According to USA Today, many will have to work until they are 70. Jim Hitt, CEO of American IRA, says this is exactly why self-directed IRAs are so important!

The USA Today article ‘Retirement bottom line: Many will have to work until 70’ addresses the serious issue of retirement funds. The article begins by explaining that Baby Boomers, with their inheritances, homes, and pensions, may be on track for a good retirement. They then caveat that by saying that the generation born from 1946 through 1964 isn’t necessarily so rosy.

This article is right on point when it states that many are ill-prepared for retirement. Jim Hitt, CEO of American IRA, says “In addition to the American IRA business I have some real estate investments…mobile home parks and single family rental homes…too often I have someone rent a mobile home that should be enjoying their retirement but, instead, are struggling just to keep a roof over their head because they don’t have any retirement funds. This is a sad and very avoidable situation.”

The overall gist of the USA Today article, as they stated by Munnell “is that retirement ages are increasing as people live longer and health care costs rise, and at the same time the retirement system is retracting.”

Economist John Turner, director of the Pension Policy Center in Washington, D.C., thinks retirees above the poverty level should do OK with at least 60% of pre-retirement income. Jim Hitt strongly disagrees stating “Now listen, I have a great deal of respect for John Turner and his expertise still I have to take issue with the fact that 60% of pre-retirement income is enough. Think about how much you are making now and decide whether you can get by on 60% of that. For some of you the answer is, yes. Now think about whether you ‘want’ to have to get by on 60% of your income throughout all of your retirement years…I’ll be the answer is, no. With the costs of everything on the rise, it is critical that planning for your retirement is a major priority for everyone.”

Self-directed IRAs are an excellent tool to help build those retirement accounts. These accounts allow people to invest with their IRA funds in things that they know and understand and that leads to greater growth within their accounts. Jim Hitt concludes “Should you save money? Yes…absolutely you should! I’m not suggesting that saving money is not the answer. What I am saying is that saving your money and putting it in an account that you can not control is not the answer. Would you bury your money in a box in the local public park? Of course not! So why then would you place it in a retirement account that you have little control over? If you self-direct your IRA, 401(k) or other retirement account, you have complete control over what you invest in. We have clients that have seen increases in their accounts of over $200,000 in 5 years…some of those clients started out with as little as $6,800. With a self-directed IRA you can invest in a variety of assets such as real estate, private lending, limited liability companies, precious metals and much more!”