The debt crises. Spending cuts. Pension reforms. Modifications to Social Security and Medicare. What does it all mean for you and your retirement? No one really knows for sure. The only thing you can be reasonably sure of, is that the money your socking away now in your 401k will be there when your ready to retire.

There are a few steps you can take right now to get the most out of your plan. Make a plan. Take charge. Guide your own destiny.

Not All 401k Plans Are Created Equal
It’s true. There are good plans and not so good plans. If your plan falls into the not so good category, and your investment choices are a bit lacking, talk to your plan sponsor, who in most cases is your employer.

Your plan sponsor has a fiduciary duty to act solely in the interest of the plan participants(you), pay only reasonable fees and expenses and to diversify plan investments.

A conversion about how bad the investments in you 401k plan have been of late might be all it takes to bring some new choices into the plan.

Fees Really, Really Matter
It’s been shown time and time again how seemingly small monthly fees can have a huge impact on your retirement savings. This is because fees have a compounding effect. Every dollar spent in fees is one less dollar to invest and compound over your lifetime, so read those statements!

Pay attention to the fees assessed directly to your account and talk to your sponsor if you feel they may be excessive. As mentioned above, your plan sponsor has a duty to ensure the fees you pay are reasonable relative to the benefit received.

Some 401k plan fees might be entirely hidden from you or very hard to come by. The reason is that there have been no clear government guidelines or regulations on fee reporting. But that’s all due to change shortly with new fee disclosure rules coming in early 2012.

Increase Contributions
Whatever your putting away every month now, it’s probably not enough so consider increasing your contributions. This is especially true if you feel receiving social security is a long shot.

The big unknown will always be health care. What will it look like in 10, 20, 30 years. Again, no one really knows but it’s a pretty good bet it will be really, really expensive. Health care costs can eat into your retirement savings like nothing else.

Plan
Above all else, set some some attainable goals, get a plan together and stick to it! The key word there is attainable. Be reasonable in what retirement lifestyle you can save for. A good retirement calculator can be found on the AARP website here.

Hidden fees in the retirement industry have been a big problem for years as they eat into your retirement savings. New regulations set to take effect in early 2012 take aim and try to bring transparency to these fees.

But don’t think your safe from unreasonable fees by putting your hard earned dollars into a bank CD or money market. Big banks have targeted retirement savers as a new source of revenue to make up for losses in other areas due to new banking regulations.

For example, US Bank is instituting a new thirty dollar annual fee for an IRA. Some institutions are even higher at fifty dollars per year. Even if you don’t pay an annual fee, your bank may have fees associated with opening your account, closing your account and adding to your account, sometimes called transaction fees. Be sure to check those statements every month!

Like we’ve been saying all along, new regulations geared towards consumer protections and unreasonable fees are welcome and long overdue. But they don’t necessarily mean you pay less. Financial institutions will continue to get creative and look for new ways to get at your money. Be careful out there.

401k Partners offers full featured 401k plans and Solo 401k plans at a fully transparent flat fee and never any hidden fees.

A solo 401k plan, also sometimes referred to as an individual 401k plan can potentially offer the maximum tax deductible benefits available to the self-employed. If your spouse is employed by your company, or receives income in any way from it, he or she would be eligible to contribute the plan as well. One plan, two participants.

The ability to maximizing retirement contributions and tax benefits, along with the fact that a Solo 401k plan includes all the options of the big company plan like loans and hardship withdrawals make the solo 401k plan a great option for the self-employed.

Individual contribution limits for the solo 401k plan, for both you and your spouse, are the same as any other 401k plan ($16,500 in 2011). Greater savings and tax benefits are possible though because as the employer, you are also allowed to kick in the company match of up to 20% of your net earnings from self employment.

The total contribution limit (for 2011) is $49,000 OR your net income from self-employment, whichever is less. And these limits apply individually for both you and your spouse if your spouse receives income from the company. So you both may be able to contribute $49,000. This makes the solo 401k plan a great option for the self-employed and husband and wife owned businesses.

401k-partners.com have been establishing small business 401k plans of all sizes since 2001 and can have your plan established in as little 7 days. Check out our flat fee solo 401k plan pricing here.

There has been a great deal of negative press lately regarding excessive fees levied in 401(k) plans, and rightfully so. The often confusing network of funds, brokers, advisors and record keepers, and their relationships to each other are sometimes so complicated that even seasoned financial experts have a hard time figuring it out. The larger the plan the bigger this problem has become.

The new upcoming fee disclosure requirements are meant to bring more transparency to 401(k) plans and it’s about time. Hidden fees are a huge problem in our industry and continue to have a serious, negative impact on participant’s retirement savings. But here’s the thing. Just because the various parties will now be required to disclose exactly what’s coming out of your account and for what, it doesn’t necessarily mean your plan automatically changes from an overpriced bad plan, to a reasonably priced plan with better investment choices.

The guys running these plan will just make it up elsewhere. You’ll see new fees, or increased fees in other places like loans and distributions. Look at what happened when the new banking and credit card regulations took effect. Higher credit card rates and ATM fees. Large financial institutions will protect their high profit margins any way they can.

The point here is that not all online 401(k) plans are created equal. Just because you are in a plan at work doesn’t mean your getting soaked. Freedom 401(k) Online has never charged hidden fees and does not participate in revenue sharing schemes with the fund companies. There are low priced, high quality plans out there like ours. One only has to look around and not accept the status quo.

If your currently participating in a plan now, it’s very likely you have no idea what fees your paying. It doesn’t mean you can’t find out, it just might take a little bit of work and prying your employer for the information. It’s likely they have no idea either or can’t get a straight answer from the plan administrator, which is the whole point of the new disclosure requirements.

If your current online 401(k) plan fees are that big of a mystery right now, you can bet your over paying.

With all the bad news, fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding world news and natural disaster starting off in 2011, you wouldn’t think equity funds would have done all that great. But that’s not the case. The S&P returned nearly 5 and a half percent over the first quarter.

What sectors had the best gains? Energy, health, natural resources and euro stocks to name a few.

InvestorPlace has the top 5 funds for the quarter and some of their top holdings.

Go ahead and open those statements. If you’ve hung in there through the dark years and continued to contribute, you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise. According to the Huffington Post, nine of ten 401(k) plans are back where they were in Oct. 2007. Your mileage may vary depending on how long you have been making contributions.

Hopefully you were not among the few who pulled out at the bottom and locked in those losses. With such market volatility it is as important as ever to formulate your investment strategy and stick the plan! Remember to re-balance often to keep those allocations where you want them.

From WSJ Online, reality sets in for those nearing retirement with a 401k plan as their primary retirement saving vehicle. The verdict? To maintain the same standard of living in retirement as you now enjoy in your working years, you’ll probably need to up those contributions.

According to the article, “The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement”. Two stock market meltdowns, one in the early and one in the late 2000s were certainly a contributing factor, and the recent housing collapse isn’t helping those planning to downsize, put a little cash in the bank and cut expenses.

What to do? Start saving. Really saving. Who knows what will happen with Social Security and Medicare. Up those contributions, protect yourself from future market downturns and secure your own retirement.

InvestorPlace brings us 3 Tips for a Less Confusing 401k. Although the implication that financial firms over complicate their products to maximize profit is debatable, the article does offer some basic 401k investing tips.

• Decide on an investment strategy
• Avoid owning too many funds
• Stop chasing after the latest and greatest

Check it out here.

2011 is expected to be another good year for 401(k) investors. Spending just a little bit of time researching some of the top performers and adjusting your portfolio accordingly can mean the difference between so so, and great returns.

Be sure to take a look at this list from InvestorPlace for some top performers. Slanted towards Vanguard yes, but there are a few other good picks in there as well.

A recent survey by the 401k Council of America indicates that the majority of employers that suspended the 401(k) match have restored, or are in the process of restoring them for 2011. This, along with more attention being given to poorly performing funds, increased employee education and investment advice, it appears companies are making the 401(k) a top priority.

We think there a couple of different things at play here. First, it has been shown time and time again that the company match has been the highest motivating factor regarding employee participation in the company plan. When employers reduce or eliminate the match, employee participation decreases. No surprises there.  Another motivating factor of beefing up the 401(k) offerings could be related to stratospheric rise in the cost of providing health insurance. More and more of this cost is being pushed to the employee so it makes sense to try and give a little something back.

Employee retention will become the hot topic again once the economy picks up a little more steam. A top rated 401(k) plan might just be what’s needed to retain and attract top talent.

Source: 401k Council of America