Protect Your Retirement: Obstacles to Building Wealth

For more than a decade, we have heard the cry for help from a very broad cross-section of the population. They ask, “What should I do with my money? How can I build wealth in this environment? Can I protect my money and not lose purchasing power?"

Many people have seen their retirement nest egg obliterated twice in the last decade. This happened once in 2001/2002 and again in 2008/2009. Within this so-called "decade of nothing," Jack Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, recently proclaimed, “Over the next decade, prepare for at least two market declines of 50%.” Are you prepared?

Many people today have their retirement assets sitting in one of the following three places:

1) CDs, earning 2.0% or less because they are afraid of the stock market, due to the financial fiasco of the last decade

2) Money market funds earning less than the CD rates

3) Invested in the stock market via various mutual funds available through their qualified retirement plan, such as an IRA or 401K

I suggest that these choices can be described in one of two ways. Either financial assets positioned for anemic growth in a CD or money market that continually erodes your purchasing power, or financial assets at total market risk and awaiting the next major market correction. These are not great choices.

Any well-constructed strategy for attaining a specific objective must be constructed with a clear recognition of the obstacles. What stands in your way? The strategies selected must be designed to eliminate or neutralize the obstacles to success.

So, what are the obstacles to building wealth? A comprehensive list of obstacles to building wealth according to many experts is:

1) Personal Debt

2) Market Volatility

3) Money Management Fees

4) Taxes

5) Financial Myths

Personal debt and available solutions are beyond the scope of this article. Market volatility can be defined as what we all experienced in the 2002 and 2008 market declines, where trillions of dollars were lost. Money management fees can run from .6% per year with the most efficient mutual funds up to over 2.0% per year. Remember, .6% to 2.0% per year may not sound like much, but over a ten-year period can amount to 6.0% to 20.0% of your money! Taxes are the biggest expense for most people. Surprised? Just add them up. Financial myths include the outdated advice of "buy and hold" and "rates of return" that are misleading at best. The wealth building strategies discussed will focus on retirement assets.

According to many experts, it is also important to integrate a few well-established wealth building principles while constructing a set of strategies to eliminate or neutralize obstacles to building wealth.

Rule number 1 - Never lose principal

Rule number 2 - Never violate rule number one

Rule number 3 - Patient CompoundingRule

Number 4 - Pay as little taxes as possible

With all of this in mind, if one could position their retirement assets to eliminate market volatility, money management fees, and the tax bite, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Of course! Sound too good to be true? It's not. Actually, it's too good to pass up.

Utilizing a financial tool known as market indexing coupled with uncapped indexing strategies will do all described above. Utilizing this financial tool, your investment will have unlimited upside potential with zero risk of loss; all with no fees and all gains being tax deferred.

The time is now. Your financial security is too important to trust to anyone but you. It's your money, life and retirement.