Retirement Perspectives 3 month overview.

About three months ago I started to track my retirement perspectives. Here’s a sort of how I’ve made progress so far on my variable account. I’ve excluded my pension because I only get statements once a year… in November…

401A Account:
Three Months ago
• 2.71% of my portfolio
• Down 3.5% since inception
• Worth $506.68/$525.32 Loss -18.64
NOW
• 3.01% of my portfolio
• Up 5.89% since inception
• Worth $665.08/$628.06 Gain $37.02

Essentially this account grew 9.39% in three months (I went from negative 3.5% to positive 5.89%). This is great progress. I also decided to make my contributions 20% money market, and 80% target date—starting with my last paycheck.

457 Account:
Three Months ago:
• 5.51% of my portfolio
• Worth $1,031.79
NOW
• 4.67% of my portfolio
• Worth $1,032.48

Well, it gained a whopping $0.69. I hate that I can’t do anything with this money. It’s stuck in some dumb account doing nothing till I quit my job but adding pennies. The only thing I can do is lower the amount this makes in my portfolio, so yeah for a 0.84% drop.

Roth IRA ING DIRECT:
Three Months ago:
• 10.89% of my portfolio
• Up 1.91% since inception
• worth $2,038.53/2,000. Gain $38.53
NOW:
• 11.55% of my portfolio
• Up 2.21% since inception
• Worth $2,555.44/$2,500.00. Gain $55.44

Since this account is made up primarily of CD’s, I won’t lose money… but it won’t get spectacular gains either… It grew 0.3% Mainly, because CD’s are getting such small returns now a days

But I look at it this way, since this is part of my Roth IRA, which I will always max out, keeping the money in CD’s prevented me from losing a lot more money last year .I have one 1,000 CD earning 4.5%... sadly, it expires in 2010…. CD’s also help to balance out my risk. I don’t like risk… but I’m a conservative investor. My pension is safe and I know I should be more radical, but I just wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

Sharebuilder Roth IRA:
Three Months ago:
• 45.63% of my portfolio
• Down 14.56% since inception.
• Worth $8,544.25/$10,000.00 Loss of -1,455.75
NOW:
• 50.94% of my portfolio
• Down 1.97% from Inception
• Worth $11,273.09/11,500.00 Loss of -226.91

My account grew 12.59% in three months. I hope that by the end of 2009, my account will no longer be negative.

Over all what did I learn? My gains are a lot larger because I continued to buy more mutual funds and cd, etc not knowing what the future held for me. Had I not, I wouldn’t have been able to let shares bought at $7.00 make profit at 8.30 to help offset the loss when I bout shares at 12 or 13 dollars. This is why I dollar cost average. I don’t have to worry about timing the market if I’m continually buying mutual funds throughout the year. Yes, I might lose out on the lowest low point… but I’d never be able to figure that out on my own... hindsight is 2020.