Does anybody have an opinion on TIAA-CREF Lifecycle vs. Fidelity Freedom? I'd be happy to hear it. And if there are other factors that I should take into account when making my decision, that would also be great advice.

Kris,

Like some other posters here, I've been a TIAA-CREF participant since 1970. At first I didn't want to know anything about this stuff and left it alone. Then 12 years later I became interested and took charge, believing that I would learn as I went. I tried everything I could think of including transferring most of the money and buying individual stocks, ETFs, different funds (mostly Fidelity) and following the advice of every newsletter that claimed to have the answers. I even hired "well-known" expensive advisors at times.

Now that I've been retired since 1992 and if I could go back and do it all over again, I would put most of my contributions into TIAA Traditional, and a reasonable amount in TIAA Real Estate and just leave it alone. I would think about other more interesting and important things and let these two Annuities take care of everything. TIAA Traditional is the only investment that is guaranteed to always increase in value and contains the miracle of compounding. TIAA Real Estate is the next best thing to it.

Mutual Funds, ETFs, stocks, and bonds are a scam. Everyone involved with them makes money that's guaranteed except the customer. Investors are the only ones that are gambling with risky securities that are subject to chance and can be manipulated as well by professionals for their own gain. You may get lucky or you may have extraordinary skill and win sometimes, but the price in losses, fees, and management is very high, including emotionally, so you have to subtract those things from your winnings. Those losses also unfortunately compound for the investor.

Best of luck,

Sy