Tough Retirement Questions: What can I do if I have a lousy 401(k) plan?

Posted Jul 15th 2008 6:00AM by Daniel Solin
Filed under: Mutual Funds, Personal Finance

This post is part of a series where retirement expert Dan Solin offers simple answers to the ten toughest retirement questions. See all 10.

Q: What can I do if I have a lousy 401(k) plan?

A: Complain to your Human Resources Department or your Plan Administrator.

Here's how to get their attention.

Ask them why your plan is not as good as the one for members of Congress. You can view this plan at www.tsp.gov.

This $220 billion plan covers all federal employees, including the military. It has only index funds and Target Retirement Funds as investment options. It has extremely low costs.

This plan is geared to make it almost impossible for plan participants to make bad choices. Most 401(k) plans do exactly the opposite.

Dan Solin is the author of The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read (Perigee Books 2006) and The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read (Perigee Books, June 24, 2008)

Tags: 401k, Dan Solin, DanSolin, retirement

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-16-2008 @ 3:00PM

Brenda said...

If the TSP plan is so wonderful, why are the managers of the fund now being indicted???

As a military spouse, I can say that my Fidelity IRA does much better than the TSP.

10-05-2008 @ 12:05PM

MrDaveG said...

Hey! I work for the federal government, and I participate in our plan (called the "Thrift Savings Plan", not 401(k)). Where did you hear the fund managers (I assume you mean the Federal Retirement Thrift Inverstment Board) are being indicted?