Retirement Healthcare for Middle Income Americans – Video
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Investing for retirement when you're just starting out
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- My granddaughter has asked me how to invest the money she'll contribute to her employer's retirement savings plan at her first job. I suggested she either go with a 2050 target-retirement fund or divide her money as follows: 40% in an S&P 500 index fund, 40% in a small-cap index fund and 20% in an international stock index fund. Do you think she should go with the first option, the second or do something else? -- Don G.
Kudos for recommending that your granddaughter take a diversified investment approach via a target-date fund or by spreading her money among more than one asset class herself.
I prefer your first recommendation -- the target-date fund -- over the second. The target-date fund is an excellent choice for almost anyone just starting out in his or her career.
The appealing feature of target-date funds is their simplicity. You choose a fund with a date that roughly corresponds to the year you'll retire -- 2050, 2060, whatever -- and you get everything you need rolled into one fund -- domestic stocks, international shares, a diversified portfolio of bonds. They are nice for newbie investors or anyone who lacks the time, skill or inclination to build and monitor a retirement portfolio on his or her own.
And while not all target-date funds provide those key ingredients in the same proportion, generally the portfolios have reasonable allocations. Most 2050 funds, for example, would have about 90% of their asset in stocks (with roughly 30% or so of that stake in foreign shares) and the rest in a diversified group of bonds. Over time, that mix automatically becomes more conservative, shifting toward bonds.
Target-date funds aren't perfect. Some may have bloated fees. And some can be much more aggressive than others, although that's more of a risk closer to or during retirement. In any case, don't invest and then completely forget about these target date funds. Check their performance from time to time and make sure you're comfortable with them, especially during market downturns.
Your second option -- having your granddaughter create her own portfolio --is also acceptable. She would just have to devote more time and effort to her investing by choosing funds, deciding how to divvy up her assets among different asset classes and rebalancing occasionally.
I would, however, recommend a few changes to the allocations you suggest. Your mix has her 100% invested in stocks. To be on the safe side, I'd recommend having a small slug of bonds, at least 10% or so.
Instead of allocating half of her domestic stock portfolio to volatile small-cap stocks, I'd recommend sticking closer to the market weighting for small- and mid-cap stocks. Combined, these stocks make up about 30% or so of the overall U.S. stock market.
The easiest way to do that would be to create a portfolio much like that of the typical 2050 target-date fund. Of course, if she's going to do that, then why not just stick with the 2050 fund itself? It would be easier, cleaner and less prone to mistakes (like failing to rebalance periodically).
One final note: Once she's settled on an investment strategy, tell her to contribute as much as she can afford to her plan, and certainly at least enough to take full advantage of any employer match.
Even though we tend to pay much more attention to the investing side of the retirement planning, diligent saving is the real engine for creating retirement wealth.
MONEY magazine is researching an article on ways to reduce the financial pain of college. We're looking for families that can talk about new and creative ways that they're raising cash for college and cutting costs while they're there. Sound like you? Tell us your story and you might even get your picture in the magazine! E-mail Beth_Braverman@moneymail.com.
First Published: February 7, 2012: 12:02 PM ET
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Investing for retirement when you're just starting out
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Personal concerts streamed to hospitalized kids
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Melodic Caring Project
Braydon Hutchison, 11, and Melodic Caring Project founder Levi Ware jam at the Ronald McDonald House in Seattle. (Photo: Melodic Caring Project)
By Monica Guzman
GeekWire
On Friday, Dec. 2 at Seattle Children’s Hospital, 11-year-old Braydon Hutchison was crying. It wasn’t because of his leukemia, which kept him quarantined, or the nausea and vomiting that had made him sick all day. A musician he’d never met was playing a concert across town in his honor, calling out his name to the crowd. Braydon could see the live stream on his laptop from his hospital bed, and it finally moved him to tears.
It was the best thing that ever happened to him in the hospital, Braydon said later. “It made me feel really good.”
The musician was local artist Levi Ware. The concert was the work of the Melodic Caring Project, a nonprofit startup Ware and his wife, Stephanie, founded last year with the mission of using music and technology to help kids heal.
“I’ve always felt music was for more than entertaining,” said Ware, 35. “Now, finally, with this coming together, it’s like, ‘Wow — this is really our purpose.’”
The idea for Melodic Caring Project grew out of an August 2010 benefit concert Ware and other artists performed in Mount Vernon, Wash., for Kaydee Curbow, a then-11-year-old girl who was battling leukemia. Treatment for the disease can leave the immune system susceptible to infection. So Kaydee, a student of an elementary-school teacher who is one of Ware’s friends, could not leave the hospital.
“We thought, ‘It’s great to do this in Mount Vernon, but we want her to know people care, so how can we make her a part of it?’” Ware said.
Ware set up a camera at the venue and told Kaydee’s family how to access the concert via UStream. She and her mother, Patti, watched from her hospital room as people she’d never met came together in her honor.
“We called her afterward, and she was so happy,” Ware said. “That’s how Melodic Care Project was born.”
The Wares put on three more shows for Kaydee, including an emotional homecoming concert, that helped her family raise more than $5,000 for medical expenses.
At the end of the year, Levi and Stephanie made a big decision. Levi quit his day job in construction, and Stephanie quit hers in accounting, so the couple could devote themselves full- time to cultivating an idea they said already feels bigger than they are. They’re starting small, but with partnerships with the Seattle Living Room Shows and the Fremont Abbey Arts Center about to kick off, they’re looking forward to helping more and bigger acts break hospitalized kids’ isolation and give them a meaningful experience.
“The staff, the nurses would come in and and watch it and say, ‘How cool that they’re doing this for you,’” Patti Curbow, Kaydee’s mom, said about her daughter’s streamed concerts. “I hope (Levi Ware) does really well with this, just because of how it’s made us feel. You can tell his heart is totally into it. He wants to help people. He wants to make the crazy go away for a while.”
The Wares want to keep their service free to patients, and free to the hospital. So to make the project sustainable, they know, they have some work to do. Most costs so far they’ve paid out of pocket, and the Dec. 2 concert — the project’s first after the Wares’ shows for Kaydee — relied on a volunteer cameraman who used his own equipment.
Their first step is to launch an online community fundraising campaign on Kickstarter or PledgeMusic in the coming weeks. Also on the to-do list: apply for grants, scout for corporate sponsorships and host fundraisers for the nonprofit. The first fundraiser, a combination benefit that will double as a live streamed show to hospitalized kids, is scheduled for March 29.
The Wares have met one early goal to collaborate with local performance series so visiting artists can easily plug in with kids as they play. Another is to partner with hospitals that can connect artists with patients.
To set up the Dec. 2 show at Seattle Children’s, the Wares approached David Knott, the hospital’s resident music therapist. Intrigued by the idea, Knott introduced the Wares to three young patients — including Braydon — whom he’d deemed to be “music identified,” meaning that they respond to music in ways that help them deal with pain.
When the patients’ families agreed to take part in the concert, they were told the appointed time to tune their laptops or tablets to the project’s UStream channel for the show. Ware, who was performing live at the non-profit Q Cafe in Seattle, told the crowd that night that the concert was dedicated to three special fans at Seattle Children’s.
He referenced the kids by name throughout his set while Stephanie chatted with them and their families on UStream, occasionally stepping up to the mic to share a comment or question. One of the children, the Wares later learned, could not participate due to last-minute treatment. The other, a little girl, spent part of the concert dancing with her nurses.
Renae Knowles, Braydon’s mom, watched with her son in his hospital room. Braydon had played guitar on and off for four years. He’s been practicing daily in his new room at Seattle Ronald McDonald House since the concert, Knowles said.
“Once we streamed in, it took his mind off the bad stuff that was going on, how (Ware) called his name several times and called them rock stars,” she said. “It touched his soul that strangers would be willing to do this for someone they didn’t know.”
See GeekWire.com for more on this story.
Monica Guzmanis a community strategist in startups and media and a digital life columnist for GeekWire. You can find her tweeting away at @moniguzman, subscribe to her public Facebook posts at facebook.com/moniguzman or reach her via email.
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