Socially Responsible Investing

I had a disturbing realization the other day.
Take a look at the breakdown of a sample person's life:

6 years at home as a child, 16 years going to school, 43 years working at a career, and 30 years in retirement.

That means that during the period that person is working, they must earn enough not only to support themselves, but also save enough to support themselves for a period that lasts 70% as long as when they were working (not to mention that their medical costs are likely to be much higher during the latter period).

That's a frightening thought for someone who hasn't been saving as much as they should have. So here are some resources for anyone interested in investing for retirement.

Just like we try to be conscious of where we spend our consumer dollars, we also try to be aware of where we're spending our investment dollars.
SRI, or Socially Responsible Investing, is the term for the growing desire to avoid investment funds that include the worst polluters or human rights violators, for example.

This article has links at the bottom to several of the more popular SRI fund managers like Calvert or Domini Social Investments.

There are also resources like SocialFunds.com or SocialInvest.org where you can monitor funds by performance or screening criteria.