financial planner harold evensky agrees education is important, but he'd look elsewhere for cash. >> either borrowing from family or having their children get a part-time job to pay part of it. because the cost of taking it out of a 401k can be significant. not only the tax penalties, or the tax consequences when you take it out, but the real problem is not having that nest egg when you retire. >> reporter: most 401k investors seem to realize that, which may explain why contribution rates have held steady through the recession. but, that's for the people who have access to retirement plans. >> 401k's only cover half the workforce in any one year. the other half of the work force doesn't have a way to save for retirement at work. >> reporter: but all in all, evensky says most americans are staying the retirement savings course. >> my experience is investors, in general, are reasonable when times get tough. they do batten down the hatches, they do cut back their expenses, they live in a house of bricks and not sticks, which is good news. >> reporter: but those who are falling behind se

here's charles sachs, vice president of wealth management at evensky and katz. >> surely you must do something. you can't just sit around and do nothing-- activity, almost any activity, is certainly good, isn't it? well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, but two factors are at play here. one is that wall street makes its money from transactions. the more you buy and sell, the more it makes, and the second is that while all investors say they'd like to buy low and sell high, the fact is they almost always do the opposite. you see, our animalistic flee or flight mechanism takes over and when the market is down, it feels right to flee and sell. and when markets are on a tear, instead of selling, it feels like the time to buy. compound this with the pure fantasy of investors attempting to be in the market only when it is going up and getting out before it goes down, and it's no surprise that investors as a group dramatically underperform the overall market. so, enough with what not to do. here's what you should do. create a well diversified portfolio, which can be done by maintaining owne