15 Best Places to Retire in Alabama

Rabia Mazhar
12 min read

In This Article:

This article takes a look at the 15 best places to retire in Alabama. If you wish to skip our detailed analysis of the investment landscape surrounding US retirement, you may go to 5 Best Places to Retire in Alabama.

Decoding Retirement Investing

Turns out college students aren’t the only ones prone to leaving things to the last minute - several adults are pretty much on the same track when it comes to saving for their retirement. In the US, there is no legal requirement under which a company has to offer a 401(k) plan to its employees in most states- although companies such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) do offer 401(k) plans with partial matching. Without this requirement, many people miss out on saving for retirement altogether.

In fact, according to Ramsey Solutions, employer-sponsored retirement savings plans are withheld from about a third of US workers, whereas the latest Survey of Consumer Finances reports that a massive 46% of Americans are without a retirement account altogether. All this does not seem very promising, especially with a Northwestern Mutual study revealing that Americans themselves believe they require a whopping $1.46 million for a comfortable retirement.

The question of the hour, then, is how can this disparity between what Americans need in their retirement and what they currently have be solved? Founder and CEO of hedge fund management company Pershing Square Capital Management, Bill Ackman, has a rather unique perspective. Ackman proposes that the US government give every newborn child in the country seven grand. Of course, Ackman doesn’t propose simply handing the money away. Instead, he details putting $7,000 into an account when a child is born, barring it from withdrawals, exempting it from taxation, using it in index fund investment, and letting the amount compound.

“We can't wait until people start creating an IRA or a 401(k) by the time they're, you know, 25 or 30 or 35 ... Just because of the laws of compounding. That extra 25 years is very, very material.”

According to numbers by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 3.6 million children were born in the US in 2023. If Ackman’s advice is implemented, the cost comes out to about $25 billion. While this number may seem shockingly high, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the US government’s 2024 fiscal year spending which included a national defense budget of $433 billion.

As for more real avenues, there are other paths that individuals can explore for retirement savings in the case of their company not offering a 401(k) plan. Some options that Americans can look towards include traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and health savings accounts. Each of these has its own benefit. For instance, traditional IRAs allow you to accumulate tax-advantaged retirement dollars, Roth IRAs allow for tax-free withdrawals and growth during retirement as well as flexibility as there are no minimum distributions, and health savings accounts are also known for their tax-free growth. Of course, these are just some of the retirement savings options available to individuals, and the investment world is much more vast. So, even if you don’t enroll in plans such as those offered by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) employees, all is not lost when it comes to saving and investing for your Golden Years. There’s no age limit to it either - even if you’ve reached your 50s, there are still steps that you can take to secure your retirement. For possible ideas, you can refer to retirement savings tips for 55-to-64-year-olds.

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