What percentage of investments should goto each category: savings/retirement/life insurance?

First I'd like to say this is my first time to ask a question and I like the responses so far... so let me add some info. Dual income family both able to max out there yearly 401k contributions. The family dabbles in the market with a brokerage account and has saving in a money market and laddering CDs. At this point do you still think term life insurance is still the only way to go? and just get more mutual funds in your brokerage account? Or look to a Variable Whole Life Account as another place to grow tax free investments?

Public Comments

1. First, life insurance is not an investment. You might be talking about whole life insurance which appears to be an investment. These get a lousy rate of return. Buy good term life insurance instead. It's much cheaper and does the trick. Second, savings and retirement really depends on your goals and your age. Since I don't know either of these for you, I would recommend that you put 15% into retirement. Savings depends on what you're saving for and how long you want to wait to get it. Scott....
2. indeed, life insurance is not an investment... whole life is a sucker deal.. buy term,and invest the difference.. you only need life insurance anyhow, if someone depends on your income, and would need to replace your income if you die.
3. They are right you need term life insurance 10 times your income (example if you make 30k a year you need 300k in life insurance) you also need long term disability insurance. You need to have 3 to 6 months in an emergency fund to cover any short term disability. Now as for retirement you need to pay off all your debt as soon as you can when you have no debt left put 15% of your GROSS income into retirement. Of the 15% you want to put as much as you can into tax advantage accounts like a Roth IRA. Of that 15% you want to invest in good long term mutual funds that have a long track record with good returns of around 12% for 10 years or more. There are 4 types of Mutual Funds you want to look at they are Growth, aggressive growth, growth and income, and international funds. So for example if you make $60,000 a year and have no other debt but your house payment you would invest $9,000 a year into retirement or $750 a month. If you do not have retirement though work you would put the first $4,000 into a Roth IRA. Then out of the $9,000 $2,250 would go to a growth mutual Fund, then then next $2,250 would go to an aggressive growth fund and so on. If you do this you will have your retirement, and insurance taken care of then you can save as much as want on the money you have left. I hope this helps.