Browse Retirement and Retirement Planning

Each time we have a bad market, the media pundits starts saying “it’s different this time” and we all buy into it. The reality is they’re partly right because the circumstances surrounding each drop are rarely the same. However, I attended a conference and was shown how in each of the last 12 bear markets since the Great Depression, the decline IS actually the same. First, after each decline, the stock markets have always come back and often very dramatically.

"You are asking me if I am surprised?" Bill and Kay are sharing a private moment talking about diversity changes planned for their regional bank, along with the initial executive board response. "Well, I knew we would have some resistance from at least one board member after we presented the plan. I guess I am a little surprised that Jerry K. used 'research' to back his opposition, saying diversity training simply doesn't work," Kay tells Bill. "Next board meeting, I'll have even better data," Kay smiles.

Did you see the recent film, 'The Bucket List', starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? It's about two men who meet in a hospital cancer ward after each has been given only six months to live. The 'bucket list' of the title refers to a list that one of the men has been advised to compile of the things he wants to accomplish before he 'kicks the bucket'.

Sinking or Soaring at Midlife? Midlife! That wonderful period of confusion, reassessment, stuckness and change …. Welcome! Midlife is a normal developmental life stage. It can be a positive and mindful process of the whole person you will be for your second adulthood. It cannot be avoided. ...

Tax errors can cost you a lot of money (plus substantive delays) in getting a tax refund. While you're not expected to be a tax expert, there are some easy strategies you can use to save money on your taxes. Then you can use that extra money for fun, or roll it directly into your retirement savings . Here are 3 tips to reduce the amount of taxes you owe, and to make it easy come tax day. 1. File Your Taxes Properly File your W-2 before the due date to avoid any late-filing tr

According to statistics compiled by the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association, between 10,000 and 15,000 Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) are currently in technical default. Some lenders have even foreclosed on seniors who could not arrange a payment plan or otherwise get their loan of out default. Initially, this may come as a shock. With an HECM, borrowers are not required to make monthly payments. Still, it is possible to default on the loan agreement, and

Always the feisty ones, you boomers aren’t going to let the economy slow you down! If you have retired already or have been laid off you may have a desire to get back into the employment seen. Well, hate to tell you this, but that may be easier said than done. So what? You’re resilient and flexible. What’s your Plan B? Maybe it’s time to look at something new. Companies are doing more laying off than hiring. Often times when you change jobs or re-career you receive less pay and fewer benefits.

Ambrose Bierce, American writer and editor, once said, “Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.” Many estates have been torn asunder during probate. To avoid this possibility, many people go to the trouble of estate planning. They want to know that their assets will be distributed to the right people without the courts having a say in what is happening. The problem is that estate plans fail all the time. Estate planners can tell you plenty of stor

Financial implosions make headlines. It’s also news when rich and famous people like Jack Kent Cooke make huge, public estate planning mistakes. Yet the average person is just as prone to making painful financial errors time and time again, even if their mistakes never go viral on social media. That’s true even in Washington, DC, which is one of the most educated populations in the country. Trust us: we have seen the worst and the best, after decades of providing financial planning services to Washington-area residents.

You're new to building your business. You have been in business for some time now but you don't have as many clients as you wish. Either way one of the tricks is to figure what the missing piece is. Where is the disconnect? Is it the marketing? Is your niche not tight enough? Does your website need work? All of those, and more, are possibilities but today let's talk about 'credibility'. This is the piece where people believe you are the real deal and they want to have a business relationship with you.

I wonder how many of you even know. I'll bet a lot of you don't know. Or you kind of know but not really. It's vitally important for you to know. For some of you, if you have a more 'elaborate' retirement planned (lots of travel etc) you will need more than someone who has very simple wants and desires. There certainly is no right way but you need to know your truth. One of the lucky things about being a woman is you generally live longer than men. Wonderful!! But you will need more money.

If you talk with 10 different advisors, they’ll all have their own opinion as to what the best way to invest for retirement is. Some prefer actively managed investments. Some prefer passively managed investments. Some like to trade daily while other advisors like me prefer a combination of ...

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But that actually might depend on the picture. For instance, if you were to take a snapshot of your financial portfolio, what would it look like? Most financial advisors provide their clients with a pie chart, which assigns a color to each of your assets. It’s useful information, but it’s static. This picture only tells you what you own right now without shedding any insight into the different decisions you may have made over the past weeks, months, or even years to arrive at where you are today.

Are you struggling with retirement? It's not uncommon. Once the 'honeymoon' period is over and disenchantment starts to set in, up to 1 in 5 people can feel that their life is in the doldrums, they're not getting the retirement they deserve and that, if this is all they have to look forward to, they wish they'd never retired in the first place! If all this sounds horribly familiar to you, don't panic... Use these 10 thought-provoking questions to help give yourself a Retirement Detox: 1. What do you want more of in your life? (What makes you happy?) 2. What do you want less of?

While some seniors plan on using a reverse mortgage as a retirement tool, many others are still on the fence. By now, many consumers know that reverse mortgages are loans that allow seniors over 62 years of age to convert a portion of their home equity into cash. Many consumers also know that borrowers are allowed to keep their proceeds payment free until they sell their home, move or pass away. What most seniors really want to know is how much they would be eligible to recei

Retirement planning can be more complex for women for various reasons. Women live longer, take time away from work to care for their parents or children, and are often paid less than their male counterparts. To compound matters further, many married men are deciding to retire much earlier than originally anticipated. A husband’s early retirement can have profound effects on a woman’s ability to fund her retirement throughout her lifetime. With careful planning, however, t

Question: My company recently sent out a memo saying they were going to suspend their matching 401k contributions for the rest of 2009 and maybe 2010 as well. This could dramatically affect my ability to retire. Are they allowed to do this? Christine, New York, NY Answer: Christine, each company has their own 401k plan document which contains its own set of rules that normally allow for the suspension, reduction, increase or termination of matching contributions.

You will find so many things that go into planning a wedding that occasionally the little things are forgotten, but these things are not small by any indicates! But then, planning is half the enjoyment where weddings are concerned. Based on our experience as Glasgow's leading Wedding Car Hire business, we have put a couple of things together. 1. Alcohol. Are you buying you own liquor for your wedding reception? If so, who will be given the task of gathering the unopened, left

Dogwood Forest Assisted Living interviewed elder law lawyer Miles Hurley and found out the answers to these 10 most pressing retirement planning questions: 1. What legal documents are most important for seniors? Which ones are often overlooked? 2. What is the difference between a will and a trust? 3. When should you start a will? 4. How much does a will cost? 5. What happens if you have no will or trust at the time of your death? 6. How can you avoid asset disputes afte

I had some real plans for how to spend my less busy time during the holidays. From December 19th to January 1st I only had 1 client each week. Wow. Certainly different than my usual week! Here are some of the things I accomplished and feel really good about. If any of these actions look like something that you need to do to start the year out fresh then keep reading.

www.bradcooperpresents.com When it comes to Retirement Readiness, we are facing a crisis of epic proportion. Many Americans have no idea how far Behind The Retirement Planning 8 Ball they really are. Whether you are retired or very close to it, whether you've accumulated a couple hundred thousand dollars or several million, planning for your retirement is more challenging today than ever.

Question: I’m getting closer to retiring and everything I read says I should get more defensive in my portfolio. Does this make sense for me? Answer: It depends. How is your portfolio allocated now? Do you own mostly stocks or do you have a lot of money in bonds and CDs? What’s your current asset mix or asset allocation? Do you know what your portfolios expected return is? Can you quantify how much risk you’re taking with your current portfolio? Are you comfortable with the risk?

For elderly people and retirees looking for new adventure, beginning a unique pastime and picking up a new tool like a metal detector can be a pretty invigorating knowledge. Taking up metal detecting after retiring may be a great idea in fact. Retired persons have a variety of knowledge to attract on that can be helpful in the method of the pastime. Metal detecting can be as challenging or undemanding as they need it to be, they could consider it at any level they desire. Ano

One of the best financial investments you can make before the end of the year is to spend a little bit of time and money to meet with your accountant and start planning your taxes. Don’t wait until March when your CPA is slammed with number-crunching and tax preparation. And, it’s about time you used your accountant as more than your “data input” tax preparer. Using your CPA as a consultant can pay off big time. Here’s how: Avoid a surprise tax bill

Employer-sponsored 401(k) plans may have various loan provisions allowing participants to take loans against their retirement savings or take withdrawals in times of hardship. But before you consider borrowing money from your 401(k) plan, you will need to understand how your loans and withdrawals will affect your retirement goals and savings and what tax consequences you may trigger. Many 401(k) participants make the mistake of tapping into their retirement savings when they

The answer is probably a resounding “No.” Or maybe you’re not even sure what that Crucial Conversation is. This conversation is about how you are going to live the rest of your lives together as a couple. On one hand, this may sound pretty simple but when you really dig in and start talking, you may be in for some big surprises. Or you may think it’s just not all that important. But you are wrong. It is very important.

“Life is too short to be small.” Benjamin Disraeli You've retired or are just on the verge. That's great. You worked hard for many years and you certainly deserve big congratulations and job well done! The Next Stage You're about to enter a whole new stage of your life - one that could be your best ever. But what will it look like and what will you do to fill your time? If you spent your working years as a salaried worker, you probably couldn't wait to retire. You knew al

I always suggest to my retirement coaching clients and course attendees that, once their retirement begins, they don't leave it too long before implementing some form of exercise routine. And, if they already have the 'exercise habit', I suggest that they may need to consider increasing the amount of exercise they take each week. Weight gain can be a real problem for new retirees and, speaking from experience, the extra pounds really can creep up on you until, before you know it, you have a battle on your hands.

Question: As a self-employed empty nester, what advice can you give to starting our retirement nest egg at this late date? My husband and I are both in our early 50’s. We would like something simple that we can contribute small ($50) amounts to at a time. Joy, PA Answer: Joy, I did some digging for you but the challenge was in finding mutual fund families that have low minimums or no minimum investments required that can accommodate beginning investors.

If so, you are certainly not alone. Also, women are more apt to extend this date then men. Women earning $75,000.00 or more have a six out of ten chance of delaying retirement. Those are high numbers and now there is even a term for this. If you are one of the six, you are part of the Threshold Generation, a term coined by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. Are you one of the women on the ‘threshold’ of retirement?

Yes, this is possible but you have to take the right steps and do them in order. Now, you could probably do those out of order and do okay, but why settle for okay? Do you know who your Ideal Client is? When you are asked that scary question of “What do you do?” do you have a good, solid response?

The word “crisis” suggests considerable pain and suffering. We all wince at the memory of the crises in our lives: having to choose which college to go to or career to start after High School, getting married, having a child, changing jobs, moving, divorcing, etc. In fact, the word “crisis” ...

Ethical Wills have been around for many generations but seem to be regaining their strength. That may be simply because many of you are getting to the stage in life where you begin thinking about what you are passing along to your children or other loved ones. Another term for Ethical Wills might be a “Values and Vision Statement.” In a nutshell, it is a tool for passing your memories, values and traditions to your loved ones and future generations. Keep in mind that an Ethical Will is not a legal document.

Since the advent of 401k plans in 1981 making mistakes in 401k plans have become commonplace. Let's take a look at four common mistakes we can avoid. #1 Chasing Returns Chasing returns is as common as trying to keep up with the Jones’. Chasing returns means looking at your yearend statement only to realize your mutual fund only gained 5% when other funds gained 25%. The logical step would be to move all your money into the mutual funds which gained 25%. Unfortunately going

Sadly, most women will answer 'yes'. That said, you have more control over your financial situation than you probably think. And if you don't think you have any control then it's time to be proactive and take some action. This is your life. This is your future.

The world has been fascinated with Warren Buffett, and rightfully so. Berkshire Hathaway has a better performance than any other stock or mutual fund with at least a 30-year history. A dollar invested in Berkshire in 1976 would have been worth $1500 in 2011. A recent paper by Andrea Frazzini and David Kabiller of AQR Capital Management, and Lasse Pedersen of New York University explains the magic behind the wizard's performance.

It's summer. It's hot. People are on vacation it seems all the time. No one is signing up for your teleclasses or any other of the wonderful things you are offering. How are you supposed to grow your business at this rate? Well, maybe there are other things you can do instead of feeling badly or twiddling your thumbs. Let's take a look and see! 1. How does your office look?r

Support Roses have trellises to support them. Buildings have scaffolding, then infrastructure. Even bicycles have training wheels. What kind of support do you have? Somehow, many people hold a rugged, independent notion that they can make it on their own. Citizens of the United States love to harken back to pioneer ancestors who allegedly struck out on their own. Yet, those pioneers were some of the most interdependent people you could ever find. They had to reach out and help their fellow travelers and their neighbors if they expected to survive.

Many older adults often carry a deeply ingrained belief that inactive, sedentary lives are an inevitable part of aging. Boomers need to know this mindset is wrong and it can be changed, resulting in a positive physical and mental health change. The baby boomer generation can benefit from many of the studies being conducted today. Research to help boomers live longer, healthier, happier and more productive lives.nnA study report from UCLA, November/15, 2007. Quotes Dr. Catheri

On the occasion of my 62nd birthday - well, actually, the two weeks prior to the event - I decided it was time for a short depression. I earned it. I was entitled. And I was going to wallow a bit. This was followed by a two-week celebration, so it all balanced out, and the whole experience is ...

You may have planned for and eagerly anticipated your retirement years, but until retirement becomes a reality, you probably don’t realize just how much of a lifestyle change you’re going to experience. The way in which you adjust to the changes retirement brings can directly impact how happy your retirement years are. There are many resources available to help you stay healthy, happy and comfortable after you retire. Socializing after Retiring Once you’re free of work

Question: What are some things I should keep in mind if I want to reach the goal of retirement within three years? Thanks in advance for your response. Lorri, MA Answer: Lorri, whether your goal is retirement in 3 years, a new car in 5 years, or college education in eighteen years, in order to reach your goal a savings/investment plan has to have four distinct yet interrelated factors, each of which contributes to the success or failure of your plan. Factor #1: Your contribution amount. How much are you saving every paycheck now?

Question: I’m trying to decide if an annuity is right for me but I’m confused by all the different types. Can you explain the differences? Geraldine, NJ Answer: Sure Geraldine. An annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company. Your money grows tax-deferred inside an annuity ...

The word “success” may be relative, especially in the context of retirement. There is no single, easy answer as to what would make you feel successful upon hitting the finish line of a life-long career. When you look back at the life you lived, can you say, “That was good”? But while a cookie-cutter answer may be elusive, many experts tend to agree on certain points that they consider to be the elements of retiring successfully. Here are the top 7 secrets to a success

Dear Bill: I’m 60 years old, divorced, and was forced into early retirement two weeks ago. My 401(k) is still down 25% from its all-time high and I’m real nervous. Now that I don’t have a paycheck and since I won’t become eligible for Social Security for two more years, I have to live on this! How should my account be allocated? What’s an appropriate allocation for someone in my situation? I was also wondering what you think about the possibility of another market freefall?

Do you even know what an Active Vacation is? Let’s just say it’s the opposite of sitting on the beach with a book in one hand and an umbrella drink in the other. Not that this isn’t desirable at times, but more and more boomers want more action than that. Assuming you are a health-minded women, this type of vacation might be right up your alley! Have you ever thought of a Yoga Retreat or a bike ride through France (or Iowa)? What about hiking the Grand Canyon? Not only does your body get a good workout but so do your mind and even your soul.

Last year, the Department of Labor issued a mandate stating that all financial professionals who work with retirement plans or give retirement planning advice must begin acting as a “fiduciary” starting April 2017. Recently the fiduciary rule has made headlines yet again, this time due to Donald Trump’s executive order calling for an investigation into the rule’s effects. What does that mean for you as an investor? What is the fiduciary standard?

A number of studies – including one by Dhaval Dave, an associate professor of economics at Bentley University– have proven that a sedentary retirement can have adverse effects on your health. The study found that those who retire completely see a five percent to 16 per cent increase in difficulties associated with mobility and daily activities in the six years after retirement, and a five to six percent increase in illnesses like heart disease, stroke and arthritis. A big

The Best Estate Planning Tip: Don’t put it off. The best estate planning tip is to have one. Take the time now while you are clear and competent to consider the elements of your overall plan for the management of your assets and your care in the event of misfortune to avoid having a court or the state step in and do it for you. A will is not enough: A will, is a ticket to probate, probate is court and courts take atto eys fees, and court costs. It doesn’t avoid probate of you

Retirement can be one of the most exciting and fulfilling periods in your life. To ensure that it is, you need to live in a region that is conducive to your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Below, you will find five great places that can empower you to attain the type of amazing retirement life you deserve: Arizona If you're serious about making your retirement the best period of your life, it's time to get serious about Arizona. There are dozens of reasons that yo