Happy Mother's Day - Funding Her Retirement Account

First, let me wish you a Happy Mother's Day. The last section gives some trivia information for this special day. The first section is from Vanguard giving a recap of last week's events. In the middle is a short section on the importance of funding a retirement account for a wife or mom.

Vanguard Weekly Recap

Two reports issued this week offered contrasting (and somewhat contradictory) assessments of the unemployment situation. On the positive side, the number of payroll jobs created in April was surprisingly high. The overall unemployment rate, however, inched upward in April instead of staying flat, as had been expected. The week's other reports painted a mixed, but generally encouraging, picture. For the week ended May 6, the S&P 500 Index fell 1.7% to 1,340 (for a year-to-date total return—including price change plus dividends—of about 7.2%). The yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 13 basis points to 3.19% (for a year-to-date decrease of 11 basis points).

Funding Her Retirement Account

This is my opinion that it is important to fund the retirement account for your wife or mom. A view that has existed is that only the primary wage earner should have a retirement account. My view is that it is important for every adult to have a retirement account for financial and self sufficiency reasons.

My observations is that a person who enters retirement with money in an account has a greater sense of control for the future. Also it makes good sense financially to fund an IRA for both spouses as this can reduce the current tax burden. In the end you reduce the tax burden, have more resources during retirement, and give her a sense of security during retirement, a triple play.

Mother's Day Trivia

One of the early calls to celebrate a Mother's Day in the United States was the "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe. Written in 1870, it was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.

In the years after the Mother's Day Proclamation, Ann Jarvis founded five Mothers' Day Work Clubs to improve sanitary and health conditions. In 1907, two years after Ann Jarvis' death, her daughter Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother and began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the US. Although she was successful in 1914, she was already disappointed with its commericalization by the 1920s.

In 1912, Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrases "second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day", and created the Mother's Day International Association."She was specific about the location of the apostrophe; it was to be a singular possessive, for each family to honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world." This is also the spelling used by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in the law making official the holiday in the U.S., by the U.S. Congress on bills, and by other U.S. presidents on their declarations.