15 Amusing Retirement Quotes

Retirement

1. Retirement is having nothing to do and someone always keeping you from it. -Robert Brault 

2. When you retire, you switch bosses — from the one who hired you to the one who married you. -Gene Perret

3. Retirement kills more people than hard work ever did. -Malcolm Forbes 

4. The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.  -Abe Lemons


5. Retirement, a time to enjoy all the things you never had time to do when you worked.-Catherine Pulsifer 

 6. The key to retirement is to find joy in the little things. - Susan Miller 

7. If we wait until retirement to enjoy ourselves, there may not be enough of ourselves to enjoy it.— Mike Hammar

 8. Retirement is wonderful. It's doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it. - Gene Perret

9. Retirement has been a discovery of beauty for me. I never had the time before to notice the beauty of my grandkids, my wife, the tree outside my very own front door. And, the beauty of time itself. — Hartman Jule 

10. Cash - in savings accounts, short-term CDs, or money market deposits - is great for an emergency fund. But to fulfill a long-term investment goal like funding your retirement, consider buying stocks. The more distant your financial target, the longer inflation will gnaw at the purchasing power of your money.-Suze Orman 

11. To enjoy a long, comfortable retirement, save more today. -Suze Orman 

12. Retirement is the ugliest word in the language.- Ernest Hemingway 

13. In retirement, I look for days off from my days off.- Mason Cooley 

14. Retire from work, but not from life. - M.K. Soni 

15. Retirement is like a long vacation in Las Vegas. The goal is to enjoy it to the fullest, but not so fully that you run out of money. – Jonathan Clements

6 Best Part-Time Jobs for Retirees

Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/carrick-on-money/carrick-best-reads-the-worst-retirement-plan-ever/article24136256/

If you’re retired and the golf/beach/travel rotation is beginning to get old — and you’d love a little extra dough — you may be considering something your younger, cubicle-bound self never thought you would: going back to work (though only part-time). And now is a better time to do this than it has been in years, as an increasing number of employers plan to hire part-time help this year — and many of these jobs offer good pay and other perks that retirees desire.

You’re not alone in your want — or need -- to work in retirement: 72% of adults age 50 and older say they want to keep working after they retire, and nearly half (47%) of current retirees say they either have worked or plan to work during retirement, according to a survey of more than 7,000 adults conducted by Merrill Lynch Bank of America Corp. released last year. And it isn’t just lip service to the notion of working in retirement: While just 32% of people 55 and up were working in 2000, 40% were in 2014, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Working in retirement isn’t just about the money (though let’s be serious, most of us could use a little extra). The most popular reason for working in retirement is to “stay mentally active” for 62% of retirees and 51% of older adults cite it as one of the top reasons they are working in retirement, according to the Merrill Lynch Bank of America survey. Earning extra money is the second most popular answer, with 31% of retirees and 51% of older adults citing it as a top reason.

Of course, most of us don’t want to re-enter that 9 to 5 grind (after all, retirement is about taking it down a notch — or two), so here’s the good news: the number of employers looking for part-time workers will grow this year. Nearly one in four employers say they expect to hire part-time workers over the next year, up six percentage points from last year, according to CareerBuilder.com’s 2015 U.S. Job Forecast survey of more than 2,100 hiring managers. And because retirees often don’t need health care thanks to Medicare, part-time and project-based jobs, which don’t tend to have health benefits associated with them, have an appeal to this group that they won’t for many other groups.

Not only do retirees tend not to want to work full-time, but they also want good pay that reflects their years of experience, flexibility so they can travel, and/or jobs that allow them to give back. With that in mind, MarketWatch asked leading career experts to tell us what some of the best part-time jobs are for retirees.

Adjunct professor

There are more jobs than ever for a non-tenure track, or adjunct, professors. In 1969, just 21.7% of college faculty were adjuncts; now more than two-thirds are -- and you don’t always need a PhD to get these positions. In fact, retirees’ decades of workplace experience can lend itself well to the position of adjunct professor. While the pay for these jobs is mediocre (the median, per-course pay for part-time faculty is just $2,700, according to a study by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce), Lauren Griffin, a senior vice president with Adecco Staffing, notes that many retirees will find this kind of work rewarding. Plus, the hours you’re required to be on campus are typically few, and once you’ve taught a course once or twice, your workload will decrease as you don’t have to spend quite as much time developing the materials. To get this job, look at the career section of the websites of universities in your area; now that online education is becoming much more popular, you may also want to explore that avenue.

Project-based consultant

Still gun shy about hiring full-time help, many companies are looking for consultants to help with projects in fields ranging from law to HR to marketing and project management. Thanks to their decades of work experience, retirees are a good fit for this position, says Griffin. Pay is good -- sometimes upward of $50 or even $100 an hour for those with lots of relevant experience -- and once the project is over, you’re completely off duty and free to travel or relax. To find jobs like this, Griffin says that networking (in-person and online) -- with old colleagues, alumni associations, industry groups, etc. -- is key, because sometimes these jobs aren’t posted; if you’re near retirement but still working full time, talk to your current employer about making a transition like this one, says Griffin.

Accountant/bookkeeper

While this may not be the most exciting job on earth, there are lots of freelances and part-time positions in this field (many small businesses simply don’t need someone doing this full time) and the pay is decent, says Niki Badminton, Freelancer.com’s regional director for North America. Roughly one in four bookkeepers, accountants, and auditing clerks work part-time, the median pay is nearly $17 an hour (more for those with more experience and experience doing more complicated types of accounting) and the number of jobs in the field through 2022 is projected to grow 11%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some of these jobs will be posted online, but it’s important to go to small-business networking and related events, as well as tap your online network, to find jobs like this.

Event coordinator/planner

While you may not have had a career as an event planner, by the time you’re 50-plus, you’ve probably planned dozens of events in your life -- family weddings, birthday parties, and more -- with the photos to prove it. You can use this wealth of event-planning knowledge to find work or even start your own event coordinating/planning business. To find a job, you’ll need to tap your network of friends and family (use social media to let people know the services you’re now offering) and may even consider doing an event for a friend pro bono to build up your portfolio. You can also sign up for a site like TaskRabbit.com, which has an entire section on party and event planning. Pay may be low at first, but it does rise with experience, and the median hourly wage isn’t bad, at $22 an hour.

Patient advocate

The patient care and home health care fields are growing rapidly, says Mary Lorenz, the corporate communications manager at CareerBuilder -- and if you know where to look, this job might be a good option for retirees. While home health aide jobs may require too much physical labor for a retiree and nursing jobs require that plus a lot of additional certification, patient advocate positions don’t require either -- and these jobs can be rewarding because you get to help sick people navigate the daunting world of medical care. A patient advocate will make appointments for clients, fill out insurance and other paperwork, negotiate costs for medical care, and generally make sure the patient is informed about his care and is getting good care. While there are programs to help you get certified as a patient advocate, they aren’t always required, especially if you work for an individual or family that you know already (if you’re retired, you likely know at least a few families who could use your help). Median pay is $15 an hour, more if you have hospital administration or related experience.

Tutor

Becoming a tutor is a great option for retirees, says Nicole Williams, founder of career firm WORKS -- thanks to flexible hours, the ability to work near your home, and the chance to help young people. You can teach any number of subjects from math to writing to piano (whatever you are good at) and pay can be decent (sometimes it’s as low as around $9/$10 an hour, sometimes upward of $20 an hour, depending on your knowledge base and experience). Retirees hoping to start up this business should see if their children’s friends might have young children in need of some tutoring help, as well as doing some in-person networking at family-focused events.

11 Pointers to Investing in Your 60s and Beyond

Investing in your 60s is a different ballgame than when you focused mostly on growing your retirement funds. When you crack into your retirement nest egg, you need to change your investment strategy. The idea is to withdraw enough to help you get by now while holding enough in reserve to finance the rest of your life.

Making the transition to investing in your 60s and beyond requires a new way of thinking about investments. Here are 11 pointers:

1. Estimate how long your savings must last

You can’t plan effectively without an idea of how long your money should last. Of course, you can’t know how long you’ll live, so we’re talking here about estimating the longest you might live so you won’t run out of money.

A 65-year-old woman can expect to live to nearly 87, and a man the same age will live, on average, until 84, says the Social Security Administration, whose Life Expectancy Calculator gives a rough idea of expected lifespans. Or use the Wharton School of Business’ Life Expectancy Calculator for a more specific estimate based on your answers to questions about behavior, family history, and health.

2. Calculate annual expenses

To plan your finances in retirement, you’ll need to know how much you need to live. Especially if money is tight, you’ll need specific spending data, not estimates. If your budget and have tracked your spending, you’ve got the data you need. If not, start now. Automatic tracking is simple with free tools like one from Money Talks News’ partner PowerWallet. But a notebook or spreadsheet, to name a couple of alternatives, also will do — as long as you keep it up. After tracking for a few months, you’ll begin to see where your money’s going and can decide how much to withdraw from investments.

3. Fully fund emergency savings

Keeping a cushion of savings in cash or short-term CDs lets you ride out market downturns without selling stocks at low valuations. Some experts advise having an emergency fund to support yourself for a year and a half to two years.

4. Plan your withdrawals

Retirees need a system for regular cash withdrawals. For example, one popular system suggests withdrawing 4 percent of your initial savings balance each year, then adjusting that amount annually for inflation. The creator of this approach, William Bengen, says savings split equally between stocks and bonds should last at least 30 years with this system. While, as he recently told The New York Times, the 4 percent rule “is not a law of nature,” it does provide a framework. The key is to adopt a system, then adjust it as necessary.

5. Seek safety

How much you will keep in CDs, bonds and high-yield savings accounts depends somewhat on how much safety you require. An intelligent risk is necessary with part of your investments if you don’t want inflation to erode your portfolio’s value.

Many retirees follow this rule of thumb (called the “glide-path” rule):

• Subtract your age from 100. The resulting number is the percentage of your investments you should hold in stocks.
• Invest the remaining amount in bonds and money market funds.

If you’re 70, for example, keep 30 percent of your portfolio in stocks, including mutual funds and ETFs, and the remaining 70 percent in bonds.

Does this rule provide enough growth to keep a portfolio going strong? Experts disagree. Writes CNN Money:

[W]ith Americans living longer and longer, many financial planners are now recommending that the rule should be closer to 110 or 120 minus your age. That’s because if you need to make your money last longer, you’ll need the extra growth that stocks can provide.

Take a look at the results of various asset allocations at Vanguard’s portfolio allocation models. These illustrate the performance of various stock-bond mixes since 1926.

6. But don’t neglect growth

The other end of the retirement seesaw is the need to grow your nest egg, at least a little.

Unless you have so much money that you don’t need to worry about inflation, you’ll need some growth investments. Usually, that means stocks and stock market mutual funds and ETFs. Learn more about growth investing here: How to Get Into the Stock Market — Safely.

How much of your portfolio to devote to growth? Again, there is no single approach. Travis Sollinger, director of financial planning at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, tells US News’ Kira Brecht that he advises retirees to allocate 60 percent of their portfolio to stocks and 40 percent to bonds because “your years in retirement will still be significant.”

“If you have a well-diversified portfolio with heavy equity exposure, you should see annual returns of 6 percent, 7 percent or more,” Sollinger says.

7. Plan for required minimum distributions

After age 70 1/2 the Internal Revenue Services requires savers to begin taking minimum annual withdrawals from IRAs, 401(k)s, and other non-taxable accounts into which you contributed funds before taxes. The IRS requires you to pay tax on the income.

(Note: The rules, penalties, and taxes on withdrawals from Roth IRAs are different from regular IRAs and 401(k)s. Be sure to check the specifics of your Roth account.)

These minimum withdrawal amounts are calculated by the IRS based on life expectancy and account balances. The IRS rules are specific and inflexible about how much to withdraw and when. Ignore them, and you could face stiff IRS penalties. For example, if you were supposed to withdraw $4,000 and didn’t, you could owe a $2,000 penalty, writes the New York Times.

Here’s an IRS worksheet that shows when to make withdrawals and how much to withdraw.

8. Keep a lid on spending

Financial discipline is crucial if you are to outlive your money. Take an unsentimental look at your spending, decide how much to withdraw annually from savings and investments, and stick to that plan through bad times and good.

9. Get help now and then

When you manage your own money it’s a good idea to pay an expert for an independent review at least occasionally. Bengen, who came up with the 4 percent rule, tells The New York Times that even he uses financial advisers:

“Go to a qualified adviser and sit down and pay for that,” he said. “You are planning for a long period of time. If you make an error early in the process, you may not recover.”

Hire a Certified Financial Planner who works on a flat hourly rate to review your retirement plan, income, and expenses. A CFP adviser must put your financial well-being ahead of their own.

Money Talks News founder Stacy Johnson discusses when and how to find a trustworthy financial adviser. Consumer Reports tells how to shop for a financial adviser and what their credentials mean.

10. Rebalance your portfolio yearly

You’ve decided what proportion of your investments to allocate to various types of investments but, over time, your investments perform differently, throwing off your original allocation. Once a year you’ll need to adjust, or “rebalance,” your portfolio to restore it to your original allocation choices.

11. Consider other sources of income

Stocks and bonds are not your only investment choices in retirement. Two other possibilities are longevity insurance and annuities.

AARP financial writer Jean Chatzky says that longevity insurance starts payouts when you reach a specified age — 85, for example:

Say at age 60 you buy a $50,000 policy from MetLife. If you live to 85, you’ll start receiving annual payouts of $15,862 if you’re a man, $15,511 if you’re a woman.

No doubt you’ve heard of annuities, which are financial contracts sold by insurance companies. There are several annuity types, as explained in this piece by Stacy: Ask Stacy: Should I buy an Annuity for Retirement Income?

“As with all investments, the more a salesman is trying to jam something down your throat, the more cautious you should be,” Stacy says. If you are considering an annuity, get expert advice, and not from a salesperson but from an accredited financial adviser who charges a flat hourly fee. 

Source: http://www.moneytalksnews.com/11-pointers-investing-your-60s-and-beyond/?all=1

The 3 Key Retirement Numbers You Need To Know

Retirement

Retirement means different things to each of us. As you consider your vision for retirement, there are three key numbers to keep in mind; you’ll want to discuss them with your financial adviser if you have one:

Your Withdrawal Rate

This could be your most important retirement number. Your withdrawal rate is the amount you will be taking out of your investment portfolio each year.

Nothing has a bigger impact on your retirement strategy than this number since it can help determine how sustainable your retirement strategy will be. If you choose a number that’s too high, you may run out of money; if the number is too low, it could mean you are being unnecessarily frugal and not living the life you want.

So what withdrawal rate makes sense for you? The answer is: it depends.

As you consider what makes sense for you, start with these questions: How many years will you spend in retirement? Can you be flexible with your withdrawals and not automatically increase your spending each year if you don’t need to? Can you cut back on years of negative investment performance?

For example, we believe a 4% withdrawal rate may be a good starting point, but this assumes a 25-year retirement and the ability to be flexible with your spending if needed. In reality, your personal withdrawal rate will probably differ based on a number of different variables such as your age, how long you expect retirement to last, your asset allocation, and your spending habits, among other things.

Additionally, this rate isn’t something you set and forget — it should be reviewed each year.

The more years you plan on spending in retirement and the less expense-flexibility you have, the more conservative your withdrawal rate should be. This leads us to the second number:

Your Reliance Rate

Your reliance rate is simply the percent of your retirement income coming from your investments. While your withdrawal rate helps determine the sustainability of your retirement strategy, your reliance rate helps measure the sensitivity of your retirement strategy.

For example, say you’ll need $50,000 a year in retirement. If $40,000 will be coming from your portfolio and $10,000 will come from outside sources, your reliance rate is 80%.

As your reliance rate increases, so does your sensitivity to market fluctuations. Regardless of their withdrawal rate, people who rely on their portfolios for 80 percent of their income are probably more sensitive to market declines than people who rely on their portfolios for only 20 percent.

A higher reliance rate means that market declines may have a greater effect on your strategy unless you can be flexible in your spending and maintain a lower portfolio withdrawal rate.

If you are relying on your portfolio for the majority of your income, ask yourself some questions: How flexible are you with your spending? Can you spend less, if necessary, during the inevitable short-term market declines? Also, can you consider other options to increase your income from outside sources? If you can, this could not only reduce your reliance rate, but also the withdrawal rate from your portfolio over the long-term.

And this leads to the third key retirement number:

Your Age for Claiming Social Security

A full discussion of your Social Security options is beyond the scope of this article, but it’s important to understand that your Social Security benefit is an incredibly valuable retirement asset. The decision about when to take Social Security not only affects the amount of your benefit but also your spouse’s potential survivor benefit.

You can start taking it as early as 62 or wait as long as age 70. The more you delay receiving the money, the bigger your benefit will be.

Since your Social Security benefit is unaffected by market performance, it can be the foundation of your retirement income strategy. But it shouldn’t be considered in isolation.

So before you decide when to take Social Security, be sure you evaluate all your options and their effect on your retirement strategy.

Together, these numbers can be used to help ensure that you are better positioned to achieve your vision for retirement.  It’s also important to remember they will probably change over time, so be sure to revisit them so you can stay on track.

By addressing these numbers, you can turn your focus to a more important one —  the number of things you want to accomplish in retirement.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2015/03/13/the-3-key-retirement-numbers-you-need-to-know/

How to Not Out-Live Your Retirement Savings

Retirement

One of the biggest fears that many current retirees have is that they might outlive their retirement savings. That can be a particularly difficult problem because once you’re retired there’s not much you can do about it. But if you’re planning for your retirement, there’s a lot you can do about a right now.

Here are five ways to not outlive your retirement savings:

1) Delay Retirement

This is something virtually anyone can do, as long as you are in good health. Actually, there is nothing sacrosanct about age 65 as the preferred age of retirement. The Social Security Administration is now in the process of forcing full retirement to gradually move up to age 67, for those born in 1960 or later.

But if you are concerned about outliving your retirement savings, you can delay the date of your retirement for virtually as long as you are able to work. And considering that people today are living longer, and are generally healthier than they were 50 years ago, delaying makes abundant sense.

If you can delay retirement until age 70, you’ll reduce the number of years that you will live in retirement by five (with the assumption of 65 being a normal retirement age). For example, let’s say that for planning purposes you expect that you will live to be 90. If you retire at 65, you’ll need to provide for 25 years in retirement. But if you delay until you turn 70, you’ll cut that down to just 20 years. The difference in required financial resources will be substantial.

There is another benefit to delaying retirement at least until age 70. Social Security will increase your monthly benefit by 8% for each year that you delay retiring past your normal retirement age. If normal retirement for you is 67, and you delay collecting benefits until 70, your monthly benefit will be 24% over what it would be if you retire at 67. (There is no benefit to delaying past age 70, as Social Security will no longer increase your monthly benefit beyond that age.)

2) Work Part-Time For as Long as You Can

This can be a halfway option, that will enable you to delay retirement out-right. Instead of delaying full retirement to, say age 70, you can instead spend the first few years of your retirement working part-time. Under that scenario, you’ll be trading full-retirement for semi-retirement. And the fact that you will be relying less on investment income will help you to preserve those assets for the time in your life when you’re not able to work at all.

This can work for people on a lot of fronts too. You may not be quite ready to fully retire at age 65 or 67, and working at least on a part-time basis – or starting your own part-time business – could help you to ease into the transition of finally living the work-free life.

3) Set Up a Roth IRA and Save It For…Later

We’re hearing a lot these days about the many benefits of the Roth IRA. These plans are something of a supercharged retirement plan because they enable you to withdraw money from the plan tax-free, as long as you are at least 59 ½ when you begin taking distributions, and you have been in the plan for at least five years.

Other tax-sheltered retirement plans require that you begin paying taxes on any money that you withdraw from the plan. Unlike the Roth IRA, these plans are merely tax-deferred, and not tax-free.

But Roth IRAs have another advantage over ordinary retirement plans, one that makes them particularly suitable as investment vehicles to keep you from outliving your retirement savings. Roth IRAs do not require you to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) when you turn 70 ½. Virtually every other retirement plan requires that you take RMDs as soon as you reach that age. That will virtually guarantee that other plans will eventually be depleted.

This is not true with the Roth IRA. Since there is no requirement to take RMD’s, you could allow the money in the account to continue to earn investment income and to grow until the time comes when you need funds. This can enable you to live out of other retirement accounts, while you hold your Roth IRA funds until you actually need the money. Even if you exhaust other plans, you can still have your Roth IRA growing for the day when you need the money. You can delay withdrawing your Roth IRA funds until you’re 75, or 80, or whatever age you decide you need to.

4) Live on Non-Retirement Savings For as Long as You Can

If the idea of delaying retirement, or working part-time for the first few years, don’t interest you, you could also consider living on non-retirement savings for the first few years. This will enable you to delay tapping retirement savings for several years. During that time, the plans can continue to grow, so that you will have more money available in them when you finally do begin taking distributions.

As an example, let’s say that you begin taking Social Security benefits at age 65. You also have $100,000 in non-retirement assets – savings, CDs, money market funds, stocks, mutual funds, etc. Rather than beginning to draw funds out of your retirement accounts at age 65, you instead withdrawal $20,000 per year from your non-retirement holdings for the first five years. That will allow your tax-sheltered retirement plans to continue growing for an extra five years.

Perhaps equally significant is the fact that your non-retirement assets can be withdrawn without creating an income tax liability.

5) Keep Your Cost of Living to an Absolute Minimum

This has to be a strategy if you are at all concerned over the prospect of outliving your retirement savings. There is nothing at all exotic about this strategy either. The less money you need to live on, the less you’ll need to withdraw from your retirement savings, and the longer they will last.

This involves keeping your basic living expenses as low as possible. That can mean trading down to a less expensive home, driving a modest car, and avoiding expensive entertainment hobbies. Even more fundamentally however is that you should make sure that you are completely out of debt. That means everything – credit cards, car loans, installment loans of all types, and yes, even your mortgage. The less money you owe, the lower your cost of living will be, and the longer your retirement savings will last.

Do you ever worry about outliving your retirement savings?

Source: http://moneysmartlife.com/how-to-not-out-live-your-retirement-savings/

10 Things to Do Before You Retire

Time to Retire

Here's What to Do Now if Retirement Is on Your Horizon

1. Decide how you are going to spend your time. What are you going to do during the first six to 12 months in retirement, and what do you plan to do for the rest of your retired life?
2. Determine (realistically) how much money you will spend each month. Remember to include periodic expenditures such as gifts, vacations, taxes, an occasional new car, and emergencies.
3. Anticipate the cost of health care. You’ll have no employer to pay this for you; Medicare, Medigap, and private insurance are all up to you.
4. Buy long-term care insurance. Now.
5. Refinance your mortgage. Many people are shocked to discover that they either cannot borrow money after they retire, or they are forced to pay higher rates.
6. Boost your cash reserves. Make sure your rainy day fund is enough to cover at least six months’ worth of expenses.
7. Evaluate your sources of income. You have already figured out what you’ll spend on a monthly basis. Now figure out where that money will come from.
8. Revise your investment strategy. The way you’ve handled your investments over the past 30 years is not how you should handle them for the next 30. While preparing for retirement, you were focused on asset accumulation. When you’re in retirement, you need to focus on income and on keeping pace with the increasing cost of living. Assets must be flexible and liquid so you can meet the needs you did not anticipate. New words will enter your vocabulary: rollovers and lump sums.
9. Review your estate plan. Review your will and trust. Don’t have them? Get them. These documents can protect you and your assets while you are alive and benefit your spouse and children when you pass on.
10. Perhaps the most important thing of all. If you are not excited about retiring, then don’t. Many people quickly become bored after retiring. It’s OK -- even exciting -- to return to school or the workplace. Many do this, often in completely new fields.

7 Ways to Retire with Financial Freedom

7 Ways to Retire with Financial Freedom

You are now able to live longer than before because of better health care. It means you need to have more money to spend and cover inflation as well. According to data compiled by the Social Security Administration:

A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 83.

A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 85.

And those are just averages. About one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past age 90, and one out of 10 will live past age 95.

Here are seven wise things to do for those who are about to retire:

1.      Be debt-free: The biggest enemy of financial freedom is debt because you are going to pay more than what you have actually incurred. The longer you delay, the more interest will be added to the outstanding amount and it will be more difficult to clear as the amount grows bigger over time. 

2.      Continue to work and earn: If you enjoy what you do, it would be prudent for you to continue working. When you work, there is a source of regular income and you and your employer will continue to contribute towards your retirement fund. Another point is that you are not touching your retirement fund and it continues to grow.  The longer you work your retirement years will be shortened and the less money you will need.     

3.      Focus on sources of passive income: It is a smart move to build a constant stream of regular income during retirement. One such source is shared which is making regular dividend payments. When one regular source of income stops, another one takes over.     

4.      Build new sources of income during retirement: Another wise move is to start a second career during your retirement. What is your expertise? Can people pay you for your services? While you can continue to earn during your retirement, it is more important to keep your mind active and alert. 

5.      Spend less: You will never know how long you are going to live. It is prudent to adopt a frugal lifestyle so as to last your retirement fund as long as possible.

6.     Save as much as you can: Save your bonuses if any. Don’t spend your tax refund check. The more you save, the bigger will be your nest egg.

7.      An emergency fund:  It is also good to set aside an amount to cover unexpected expenses such as a major car repair or illnesses. Such expenses, more likely than not, are excluded from your retirement fund.   

Take action now and enjoy financial freedom later.

Source:http://www.allaboutlivingwithlife.blogspot.com/2012/10/7-ways-to-retire-with-financial-freedom.html

7 Advantages to Continue Working When You Retire

According to an article, As First Baby, Boomers Retire, Many Facing Personal Finance Disasters, more than 10,000 baby boomers a day have turned 65 since January 2011, a pattern that will continue for the next 19 years. However, 60% of baby boomers don’t have enough for retirement. What can you do to fortify your financial independence and make ends meet? The only viable solution is to continue working. There are several benefits when you delay your retirement:

1. Work longer, less time to retire: When you continue to work, you trade off your retirement years. It means you will need less money to spend when you finally retire. 

2. A Source of income: There is a source of income when you work. It means you can continue to live the usual lifestyle without dipping into your retirement fund.

3. More savings: When you work, part of your income will go to save as budgeted. The longer you work, the more you will save and the more interest you will be able to earn and accumulate. This will be a new source of a fund when you do retire. 

4. Less retirement fund is required: Since you have shortened your retirement years, you will need fewer funds for your retirement and you also have additional funds to cushion future inflation. 

5. Meaningful life: Work gives you meaning in life when you enjoy what you do. You are confident of yourself and look at life with a brighter perspective.

6. Happiness: You feel good about yourself because you are leading a useful life and at the same time you are self-supporting. 

7. Better health: A change in lifestyle may be bad for your health. There will be emptiness if you do not fill your time with useful things to do. When you work, your mind is working and alert. More likely than not, your working life will be good for your health mentally and physically. 

It is a blessing when you have reached your retirement age and you still can hold on to a job that you like and enjoy because the unemployment rate in America is still very high today at 9.2 in June 2011

Source: http://www.allaboutlivingwithlife.blogspot.com/2011/07/7-advantages-to-continue-working-when.html

Top Rules of Thumb For Retirement Savings

Saving for retirement

Saving for retirement can be intimidating. There are so many different plans to choose from, different investment companies to manage your plan, restrictions on who can contribute and how much, tax rules to follow, and paperwork to keep track of – not to mention investment decisions to make after you’ve gotten your plan set up. The best way to handle this complex but essential process is to break it down into small, manageable steps. With that in mind, here are the most important rules of thumb to follow when saving for retirement.

1. Start Saving Now

Ideally, you would have started saving for retirement the moment you started earning income, which for many of us was at 16 when we got that after-school job at the mall or the movie theatre or the sandwich shop. In reality, you probably needed the money for short-term expenses, like the payment on the car that got you to your job, nights out with friends, and college textbooks. It probably didn’t make sense, or even occur to you, to start saving for retirement until you got your first full-time job, had kids, celebrated a milestone birthday, or experienced some other defining event that got you thinking hard about your future. No matter what your age today, don’t lament the years you didn’t spend saving. Just start saving for retirement now. The sooner you start, the less you have to contribute each year to reach your savings goal.

2. Save 15% of Your Income 

A good rule of thumb for the percentage of your income you should save is 15%. That’s after taxes and before any matching contribution from your employer. If you can’t afford to save 15% right now, that’s OK. Saving even 1% is better than nothing. Each year when you file your taxes, you can reevaluate your financial situation and consider increasing your contribution. If you’re older and haven’t been saving throughout your working life, you have some catching up to do, and you should aim to save 20% to 25% of your income for retirement if you can. But if that’s not realistic, don’t let an all-or-nothing attitude defeat you. Just getting into the habit of saving and investing, no matter how small the amount, is a step in the right direction. See Retirement: What Percentage of Salary To Save? for detailed advice on saving.

3. Choose Low-Cost Investments

 Over the long run, one of the biggest factors in how large your nest egg becomes is the investment expenses you pay. The most common investment costs are the expense ratios charged by mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, and the commissions for buying and selling. The expense ratio is an annual percentage fee you’ll pay for as long as you hold the fund. If you have $10,000 invested in a fund whose expense ratio is 1%, your fee is $100 a year. You can find a fund’s expense ratio at an investment research website like Morningstar or on the website of any company that sells the fund. When choosing a fund, the rule of thumb to follow is the closer the expense ratio is to 0%, the better. That being said, it’s reasonable to pay closer to 1% for certain types of funds, like international funds or small-cap funds. There are two simple ways to minimize commissions. One is selecting commission-free investments. If you buy a Vanguard index fund directly through your Vanguard account or a Fidelity mutual fund directly through your Fidelity account, you probably won’t pay a commission. The other is buying and holding investments instead of making frequent trades – another good retirement strategy we’ll address momentarily. Get the lowdown on index funds and read our mutual fund tutorial if you don’t know anything about these popular investments.

 4. Don’t Put Money in Something You Don’t Understand

 If the only investment you currently understand is a savings account, park your money there while you learn about slightly more sophisticated investments like index funds and exchange-traded funds, which are the only investments most people need to understand to build a solid retirement portfolio. Don’t ever let salespeople or advisers talk you into buying something you don’t understand. They might have your best interests in mind, but they might just be trying to sell you an investment that will earn them a commission. Until you educate yourself about the different investment options, you’ll have no way of knowing. Even putting your money in a relatively simple investment like bonds can backfire if you don’t understand how bonds work. Why? Because you might make irrational, emotion-based buy-and-sell decisions based on what you hear and read in the news about how the markets are performing short term, not based on your bonds’ long-term value.

 5. Buy and Hold 

 Adopting a buy and hold investment strategy means that even if you choose investments that charge a commission, you won’t pay commissions very often. This rule of thumb also means that you won’t let your emotions dictate your investment decisions. When people follow their emotions, they tend to buy high and sell low. They hear how high a stock has gotten, and they want in because it seems like a great investment – and it is if you’ve already been holding it for years. Or, when the economy slides into a recession, people panic about how far the Dow has fallen and dumped their S&P 500 index fund at the worst possible time. Numerous studies have shown that you’re better off keeping your money in the market even during the worst of downturns. Over the long run, you’ll come out far ahead by leaving your portfolio alone through the market’s ups and downs compared to people who are always reacting to the news or trying to time the market.

 The Bottom Line 

 While there’s a lot to learn about saving for retirement, understanding how to save and invest your money is one of the most important skills you’ll ever develop. It means leveraging all the hours of research you’re doing today into years of leisure time in the future. It also means being able to take care of yourself without having to depend on another source that might not be able to provide for you, whether that’s the Social Security system or your children. Keep in mind these top five rules of thumb for saving for retirement and you’ll be well on your way to a financially comfortable future.

Source:http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/112814/top-rules-thumb-retirement-savings.asp