So, you’re in your forties and have little to no retirement savings. ”What shall I do?” you ask yourself. First thing you need to do is not lose hope. You have a challenge ahead of you but you can win this battle. It’s something I like to call “Retirement Catch-Up.” At its core, it’s a fairly simple game. You have a certain time horizon and need a certain amount you need before you can retire. With the proper knowledge, anyone can win this game.
6 Things to Consider Before Retiring
Written by 10 Comments
After working long and hard for many years, the idea of retiring is very appealing. However, you do not want to just decide to retire without proper planning.
There are 6 important things to consider before retiring.
1. Volatility
If you are planning on retiring, the market volatility influences your retirement account when you have stocks or bonds. The factors that impact volatility include the state of the economy, current events in the world, taxes, changes in the industry, political unrest, natural disasters and war. Expanding your money out over different types of investments could help control the risk involved. It is important to keep track of your portfolio, and make sure it is aligned within your goals. Make sure your accounts are flexible, so you can make changes when needed.Continue Reading
Steps to Take to Avoid Retiring in Debt
Written by 6 Comments
National debt is a massive problem in our country and there’s no shortage of advertising reminding us that we need to pay off our personal debts. Sadly, statistics clearly indicate that the numbers of individuals who are retiring in debt are on the increase, so much so that over half of those who retire are in the red.
Earlier this year Newsweek reported that the golden years have been severely tarnished with mounting medical expenses, rising credit card debt, and little or no savings. Newsweek stated that a law professor at the University of Michigan found that individuals over the age of 55 now account for more than 20 percent of all bankruptcies in the U.S. CESI Debt Solutions, a nonprofit personal-finance firm, conducted a study and discovered that 56 percent of retirees carried outstanding debts with them as they left the workforce.
Continue Reading
IRA Maximum Contribution Limits – Roth and Traditional
Written by 4 Comments
An IRA can be a great tool to help you save for retirement and the traditional and Roth both have interesting tax advantages. But the amount you can contribute every year is limited. The Federal government imposes limits as to how much money can be contributed to both the Roth IRA and the traditional IRA accounts. An account holder’s age (and income) is also a factor in how much s/he can contribute per year.
The investors who are 49 years old or younger have had maximum limits that are $1,000 less that those investors who are 50 years old or older since the 2006-2007 investment year.
The nature of this investment fund demands that an investor contributes the maximum amount of contribution allowed every year in order to enjoy maximum yield. For example, the contribution amount for a person 49 years of age or younger in 2010 was $5,000. If he only invests $3,000 in 2010 he can’t add the $2,000 deficit to the $5,000 contribution allowed in 2011. The IRA is a “use it or lose it” investment fund which means any money not invested into an IRA is lost forever.Continue Reading
Best Retirement Plans For The Self Employed or Small Business Owner
Written by 10 Comments
This is a guest post by Jeff Rose. Jeff Rose is an Illinois Certified Financial Planner and co-founder of Alliance Investment Planning Group. He is also the author of Good Financial Cents, a financial planning and investment blog and he is currently working on his first book entitled Soldier of Finance. You can see more about his mission at the same titled blog Soldier of Finance.com.
Continue Reading
Busting Common Investing Myths – A Tweetup With Motley Fool’s Tom Gardner and ShareBuilder’s Dan Greenshields
Written by 13 Comments
A little while back I had the pleasure of attending a Tweetup at the NYC ING Direct Cafe hosted by Sharebuilder‘s president Dan Greenshields with special guest speaker Tom Gardner, CEO of The Motley Fool.
For those wondering what a Tweetup is, it’s basically an organized meeting of sorts over the social site Twitter. The meeting was held at the ING Cafe and people from all over could follow along and participate via Twitter.
The premise of the Tweetup was to help investors bust common investing myths and take the complexities out of investing.
I tried to takes notes as best I could so I could pass them along to you. Keep in my I’m paraphrasing here and some of the words are mine, but I think you’ll get the general ideas of what was being said.
To start, Tom Gardner talked about four basic investing rules we should all follow (this is just part of his full list of rules):
Continue Reading
An Against the Grain Approach to Prioritizing Your Savings
Written by 4 Comments
Frequent readers of personal finance blogs are familiar with the importance of getting out of debt and staying out of debt. The reasons for avoiding debt are both economic and emotional, and they are so well known that we can call “staying out of debt” Personal Finance Truism #1. Let’s briefly review the reasons behind Personal Finance Truism #1:
Continue Reading
What Is A Reverse Mortgage Loan?
Written by 8 Comments
A loan that has been popping up more often these days is the Reverse Mortgage. This mortgage works differently then other types of mortgage loans in that it works in reverse in a way. Let me tell you a little more about reverse mortgages…
Continue Reading
In Defense of the Traditional IRA
Written by 15 Comments
Roth IRAs are tax-free. Traditional IRAs are simply tax-deferred. Surely tax-free is better, right? And surely, therefore, a Roth IRA is the best way to invest for retirement, right?
Continue Reading
Choices For Your 401(k) When You Leave Your Job
Written by 44 Comments
A 401(k) plan is an awesome vehicle to save for retirement!
You get to lower your tax basis (the income you get taxed on). You might get a great company match… What’s not to like?
But what do you do with your 401(k) if you leave your job?
Do you take the 401(k) with you? Where do you put it? Should you leave it?
You have some choices for your 401(k) which I’ll outline for you below: