F • RUBY, WILDING & SWANSBURG way . No w, at age sixty-five, I can see the tremendous mistakes I made. Here’s how I got into this predicament. I graduated fro m Purdue University i n 1972 with a degree in mathematics and physics. I was so eager to start my first job that I skipped my graduation ceremony altogether. While my classmates were tossing their hats in the air, I was settl ing int o a new rol e a s a n actuarial student at Traveler’s Insur ance in H artford , C onnecticut. At that point, saving for retirement was easy: I didn’t have to do it personally because my company did it for me. In the 1970s, Travel ers ha d a defined-benefi t pensio n plan, so each year I accrued a port ion of my salary that would be paid to me at retirement for the rest of my life. Amazingly, I didn’t have to contribute a cent to this plan. It was up to my employer to full y fu nd it. If only it had s tayed that eas y. By the 1990s, I was CEO of an insurance compan y call ed Integr ity Lif e, headquartered in Louis ville, Kentucky. Here’s where my savings plans went astray. At Integrity, we didn’t have a formal pension program. Instead, we saved in what was, at the time, the hot new savings product in America: the 401(k). If you’r e read ing this book, chances ar e you’r e s aving in a 401(k), too. Chances are, if you don’t make a change today, you’re going to be facing the same risks I a m in the future. It d oes n’t have to be that way. Here’s the secret most financial experts kno w but are n’t telling you: Today’s most popular ways of saving for the future are creating some of the biggest risks in modern financial hist ory. Y es, that inclu des 401(k )s a nd Individual Retirement Accounts, or IRAs. What does that mean? This book will show you.
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