First, some of the interesting articles I’ve seen around this week:
Weekend Roundup
- 60% of plan participants are enrolled in automatic investment programs. They predict this to rise to 75% by 2022. People really don’t like picking their own investments.
- 90% of plan sponsors now offer target date funds
- 46% of sponsors now offer auto-enrollment. Automatic enrollment has been criticized for creating a large number of small accounts, but I’m old enough to remember the days before auto-enrollment. Guess what happened when people had to opt in? They contributed nothing.
- Auto-enrollment plans have a 92% participation rate, while voluntary enrollment plans had 57% participation. This supports bullet number three above
- The average contribution rate between both employee and employer contributions is 10.5%. Not shabby!
- 68% of plans offer a ROTH option, and 12% of participants in those plans picked it. So that means 88% did not.
- The average account balance in 2017 was $103,866, while the median was $26,331. A small number of very large accounts would cause this.
- In 2017, the average account balance rose 8%, and median balances rose 7%. Sounds good! Until you remember that the S&P 500 returned over 20% last year. What would cause this discrepancy? Obviously, most people aren’t 100% stocks. But beyond that, it’s been proven before that investors consistently underperform the market.
My Twitter friend Feminist Financier shared how smart millennial’s are getting about marriage. More of them are signing prenups than ever before. Good for them!
My friend Laurie, my first Women on FIRE interview, reached her goal of location independence early.
Do you think blogging is easy?
- My friend Physician on FIRE has celebrated hitting over 3 million views on his site the past two years. It’s no easy feat though – I’ve seen him working hard at it since he first launched. Plus he has a great partnership going with a blogger I’ve read for years, the White Coat Investor. Cheers to you, POF!
- Here’s the report from my friend Chelsea from Mama Fish Saves. She’s hard at work picking up freelance assignments and has been published on Forbes, and she’s going to keep on keeping on!
- From the perspective of a new blogger, check out Champagne and Capital Gains first few months. Honestly they look pretty similar to my first few months-great work!
Did You Close Out Q2?
CMO Around Town
I didn’t get to go blueberry picking last weekend like I was hoping – the blueberry farm we usually go to only opened this past Tuesday. Instead, we went on Wednesday since I was off for the Fourth of July. We picked a HUGE tray of blueberries, which will be eaten and largely frozen to use throughout the year. There’s nothing quite like fresh fruit, and freshly frozen fruit.
I also made an awesome blueberry pie, which is a once-a-year treat we have once we’ve picked all those berries.
And Alex (my three year old) stole a bunch of blueberries one at a time, you can check my Instagram for that funny video.
Of course, there were obligatory fireworks in the evening. We went to my sister-in-laws house, where you can see them from the lawn.
At work, we had a lot less meetings than usual, which was great for my productivity. I had some extensive research I had to do to pull together some documentation, and a quiet office with a day largely free of meetings was perfect for the task. I feel very prepared for next week, which is a great way to start the weekend.
My husband took care of a car recall for me on Thursday. This is what I mean when I talk about the value of a stay at home parent (or Chief Household Officer, as I’ve rebranded it). He also did the grocery shopping, ran errands, and generally kept the house running all week.
On the docket for this weekend includes such fun as renewing my drivers license (DMV, here I come!), working on the site, and likely just spending time with the family. You can check me out on Instagram if you want to see what I’m up to.
Where You Can Find Me… And Big News
You now know what I did all day last Sunday – climbed up #calculatormountain. This post took off like crazy, being featured on Camp FIRE Finance, a Money magazine email, Passive Income MD, Four Pillar Freedom, and Of Mice and Money. I’m glad you all enjoyed my climb – my goal was to somehow make an article about 26 retirement calculators interesting and engaging, and it seems I succeeded.
Lots of folks commented, tweeted and e-mailed their favorite calculators that I hadn’t tackled. I plan to pick of some of my favorite wine, so I can plot my return to #calculatormountain. Look for that soon.
I did a guest post over on Go Curry Cracker with some tips for teaching kids about money, which was featured by the Wall Street Physician in his forum mailbag.
And The Big One
I was featured on Business Insider.
An article I wrote. About my family.
P.S. I’ve, um, more than met my goal for the year of reaching 100,000 people. Time for a new goal.
I Want To Hear From You!
Let me know what’s going on with you this weekend, and whether you read anything interesting I might enjoy! Also, if you have suggestions for more retirement calculators, be sure to let me know. But hurry, you need to get them in before I start climbing #calculatormountain again.
Be sure to follow my blog for more great posts via e-mail or WordPress, or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter and say hello! You can also check out what I’m buying or baking on Instagram, what I’m pinning on Pinterest, or the latest books I’m reading (or want to read) over on Goodreads.
Congratulations on your article in Business Insider!
Thanks! It was an honor to be asked to write it. And the huge reaction was pretty unexpected. I didn’t think many people would be reading Business Insider the day before the 4th of July.
Congrats on the big feature!!
Thanks! The reaction was a big surprise to me. And those page views 😮
Wow a million views one article. That is incredible and congratulations for hitting such a lofty milestone.
Blogging is definitive hard (the big guys make it look so easy). There is so much behind the scenes stuff with every post that I didn’t appreciate until I dipped my toes in myself.
For those considering blogging I forgot the source but I read somewhere great advice. Before you spend one dime on a host or domain, just go ahead and write 10 or so posts and see how it feels. If you like it and think you can carry on nothing is lost and you can transform it to a real post when starting blog. If you don’t think you can maintain it you saved yourself money and can alway contribute what you did write as guest posts
Love that idea. I did something similar and wrote a bunch of posts for a few months before I started. Saved them in word documents and used them after I launched
I’ve been playing at blogging for over ten years. I say “playing” because I don’t do SEO research, I don’t write for Google, I don’t spend hours on Pinterest, I tweet only sporadically and I write when I feel like it. I also use free hosting through Blogger, not self-hosting on Bluehost or elsewhere. I do use affilliate links, and accept guest posts or sponsored posts. I’ve made a little money, gotten review copies and gotten a chance to learn that no, I really DON”T want to be a writer when I grow up. I’ve accepted that I am unlikely to get rich, but I’ve also realized that as in most things, people who make money blogging WORK at it.
So true! They treat it like a business, and work extremely hard.
Congrats on the BI feature!
Ohhh man those Bluehost links. *eyeroll*
A young girl at work was complaining about how she would have to sign a prenup if she marries her BF – which from an emotional perspective I can totally understand, though I’m very pro prenup for anyone who wants one.
Liz, thanks so much for featuring my story! And congratulations on the Business Insider feature! You’re an inspiration to so many women, and also a champion for them. So glad your story could reach one million eyes!
Thanks Laurie!