady Hills Retirement Community and not get distracted by petty financial concerns.

Second, there’s IRAs (individual retirement accounts), both traditional and Roth. IRAs are very similar to 401(k)s, but they’re attached to you directly instead of your employer. There are other differences, but meh, they’re pretty minor. You can get acquainted with the finer points later.

Retirement accounts are powerful tools for growing wealth and stability for your future self. The trick is you have to opt into your retirement account. If you’re self-employed, or you work for a company that doesn’t offer 401(k)s, you need to go out and open your own IRA. And if you work for a company that offers 401(k)s, you need to sign up and voluntarily tell someone to NOT give you part of your paycheck every month.

As broke as you are right now, ignoring a perfectly good retirement fund is a terrible idea. Because if you do that, you’ll lose money in three different ways.

How to Painlessly Run the Gauntlet of a 401k Rollover

March 29, 2022August 2, 2022 Piggy 27 Comments

If we’ve taught you nothing else here at Bitches Get Riches, it’s that you should:

sign up for your employer’s retirement plan and
job hop your way to a nice fat salary.

Yet these two bits of career advice might seem to conflict with one another. After all, if you’re job-hopping your way up the salary food-chain, you might be leaving a trail of old retirement plans behind you to languish. What do you do with your old 401k when you move on to a new employer, or even embrace self-employment?

Enter the 401k rollover: the most hateful, obnoxious, and needlessly complicated bureaucratic process known to man.

Today we’re not only going to demystify the process of how to roll over an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401k—we’re going to make it beautifully, sinfully painless. It’s going to be so much fun you guys!!!!!

Dafuq Is a Retirement Plan and Why Do You Need One?

February 13, 2017November 22, 2021 Piggy 1 Comment

For young’uns like us, old age and retirement couldn’t seem farther away. And yet the thing about retirement is it goes way smoother if you prep for it in advance. Which is why all of us—yes, even you fresh-faced recent graduates—need a retirement plan.

The term “retirement plan” itself is a bit misleading. It suggests there’s a singular, one-size-fits-all tool for preparing to live out your sunset years in the lap of luxury. In reality, not only is there no one single retirement savings tool that works for everyone. But most people use multiple “retirement plans.”

Join me, dear readers, as I guide you through an entirely-too-detailed tour of the most common forms of retirement plans. Keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times and please don’t feed the wildlife.