[daleflesburg]

The defined benefit plans could only work it the stock market, in which those funds were invested, had continued to "gain" at 10+% per year, and even then with the baby boomers coming, the smart gurus said, even in the late 70's, to convert them to defined contributions.

You can define a contribution, say $40 per week or $80 per week, but you cannot predict the future of the market.

When the market lost 50% of its value in 01 and 02, the pension plan values were all "underfunded" to such an extent that they could never recover.

The advantage of defined contributions, especially ones that employees contribute to, is that the employee has a say as to where the funds are invested, and you can put it all in a bond fund, or even the money market if you are that conservative.

To plan for retirement you need to build into your savings plan for inflation.

A million dollars will not assure you of being able to retire, if all you can get is 2 or 3 or even 4%. Do a declining balance, and study it. At 4% growth a million dollar base will only allow you to pull out $100,000 per year for about 13 years. If you can live on $50K of course it will last more than double that. How much will $50,000 per year buy in 20 years, not much I suspect. You will need the 100K to live like you can today on 50K. If your life expectancy is 87 years, and you want to retire at 55, I suggest that you will need a lot more that a million.

Save, Save, Save, and stay out of dot com companies.

Just my 2 cents