Retirement, Financial Wellness, and the Power of Simplicity

One of my favorite personal finance bloggers, J. Money, recently wrote a piece on the Beauty of Simplicity, that, in my opinion, should be required reading for pretty much everyone - and particularly for retirement plan sponsors. Why? Because we often make the participant experience far too complica…

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Top of Mind Mailbag: The Roth Conundrum

On occasion, a Top of Mind blog post generates so many reader comments that it is worth sharing. This was the case with our recent piece on the Roth Conundrum. Below are some of the comments we received in our “mailbag”: One email addressed the potential future changes in tax law:“Great read on Rot…

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Vacation and Retirement

As I was enjoying my recent vacation, I thought about some of the articles I have seen indicating that retirement is very different than vacation. However, if retirement is not like vacation (in the sense that vacation is far more favorable to working), then why retire? Don’t get me wrong, I thorou…

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The Roth Conundrum

With Roth utilization at next-to-nil levels in many retirement plans, the Roth marketing machine appears to have hit overdrive, as hardly a day goes by without an article touting the fantastic benefits of Roth contributions, as opposed to traditional 403(b)/401(k)/457(b) pre-tax deferrals. But is R…

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Random Nuggets I’ve Learned From the Internet

One of the benefits of scanning the internet for content is that, even after nearly 28 years in the business, I still learn an amazing amount of new things about retirement. So, I thought it might be prudent to start a new feature in Top of Mind to share this wisdom with you - we’ll call it “Random …

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Is Your Adviser Who They Say They Are? How to Check an Adviser’s Background

The Certified Financial Planners (CFP) Board made news recently when their public background database of CFPs came under criticism in a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article. However, that same WSJ report also highlighted what I believe to be a hidden gem for retirement plan participants and plan sponso…

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Is there a Retirement Crisis?

A recent article by PLANSPONSOR is the next in what appears to be a media blitz of pieces sending a similar message - there is a retirement crisis in this country. It’s not a pleasant picture to think about people retiring without enough money to live on, and this particular article incorporates all…

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Why Every Employee Should Be Auto-Enrolled

Back in April, I blogged about why auto-enrollment is always a good idea - but what I truly believe is that each and every employee in the country receiving a paycheck should be auto-enrolled in a retirement plan. Yes, every last one! New employees, existing employees, employees without retirement p…

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What Happened to the SECURE Act?

On May 23rd, the U.S. House of Representatives, by an overwhelming 417-3 vote, passed the SECURE Act. The retirement plan legislation includes a number of enhancements, among which is an increase in the age at which Minimum Required Distribution (RMDs) commence (from 70½ to 72). Following the House’…

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Participant Communication: Fun = Engagement

Here is a little exercise for the retirement plan sponsors out there: take the latest piece that you’ve sent (or are about to send) to plan participants, and show it to someone in your office who knows little about the topic. Ask them to read the communication, and then ask if it was fun to read. If…

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