Should Retirement Savers Slow Down?

Most Americans aren't building adequate retirement nest eggs. Investment providers usually urge them to save more. So how do you explain this T. Rowe Price mailing?

Why on earth would a mutual fund firm want enthusiastic retirement savers to slow down – to trot rather than gallop as they add to their investments?

Turns out it doesn't. "Rein in" is seldom taken literally in an age when few of us ride or drive a horse to work. The phrase has become a figure of speech. If you're a nervous wreck, you're urged to rein in your emotions. If you're deep in debt, you're advised to rein in your credit card usage.

As figures of speech age, their meaning sometimes goes astray. What T. Rowe Price really wants, according to the next page of the mailer, is for retirement investors to consolidate their accounts.

Maybe their headline should have been E Pluribus Unum.

Our advice to retirement savers? Give yourself free rein.