Retirement Strategies

Artists, writers and tech directors working under an IA/Animation Guild contract have three things going for them that many others don't.

1) The MPIPHP Defined Benefit Plan
2) The MPIPHP Individual (Lump Sum) Plan
3) The TAG 401(k) Plan

1) is pretty straightforward. You work the requisite number of qualified pension years (5), and you get a monthly check for $300 or $1300 or whatever you have earned in the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plan. But with 2) and 3), you've got a number of different options ...

Assume that you've squirreled away a hundred and twenty grand in the TAG 401(k) Plan. Also assume that you've worked a couple of decades and have $80,000 to $120,000 in the Individual Account Plan.

You can go a couple of ways here.

You can take the $200,000, dump it into stock and bond funds and skim off a thousand per month of the earnings, interest and a slice of the principal until that principal is gone ...

Or you can take the money and dump it into insurance annuities*.

Here's what Barron's magazine says that you'd get in the market right now:



Now. If you want to leave the remnants of the $200,000 to little Bobby, Billy and Isadora, you can certainly do that. And maybe the monthly payment route ...

Defined (Monthly) Benefit
+ Social Security
+ Monthly Insurance Annuity
= Comfortable Retirement

... isn't the highway you want to take. But maybe for simplicity and overall ease of mind, it's pretty enticing. You're the one who will have to decide. We just wanted to lay out the options here so you would have something to chew on.

* Kindly note that one of the annuity options offers a slightly smaller payout, but the return of unused principal.