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The name is derived from the Internal Revenue Code established in 1978. It’s presently administered by the government section called the Employee Benefits Security Administration, also known as the EBSA.

A 401(k) plan is a plan usually used for retirement and is funded by an employee contribution. Some companies will match the contributions up to 100% of the employee’s contribution and yet some companies do not offer any matching funding. The BNSF Railroad is one of these such companies that does not offer even a $1 match for their employees.

The funds are contributed from the employee’s paycheck BEFORE taxes. The fund will accumulate completely tax free until it is withdrawn. Most businesses or companies have these retirement plans in place or they can create them.

There are a lot of advantages of having a 401K plan:

1. Employees can contribute pre-tax money which helps reduce the tax owed from their paychecks.

2. Any company contributions are also tax free until withdrawn.

3. As the funds are compounding, you are attaining a good profit on your invested funds.

4. The money you have funded in the plan can be moved around from one company to another. This isn’t available in a pension.

5. Your 401K is also protected from garnishments and is protected by pension laws because it is a personal investment plan. The only time it is not protected from garnishments is in domestic caes or cases of child support, but it IS protected from creditors.

6. You can borrow against your own 401(k) and the payments you make are put back into your own account along with the interest. The interest you pay on the loan is paid to you as well. You are actually borrowing the money from yourself and paying yourself back with interest. Most plans only allow you to borrow up to 50% of your fund account and only 2 loans at a time. You can borrow more than once if you find yourself in a financial hardship.

You should note that it is hard to get your contributions, (aside from a loan), before the age of 60 without paying a lot of penalty fees. The penalty fees can take a lot of the interest profit you may have received over the years. The plan is not insured by the Pension Benefit Gauranty Corporation, also known as the PBGC.

You do have many options for investing in your 401K plan. You will usually be investing in mutual funds. This helps protect you from having all your eggs in one basket. Mutual funds can consist of:

Money market funds
 Treasuries
 Stock funds
 Bond funds

Since the 401K plan is a long term investment, it should be able to handle market fluctuations without damage to your fund. Since stocks usually outperform other types of investment this is a great option for retirement security.

Rebecca Game is the founder of Digital Women ®, an online community for women in business. A 30 year entrepreneur and dedicated to helping other women find business loans and business grants. Visit her site: Loans for Women

http://www.digital-women.com

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I got a haircut tonight, after putting it off for maybe, an extra month, or was it two?

Why did I procrastinate?

I told my cutter the last time around to leave it a little longer, and I think she must have been tuned into a different galaxy at the time.

I left bereft of heft, at least on my skull, and I wasn’t happy about it.

So, like a teenager who is rebelling against his parents or scholastic authority, I opted to stay away from the clippers, and you know what?

An amazing thing happened.

I started to like what I saw, and a terrible haircut became a glorious non-cut.

My head morphed into something nearly stylish. Hey, it WAS stylish, but I don’t mean contemporary.

It was a throwback, locks dangling in my eyes, requiring head-snaps to arrange. Better yet, my hair felt FULL, maybe for the first time in decades.

In the old days when I was a teen, my dad and I shared President Reagan’s Beverly Hills barber, Harry Drucker. Harry told me, “Gary, never let a barber thin your hair; it’s thin enough, you don’t need that.”

Well, I made the mistake over the following years of forgetting this wisdom, opting instead for something that looked undoubtedly corporate.

Big mistake; and I came to appreciate this, recently, as my hair grew and grew and grew even more.

And I had an epiphany: I haven’t been cutting my hair to suit myself, at all. I’ve been doing it for approval, and this perennial adolescent inside finally said, “Enough!”

Tonight’s cut was performed by a new stylist, completely directed by yours, truly, and nobody noticed I got one.

Perfect!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations from Santa Monica to South Africa. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. For information about coaching, consulting, training, books, videos and audios, please go to http://www.customersatisfaction.com

To Uniqueness of Angela Missoni stands her alone and away from
any other designer. A garment designed by Angela easily is
picked out of a line of impressive fashions.

Even though Angela Missoni had been involved in the family
fashion business she was determined not to follow in the
footsteps of her parent.

After having several career from managing a children’s
playground to raising organic chickens, she was drawn back to
her natural roots and began designing jewelry. Her father
offered her a position in the company claiming that the
diversity could keep her working in her own department out of
the daily reaches of her parents.

Angela soon began designing fashion collections. Her collections
were varied. One collection saw accessories added, another some
knits, as she always battled to be unique and different.

One day her mother said she felt Angela’s lines should be what
Missoni should be about.

Her desire is fueled by her uniqueness. She never wanted to be
like any other designer. Angela prides herself in knowing that
nothing else in the fashion world looks quite like a Missoni
design.

>From it’s inception in 1953 Missoni was very experimental.
Sometime during the 1980s it lost its way and became intrenched
in the more classic looks and styles. With the help of Angela it
has found its way back to its roots.

The designs are once again bold, funky, younger looking. So
watch for the new face or shall we say old face of the well
known Missoni family with Angela now leading the way.

Angela’s designs have been worn by many famous stars such as
Sandra Bullock, Eva Mendes, Rachel Blanchard, Debra Messing and
Sheryl Crow.

It’s going to be an exciting season with Angela’s imagination
running wild what we will see on the runway this season can only
be left to the imagination. Keep your eyes wide open!

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