I have thought carefully about it.  I am 44, single, and just started seriously saving for retirement 3 years ago.  I need growth right now more than I need stability.  If I take into account my pension (been with my employer for 15 years) and the Cash Balance Plan (8% of my salary totally paid by employer and earning Fed rates) AND I put even more into cash/stable value/bonds, then over time I am going to be way too low on stock allocation.

I look at it this way...  In round dollars say my salary is $100k. 

I am contributing 14% of my salary to 401k............$14k.

My employer contributes 8% of my salary to CBP....$8k. 

My total contribution would be................................ $22k.

My allocation would be 36% of the total ($8k) being in cash. Say that I put 30% of MY contributions into bonds/cash, that would be $4200.  Add that to the $8k and that would make my non-equity allocation 55% ($12,200 out of $22,000).

55% cash/bond allocation at my age is way too conservative.  Of course all of the retirement planners I have run don't like this EXCEPT for the one at Merrill Lynch (401k) because it knows about my pension and CBP.  I spoke to a Merrill Lynch rep that was here for a seminar and asked why the program advised me to not have cash/bonds and she confirmed that it was taking those other items into account.

That is not including my Pension that was frozen in favor of the CBP.  This is also essentially a cash allocation and is as protected as my 401k from my employer going out of business.  Add to that SS income (if there is any).

I guess I just needed some hand-holding and reassurance that things do turn around.  I made my decision based on everything that I can and do know.