It?s almost always a good idea to take advantage of employer matching funds using your 401(k) plan. After that, you need to decide whether it?s better to do additional saving in your 401(k) or switch to a traditional or Roth IRA. Here?s how to prioritize saving in a 401(k) and IRA.
[See How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures .]
Get the match. Many companies match your contributions to the 401(k) plan , which is extra pay from your employer that you shouldn?t miss out on. This is an instant return on your investment.
Automatic deductions. A major advantage of your 401(k) plan is that the contributions come out of your paychecks before the tax is calculated and you won?t have to pay tax until you withdraw the money from the account. Making your deposits automatic can help you to save more for retirement.
Contribution limits. You can defer taxes on far more within your 401(k) than in an IRA. The maximum 401(k) contribution for 2012 is $17,000. And workers age 50 and older can add another $5,500 in catch up contributions. Traditional and Roth IRAs have the much more modest contribution limit of $5,000 in 2012, or $6,000 if you are age 50 or older.
[See 401(k) and IRA Changes Coming in 2012 .]
Investment options. IRAs typically have far more investment choices than most 401(k) plans. You can generally invest in a large variety of funds in an IRA account, while in 401(k) accounts you are usually limited to a few mutual funds.
Tax treatment. Traditional 401(k) and IRA contributions give you a tax break in the year you make the contribution, but income tax is due on each withdrawal. Contributions to Roth accounts are made with after-tax dollars, but you won?t have to pay income tax on withdrawals in retirement. Another major benefit of the Roth IRA is that you can withdraw the contribution amount, but not the earnings, at any time with no penalty.
It?s best to max out both your 401(k) and IRA accounts every year, but many of us do not have the resources to do this. Most Americans probably can?t spare $22,000 to contribute the maximum amount to both types of retirement accounts. If you can?t invest a lot of money, your first priority should be to invest enough to get the full 401(k) match from your employer.
[See New Annuity Rules for 401(k)s .]
After receiving the full company match, it is a little more difficult to decide whether to invest in a 401(k) or Roth IRA . A key consideration is minimizing your tax rate. If you currently have a low tax rate, then you should try to pre-pay income tax using a Roth IRA in case your tax rate increases in the future. If you are in the 25 percent or higher tax bracket, then you might want to take the tax break now by contributing to a traditional 401(k), especially if you think you will drop into a lower tax bracket in retirement.
Joe Udo is planning an exit strategy from his corporate job by reducing expenses and increasing passive income. He blogs about his journey to early retirement at Retire by 40 .
AP - The three Iranian men detained for allegedly plotting bomb attacks in Bangkok on Israeli diplomats had more than terror on their minds in Thailand. Police said Friday that they had also cavorted with prostitutes at a beach resort.
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Measurements at Colorado site show methane release higher than previous estimates
Web edition : 11:09 am
Wells that pump natural gas from the ground in Colorado have leaked about twice as much gas into the atmosphere as previously thought, a new study finds.
That could tarnish gas?s image as clean source of energy. Natural gas, made mostly of methane, does give off less carbon dioxide than coal when burned. But methane itself strongly warms the atmosphere, which means even relatively small releases can have a big impact on the climate.
?We?re seeing raw natural gas in the atmosphere,? says Gabrielle P?tron, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado Boulder. Her team reports the new findings, based on data gathered in 2007 and 2008, in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
P?tron and her colleagues monitored air quality near Denver using a 300-meter tower. NOAA maintains a network of such towers across the country. This one lies southwest of the Denver-Julesburg Basin, an area that feeds more than 20,000 natural gas wells.?
When winds blew in from the basin, levels of methane detected by sensors on the tower spiked. Landfills, cattle feedlots and wastewater treatment plants probably belched some of the gas into the sky. But methane from gas wells was accompanied by other components that allowed it to be fingerprinted and separated out in the analysis.
These measurements suggested that about 4 percent of the methane in the gas wells was leaking. Previous studies by the Environmental Protection Agency and by industry groups pegged this loss at between 1 and 2 percent. But the earlier estimates were done by measuring leakages from individual pieces of equipment.
?You tend to underestimate things when you do that kind of bottom-up approach,? says Robert Howarth, a biogeochemist at Cornell University.
Last year, Howarth found higher-than-expected levels of methane being released from wells that extract gas from shale ? a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. His estimates, reported in 2011 in Climatic Change, suggested that extracting shale gas is substantially worse for climate change than mining coal.
P?tron hasn?t made this comparison. Her main concern, she says, is to work with the gas industry to keep methane out of the air.
Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance in Denver says gas wells in the area have already made some changes since the data used in the new study were collected that should cut down on leakage.
As a business consulting job seeker, you may have considered hiring a recruiter. Hiring a recruiter can be a great way to find job leads and have someone on your side as you maneuver through today?s competitive job market. Here are a few tips in finding a good business consulting recruiter:
1-???? Find a recruiter that specializes in business consulting. There are many types of recruiters available to job seekers. It is important to find one that specializes in placement within your field. This provides you the best way to find a job quickly.
2-???? Find a recruiter that you are comfortable with. It is important that you feel comfortable with the recruiter that you choose. You want to be able to develop a working relationship with him or her and be honest about what you are looking for, what you are interested in, and your business consulting experience and education.
3-???? Ask about their requirements and business practices up front. Understanding how the business consulting recruiter you are interested in works is important. You want to understand their business practices, how they work for you, what they expect from you, and how you should stay in contact with them.? Discussing this up front will help you decide if a recruiter is one you will feel good about having working for you.
4-???? Repeat business. It is good to remember that, once you have found a business consulting recruiter that you are happy with, you should remember to use them again in the future if you find yourself looking for another job.? Loyalty on your side will help the recruiter feel connected to you and make it easier for you to find your next job as well.
Tagged as: business consulting recruiter, finding a business consulting recruiter, job recruiters in business consulting
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Yahoo! News - Welcome to Just Show Me on Tecca TV, where we show you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the gadgets in your life. In today's episode we'll show you how to follow all the action of the Oscars on your ?
Time of year important in projections of climate change effects on ecosystemsPublic release date: 15-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Cheryl Dybas cdybas@nsf.gov 703-292-7734 National Science Foundation
Results of study on prairie grasslands show differences across the months
Does it matter whether long periods of hot weather, such as last year's heat wave that gripped the U.S. Midwest, happen in June or July, August or September?
Scientists studying the subtle effects of heat waves and droughts say that when such events happen makes a big difference.
Based on more than 25 years of data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Kansas--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites across the globe--ecologists looked at how droughts and heat waves affect grass growth during different months of the year.
The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published their results today.
"A major challenge in studying climate change is separating the effects of long-term trends from interannual variation," says Saran Twombly, program director for NSF's LTER Network.
"This study identifies variation in the timing and magnitude of drought and heat as keys to an ecosystem. The results highlight the importance of long-term data to understanding the complex interactions that underlie ecological responses to climate change."
The researchers found that droughts reduced grass growth most in early June, while heat waves reduced grass growth only during late July.
Neither drought nor heat waves in August or September seemed to have an effect on grass growth.
"Future projections need to incorporate predictions of not only how much climate will change, but when during the year changes will happen," says Joseph Craine of Kansas State University, the paper's lead author.
Co-authors of the paper are Jesse Nippert, Adam Skibbe and Stacy Hutchinson of Kansas State University; Andrew Elmore of the Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; and Nathaniel Brunsell of the University of Kansas.
"That the effects of climate change on grasslands depend on when they happen may not be much of a surprise--little snow in winter may have less effect than low rainfall in summer, for example," Craine says.
The sensitivity of grasslands to the timing of drought and heat waves was a big surprise, however.
"Heat waves mattering only during late July was not something we expected," says Craine. "Everyone seemed to think that August heat waves and drought would have major effects on grass productivity, but we couldn't find any."
The effects of drought and heat waves in fact declined over the summer season.
Other studies showed that drought and heat waves affect parts of ecosystems differently.
"For example, in some grass species, flowering is altered by drought in May, and in others by drought in August," Craine says.
Bison that graze the prairie don't seem to respond to heat waves, but may gain more weight in years with drier weather--provided that droughts come in late June or early July rather than in August or later.
The researchers are looking at long-term records from other LTER sites to determine whether there's a uniformity to the Konza findings.
"If these patterns are general across ecosystems," the scientists write in their paper, "predictions of ecosystem response to climate change will have to account not only for the magnitude of climate variability but also for its timing."
For now, says Craine, "the results will change the types of questions we ask about climate and ecosystems."
###
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Time of year important in projections of climate change effects on ecosystemsPublic release date: 15-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Cheryl Dybas cdybas@nsf.gov 703-292-7734 National Science Foundation
Results of study on prairie grasslands show differences across the months
Does it matter whether long periods of hot weather, such as last year's heat wave that gripped the U.S. Midwest, happen in June or July, August or September?
Scientists studying the subtle effects of heat waves and droughts say that when such events happen makes a big difference.
Based on more than 25 years of data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Kansas--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites across the globe--ecologists looked at how droughts and heat waves affect grass growth during different months of the year.
The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published their results today.
"A major challenge in studying climate change is separating the effects of long-term trends from interannual variation," says Saran Twombly, program director for NSF's LTER Network.
"This study identifies variation in the timing and magnitude of drought and heat as keys to an ecosystem. The results highlight the importance of long-term data to understanding the complex interactions that underlie ecological responses to climate change."
The researchers found that droughts reduced grass growth most in early June, while heat waves reduced grass growth only during late July.
Neither drought nor heat waves in August or September seemed to have an effect on grass growth.
"Future projections need to incorporate predictions of not only how much climate will change, but when during the year changes will happen," says Joseph Craine of Kansas State University, the paper's lead author.
Co-authors of the paper are Jesse Nippert, Adam Skibbe and Stacy Hutchinson of Kansas State University; Andrew Elmore of the Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; and Nathaniel Brunsell of the University of Kansas.
"That the effects of climate change on grasslands depend on when they happen may not be much of a surprise--little snow in winter may have less effect than low rainfall in summer, for example," Craine says.
The sensitivity of grasslands to the timing of drought and heat waves was a big surprise, however.
"Heat waves mattering only during late July was not something we expected," says Craine. "Everyone seemed to think that August heat waves and drought would have major effects on grass productivity, but we couldn't find any."
The effects of drought and heat waves in fact declined over the summer season.
Other studies showed that drought and heat waves affect parts of ecosystems differently.
"For example, in some grass species, flowering is altered by drought in May, and in others by drought in August," Craine says.
Bison that graze the prairie don't seem to respond to heat waves, but may gain more weight in years with drier weather--provided that droughts come in late June or early July rather than in August or later.
The researchers are looking at long-term records from other LTER sites to determine whether there's a uniformity to the Konza findings.
"If these patterns are general across ecosystems," the scientists write in their paper, "predictions of ecosystem response to climate change will have to account not only for the magnitude of climate variability but also for its timing."
For now, says Craine, "the results will change the types of questions we ask about climate and ecosystems."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 15-Feb-2012
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