When you plan for your retirement, protect your savings. Make the effort to understand what you're planning for. Understand the retirement goals that you want to accomplish. And, even more importantly, when you plan for retirement, protect yourself from the risks you may never have seen.

What kinds of risk should you be on the lookout for?

• Stocks that are rated too well: Yes, you want to invest in stocks that are expected to perform, but once a stock has been given a top rating, there's only one direction it can take - down;
• Financial advisors who are more concerned with improving their own financial position than they are invested in helping you secure your own;
• Inaccurate assessments of interest rates and inflation: If these predictions are made without good information, the outcomes may end up being the opposite of what you were promised;
• Investment strategies that are not well diversified.

How can you be sure that you are - when you plan for your retirement - protected? 

You can make sure that you are getting advice that you can count on. You can research your investments and work with more accurate projections. You can take the information that you get from a variety of sources - newspapers, magazines and the Internet - and apply what is the most valuable.

But the most important thing that you can do to protect your retirement is to be well informed. 

One way of making sure that you know and understand your retirement planning is to download our free retirement calculator. With it, you can gather accurate information about how stocks, bonds and mutual funds have performed over time. You can generate projections that take interest and inflation rates into consideration when they illustrate the performance your investments will have.

But there's more that you can do with our free retirement calculator to protect your financial security. You can use it to see how withdrawals that you make from your retirement savings will affect the money that you have available when you retire. You can also use it to determine the ways in which small changes to your investment strategy will help you to grow your retirement savings.

Thinking about investing in different stocks? Use the retirement calculator to determine how they will perform. Protect your retirement by doing your own research.

But don't only count on yourself and the retirement calculator. There are benefits to discussing your financial plan with a retirement counselor who will listen to your needs and your concerns and working with you to protect your retirement.

That's why we've arranged for everyone who downloads and uses our free retirement calculator to have a free consultation with a financial advisor. During that conversation, you'll be able to discuss your concerns.  You'll be able to ask questions about your investments - and you'll be sure that the answers that you get are meant to help you secure the retirement that you've always dreamed of having.

Why take risks when you don't need to? Why not get the best information possible, the most accurate projections that you can, and protect your retirement by discussing your plan with someone who you can be sure is there who help you achieve your goals?

Take the steps that will ensure your retirement is protected: Start right now by clicking the red button to download the free retirement calculator.