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Retirement Strategy : A Personal Account

coinTreeA friend recently told me he’s planning to retire but is worried about his financial ability to do so. When he described his situation, I told him it seemed to me he didn’t have anything to worry about. But, still he’s worried. As luck would have it, I heard a finance professor lecture on retirement income planning the following day. He suggested a strategy that might just help put my friend’s mind at ease. I then also read an article in the Harvard Business Review by Nobel laureate economist Robert Merton touting the same idea. It’s not a cure-all, a panacea or magical solution. As a financial whiz-kid once reminded me, “No financial product has a ‘secret sauce’.”

The concept: use annuities as a key element in your retirement income strategy. Read more

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How much do you really need for retirement?

coinTreeIt’s the age-old question: How much should I save for retirement?
For years, financial advisors recommended people save at least $1 million to enjoy a comfortable retirement. But given longer lifespans and concerns about the financial status of Social Security, is that target enough to fund a potentially decades-long retirement?

Maybe not. Read more

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5 Ways to Tell if You’re Really Ready To Retire

coinTreeThink it’s about time to call it a career? Great. But before you say “Hasta la vista, baby!” to your job, I suggest you go over the five items in my Are You Really Ready To Retire? checklist.

Just to be clear: I’m not talking about “ready to retire” in the sense that you’ll flip out if you have to deal with your egomaniac of a boss one more day. I mean you’re ready in the sense of being financially, socially and emotionally prepared to make the transition to your post-career life. That’s important to know because if you exit before you’re truly prepared, you may find yourself repeating another famous Schwarzenegger line: “I’ll be back.” Read more

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5 “BS” Retirement Investing Pitches You Should Ignore

coinTreeYou’re probably already wise to many schemes designed to separate you from your money—emails from Nigerian princes, phishing scams, etc. But does your BS detector go off when confronted with slick come-ones for perfectly legal-but-dubious investments? To see, check out these five pitches that are often targeted to people investing for retirement. Read more

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8 Essential Annuity Questions – You Need to Know!

coinTreeUnderstanding Annuities and what part they play is critical in making sure you are getting the most out of your retirement planning.  We have listed 8 crucial questions you need to know to ensure your annuity works hard for you.

Answering these questions could put you on the path to finding the right annuity and help you secure the future you dreamed of. They come in 3 categories so you can zero in on strategies for you and your situation.
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6 Habits of Successful Retirees

coinTree Creating good, healthy habits in retirement creates a fruitful, rich and rewarding retirement.
Habits can be measured in many ways, what we eat, how often we exercise, saving money for retirement every month.  However, not all habits will bring you down a path toward financial stability.  Listed below are 6 habits of successful retirees that can help you with retirement:
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4 Ways To Jump-Start Your Savings

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Struggling to catch up? Here’s how to get your nest egg back on track

Saving for retirement is a lot like dieting. We all know what we should be doing, but actually doing it is hard. It’s much easier to make excuses.
We’re busy. We have responsibilities—to children, to older parents—that compete with our ability to set aside money for our later years. What’s more, wages have stagnated in recent years while the cost of living has continued to climb.
The numbers bear out the challenge: More than half of workers report they have less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments, excluding their home and any pension plans, according to the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. To be sure, not all of those surveyed had access to retirement plans, and some had incomes low enough to make saving difficult.
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Annuities 101: Is An Annuity Right For You?

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What is an Annuity?

Despite the fact that many people are familiar with the term ‘annuity’, many might not understand what it actually means or how it can be used to help them plan ahead for a successful financial future.

Simply put, an annuity is an insurance product that will pay you income based on money that you have previously put in. An annuity is commonly used as part of a retirement strategy. They are often popular choices for investors who wish to see a regular and steady income stream in their retirement. According to the Government Accountability Office, annuities can be an important part of an overall retirement plan.
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Tips for Avoiding an Out of Money Experience

Do you run out of money before you run out of month? Many do, but it doesn’t have to be that way! Wealth is the result of widening the gap between what you earn and what you spend. Most of us make the mistake of ramping up our spending as our disposable incomes rise. This is self-defeating. If you do not develop a respect for money, it will always elude you.

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