Contributing to a workplace retirement account drastically boosts your odds of a successful retirement, as long as you avoid some costly errors.
performed an exhaustive analysisBad news first: Across the U.S., Morningstar's model predicts about 45% of households will run short of money in retirement.
"Keep in mind that even though people can be on track, there's still a possibility that they're going to shoot themselves in the foot," he says.It's easy to see why long-term participation in an employee-sponsored retirement plan correlates with positive retirement outcomes. By enrolling in your employer's plan, you're practicing a lot of good financial hygiene.
And because such plans are designed for long-term investment — they come with penalties for withdrawing funds before retirement — investors in them generally reap the benefits of long-term, compounding growth in their portfolio. "In some of the plans we're looking at for a different project, we're finding annual underlying withdrawals of 40%," says VanDerhei. "So to the extent that you're treating like an ATM machine, you can't really expect everyone who has 20 years of participation to necessarily be on track."When you leave your job, you generally have the option to roll your 401 funds into an IRA or transfer them to your new employer's plan.
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