>>>You have to look a little deeper in to how these plans are run. The article I referenced doesn't really go into how the investments are made. Like I said earlier the "dot com" bubble nor the "great recession" had almost no effect on these plans. They do not deal in equities although there are some allowances for individuals to put small percentages of their personal accounts in Mutual funds/ETFs- at their own risk/reward. The fund itself goes for safety and a 31/2 - 4% annual return.
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>>31/2=15,5 over here.
>The keyboard I'm using doesn't have a numeric pad so I would have to type in the 3 then use numlocks and to type in ALT+171 and then take the numlock off or I guess I could use Word, type 3 1/2 and copy and paste after Word converts it 3 ½ . I'm just a little lazy in my old age and after all I am retired.

Too lazy to do it the easy way? Why bother with fractions, they really are hard to type and are frequently plain wrong, like when I see "5-3/4" which I later understand should mean 5,75 - contrary to everything I learned, the minus is a plus (!). Use decimals, it's so much simpler and unambiguous.