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| The Basics: What You Need to Know | |
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| What Is a 401(k)? | |
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| What Is a 401(k) and Where Did It Come From? | |
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| Why Do Companies Offer 401(k)s? | |
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| Taking Advantage of Protective Shells | |
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| Defined-Benefit Plans | |
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| Defined-Contribution Plans | |
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| 401(k) Versus Pension--What's the Difference? | |
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| What Kinds of Protective Shell Retirement Plans Are There? | |
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| How Can I Tell If My Company Has a Good 401(k) Plan? | |
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| Why Should I Participate? | |
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| The Rules: Understanding Your 401(k) | |
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| Who Makes the 401(k) Rules? | |
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| Understanding Your Company's 401(k) | |
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| Common Features of 401(k) Plans | |
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| Eligibility | |
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| Contribution Rate | |
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| Company Match | |
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| Vesting | |
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| Loans | |
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| Withdrawals | |
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| Hardship | |
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| Age 59 1/2 | |
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| In-Service | |
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| After-Tax | |
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| Nondiscrimination Testing | |
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| Limits on Your 401(k) Contributions (IRS Code 415 and 401) | |
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| Investment Options | |
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| Valuation: What Is It and Why Do You Need to Know About It? | |
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| How Safe Is Your 401(k) Money? | |
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| Keeping Track of Your Money | |
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| Plan Sponsor | |
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| Trustee | |
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| Investment Manager | |
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| Safety in Times of Trouble--Creditors, Divorce, and Taxes | |
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| Creditors | |
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| Divorce | |
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| Taxes | |
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| Company Mergers | |
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| When Bad Things Happen to Good Money | |
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| Some Warning Signs | |
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| Savings | |
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| Your Best Chance at Retirement Is Your 401(k) | |
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| Individual Responsibility | |
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| The Power of Compounding | |
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| Building a Plan for Your Future | |
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| What Do You Want? | |
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| What Do You Have? | |
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| How Do You Get What You Want? | |
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| Events That Might Sidetrack Your Retirement Strategy | |
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| Developing Your Retirement Plan | |
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| No One Plans to Fail--Some Just Fail to Plan | |
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| The Retirement Planning Process | |
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| Developing Your Retirement Plan | |
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| Eight Steps to Financial Independence | |
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| Determine the Impact of Social Security and Pension on Your Retirement Goal | |
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| Allow for Inflation in Your Annual Income Needs | |
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| Determine the Amount of Money Required to Achieve Your Income Goal | |
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| Determine the Additional Money Required to Offset Inflation--Protect Your Pension Income During Retirement | |
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| Identify and Project Your Current Retirement Resources | |
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| Determine the Additional Money Required to Fund Your Retirement Goal | |
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| Determine How Much You Need to Save Every Year to Meet Your Goal | |
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| Close the Gap Between Current Savings Level and Level Needed to Meet Your Retirement Goal | |
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| Using Software to Crunch Your Numbers | |
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| Where Else Can You Save for Your Retirement? | |
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| Pulling It All Together | |
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| Saving Pre-Tax or After-Tax--Does It Really Matter? | |
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| Understanding After-Tax Contribution | |
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| Which Is Better--Pre-Tax or After-Tax Contributions? | |
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| Before-Tax or After-Tax? Which Gives Me More Money? | |
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| Save More and Have the Same Take-Home Pay | |
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| Saving (After-Tax) Outside a 401(k) Plan | |
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| Withdrawing After-Tax Money | |
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| Pennywise and Dollar-Foolish! | |
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| Better the Tax Devil You Know Than the One You Don't | |
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| When After-Tax Contributions Make Sense | |
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| Deciding What to Do | |
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| Keeping Tabs on Your Account | |
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| Knowledge Is Power--or at Least a Little Control | |
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| What You Need to Know for Planning | |
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| What You Need to Know to Keep Track of the Game | |
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| Where Are Your Best Sources? | |
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| IVR | |
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| World Wide Web Sites | |
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| Account Statements | |
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| Pay Stubs | |
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| Human Beings | |
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| Some Not So Interesting Reading | |
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| Check This Checklist ... Frequently | |
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| Taking Out a Loan | |
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| Loan Repayments | |
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| Investment Earnings | |
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| Punching Out for the Last Time | |
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| Using a 401(k) to Achieve Your Other Financial Goals | |
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| Sneaking Your 401(k) Past Uncle Sam | |
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| Dumb Uses for a 401(k) | |
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| Don't Use Your 401(k) as a Rainy-Day Fund | |
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| Buying Insurance | |
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| Education Funding | |
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| Buying a Home | |
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| Good Uses for 401(k) Plans | |
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| Developing an Investment Strategy | |
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| Your Other Financial Goals--Calculating How Much You Should Save | |
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| IRAs Versus 401(k)s--Which Is Better? | |
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| What Is an IRA? | |
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| Are There Different Types of IRAs? | |
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| Understanding IRAs | |
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| Deductible IRA | |
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| Do You Quality for a Deductible IRA? | |
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| Getting Your Money out of a Deductible IRA | |
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| Nondeductible IRAs | |
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| Nondeductible IRA: The Plain-Vanilla Type | |
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| Education Savings Accounts, a.k.a. Education IRAs (New for 2002) | |
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| When Using Both a 401(k) and IRA Makes Sense | |
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| Things to Consider for 2002 | |
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| Mastering the Basics of 401(k) Investing | |
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| Everything You Need to Know About Investing Your 401(k) Money | |
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| The Road to Retirement | |
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| The Basics of Investing | |
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| Safety | |
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| Income | |
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| How Do Bonds Work? | |
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| Growth | |
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| What Do You Expect from Your Investments? | |
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| What Is "Risk"? | |
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| Understanding Risk | |
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| Matching Your Goals to the Right Risks | |
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| The Name Game--Understanding the Different Types of Mutual Funds | |
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| How Much "Risk" Are You Prepared to Take with Your Investments? | |
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| Getting to Know the Major Investment Categories | |
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| Cash Equivalent Investments | |
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| Fixed-Income Investments | |
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| Asset Allocation Funds and Balanced Funds | |
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| Growth Investing | |
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| Where Is Your Money? Small Companies? Large Companies? | |
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| Searching for the Ideal Investment | |
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| Looking for Mr. Goodfund | |
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| Understanding the Funds in Your 401(k) Plan | |
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| Matching Your Investment Goals to Investment Types | |
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| Investing in Growth Versus Value Funds: Which Is Better? | |
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| Investment Options at a Glance | |
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| What Is Morningstar? | |
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| Oakmark Equity and Income I | |
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| Van Kampen Emerging Growth A | |
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| Royce Low-Priced Stock | |
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| Reading the Labels--The "Nutritional Facts" of Your 401(k) Funds | |
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| The Warning Signs: Is It Time for a Change? | |
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| Changes in Management | |
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| The Fund Gets Too Big | |
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| Changing or Nearing a Goal | |
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| A Change in Direction | |
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| Change in Control | |
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| Performance | |
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| Taking the Long View | |
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| Investing over the Long-Term: It Works! | |
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| Timing the Market | |
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| Real Rate of Return | |
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| Playing the Odds Through Dollar Cost Averaging | |
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| Betting on the Right Horse | |
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| Picking Last Year's Winner--A Story of Annual Returns | |
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| What Type of Investor Are You? | |
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| What Investment Rate of Return Should You Use? | |
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| Match Your Investor Profile to an Investment Strategy | |
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| Building an Investment Strategy | |
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| Too Much of a Good Thing--Rebalancing | |
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| Notes to Historical Return Data | |
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| Shopping at the Company Store | |
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| Employee Stock Ownership Plans | |
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| How Does the Stock Get in There? | |
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| How Much Do You Get? | |
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| Distributions | |
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| Why ESOPs Are Offered at the Company Store | |
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| Mix and Match | |
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| Stocking the Shelves with ISOs, NSOs, and ESPPs | |
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| ISOs | |
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| NSOs | |
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| ESPPs | |
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| Tax-Sheltered Annuities | |
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| What Is an Annuity? | |
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| The Different Characteristics of an Annuity | |
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| The Most Popular Items on the Menu | |
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| Annuity Payout Options | |
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| The Real Costs of Owning an Annuity | |
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| Do Annuities Fit into Your Portfolio? | |
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| Some Other Things You Need to Know | |
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| The Good and the Bad | |
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| Pros | |
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| Cons | |
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| Where to Get the Good Deals | |
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| Taking Money Out of Your 401(k) | |
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| Borrowing from Yourself | |
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| Can You Borrow? | |
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| How Much Can You Borrow? | |
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| How Do You Borrow? | |
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| What's It Gonna Cost You? | |
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| What If I Can't Pay It Back? | |
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| What Is the True Cost of Taking That Loan? | |
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| Borrowing from Other Sources | |
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| If You Do Borrow from Your 401(k) | |
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| Cashing In or Out of Your 401(k) | |
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| What's a Hardship? | |
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| Just the Facts, Ma'am | |
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| Safe Harbor Tests | |
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| The Ten Percent Penalty | |
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| Calling It Quits | |
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| Transferring Your Old 401(k) into Your New Employer's Plan | |
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| Transferring Your Old 401(k) into an IRA | |
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| Getting the Funds Because of Hardship | |
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| A Divorce Sure Can Mess Up Your Finances | |
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| Disability | |
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| Section 72(t) Withdrawals | |
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| Retiring at Fifty-Five: No Penalty, No Worry | |
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| What Happens If You Die | |
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| IRS Publications That Are Yours for the Asking | |
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| Roll, Roll, Roll It Over | |
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| What Is a Rollover? | |
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| Rollover: Getting Old Money to Do a New Trick | |
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| Benefits of a Rollover | |
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| A Problem with Regular Rollovers | |
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| When You Can and Can't Do a Rollover | |
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| What Can and Can't Be Rolled | |
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| Some Picky Rules and Thoughts | |
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| Leave It! An Alternative to Rollovers | |
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| Places for Rollovers | |
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| Using IRAs | |
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| Leaving It All Behind: How Do You Decide? | |
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| And Now It's Time to Retire | |
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| What Is Retirement? | |
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| Getting Ready | |
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| Maximize Your 401(k) Contributions | |
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| Tackle Your Debt | |
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| Decide Where You Want to Retire | |
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| Can You Afford to Retire Yet? | |
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| Ready, Set, Go! | |
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| Leave It | |
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| Buy an Annuity | |
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| Roll It Over, Rover | |
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| Lump It | |
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| A Handful of Choices | |
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| Making Your Money Last as Long as You Do | |
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| Minimum Distributions | |
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| Pension Max | |
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| Pension Maximization: Will It Work for You? | |
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| Here's Our Advice | |
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| No 401(k)? No Problem! | |
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| Not a 401(k) in Sight | |
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| A Simple Solution to the Problem | |
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| The Simple IRA | |
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| Simple 401(k) | |
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| Keogh Plans | |
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| SEP-IRAs | |
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| Traditional IRAs | |
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| Spousal IRAs | |
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| Roth IRAs | |
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| Nondeductible IRAs | |
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| Getting Help | |
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| Why People Fail to Plan | |
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| Do You Need a Planner | |
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| What a Planner Should Do for You | |
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| What a Planner Expects of You | |
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| The Areas of Financial Planning That Need to Be Included | |
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| What to Look for in a Planner | |
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| How Does a Planner Get Paid? | |
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| How Much Will It Cost? | |
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| Which Way Is Best? | |
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| Choosing Your Financial Planner | |
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| Before Reaching for Your Wallet | |
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| Regulatory Compliance | |
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| Who's Minding the Store? | |
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| Where to Find a Planner | |
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| What the Alphabet Soup Means | |
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| Social Security and Medicare | |
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| A Little History | |
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| Will the Promise Be Broken? | |
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| Pay-As-You-Go | |
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| Who Knew? | |
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| What Is Social Security, Really? | |
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| You Must Earn Your Credits | |
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| Taxes and More Taxes | |
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| Number, Please! | |
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| So How Much Is It? | |
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| What Kind of Benefits? | |
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| Retirement Benefits | |
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| Early Retirement | |
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| Delayed Retirement | |
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| Family Benefits | |
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| Spousal Benefits | |
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| If You Should Become Disabled | |
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| What Happens to Your Survivors? | |
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| Supplemental Security Income | |
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| Ready to Sign Up? | |
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| Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to Work You Go | |
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| Medicare | |
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| What Is Medicare? | |
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| Reading Material | |
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| How to Avoid the Biggest Mistakes | |
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| Saving | |
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| Taxes | |
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| Investing | |
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| Retiring and Taking Money out of Your 401(k) | |
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| Appendixes | |
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| Worskheets | |
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| Help, Help, and More Help | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Index | |