Financial Planning

4 Retirement Myths That You Need To Know

Financial Planning, Retirement

Retirement planning is hard enough, but disinformation will get you sidetracked from your goal. You’ll need to know what’s not true before you start planning. There is a lot of fake news in the retirement saving world. The truth is, President Trump, Wall Street and GOP allies are making retirement planning more difficult. They are torching investor protection rules found in the Dodd-Frank Act and cutting state offerings for small business retirement plans. And that’s just what’s been happening in the firs

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Americans Focused on Short-Term Risks When It Comes to Retirement Planning

Behavioral Finance, Financial Planning, Retirement

SAN MATEO, Calif., June 05, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Americans are almost equally as concerned about short-term market volatility (47 percent) as they are about not achieving their long-term retirement investment goals (53 percent)

Read the entire article: Americans Focused on Short-Term Risks When It Comes to Retirement Planning, Franklin Templeton Investments Survey Finds – NASDAQ.com

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Pass On Your Assets Wisely: How To Choose The Right Beneficiaries

Financial Planning, Lifestyle

I’m often asked by clients about who should be named as beneficiaries on their IRAs versus their retirement plans and other assets. This article provides a starting point. I have more detailed information if you wish… just ask. -Jeff

When you pass away, what you leave to your loved ones is important, but so is how you leave those assets. Determining the right assets to leave to different beneficiaries is an absolutely critical part of effective estate planning.

Read the entire article: Pass On Your Assets Wisely: How To Choose The Right Beneficiaries

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Making the case for the reverse mortgage as a retirement planning option | Financial Post

Financial Planning, Retirement

I may be in the minority, but I think that considering a reverse mortgage can, in certain instances, be a viable financial planning alternative scenario. -Jeff

It’s a problem — home-owning seniors retiring with reduced income but healthy levels of consumer and mortgage debt — that seems to contain its own solution.The solution: consider the house as an asset like the others and use it as a way of managing your financial affairs, a move that could make for a more carefree retirement.

Read the entire article: Making the case for the reverse mortgage as a retirement planning option | Financial Post

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How Much Income Will You Need For Retirement? | KOB.com

Financial Planning, Retirement

Good article and something that reiterates the point that ‘rules of thumb’ are just not appropriate for everyone. -Jeff

The 80% rule is one of the classic rules of thumb for retirement advice. Financial planners often advise that in order to maintain your current lifestyle in retirement, you should aim to replace 80% of your working income from your retirement resources such as Social Security, investment dividends, and IRA withdrawals.

From that point, you gauge the total amount of money that you need based on when you plan to retire, in other words, how many years you are likely to need income?

Read the entire article: How Much Income Will You Need For Retirement? | KOB.com

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What Assets Need to Be Listed for Probate? | LegalZoom

Financial Planning

Whether it is necessary to probate property can depend upon how title to the property is held, or whether there is a designated beneficiary.

An estate probate can be time-consuming and expensive, so arranging proper titling and beneficiary designations can be important.

What Is Probate? Probate is a legal process, whereby a court oversees the management of a deceased person’s property (or assets) to as

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3 Smart Ways to Maximize Your Roth IRA — The Motley Fool

Financial Planning

The Roth IRA is an amazing way to create tax-free retirement savings, and it’s something that, frankly, too few people take advantage of. Since it’s our mission to help people invest better, we asked three of our top retirement planning contributors to discuss smart ways you can maximize your Roth IRA. Depending on your situation, there’s a good chance

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3 mistakes to avoid in your first 3 years of retirement – MarketWatch

Financial Planning, Retirement

When you’ve finally arrived at the stoop of retirement, your next steps are often some of the trickiest. So much time and effort goes into reaching this milestone that what you do next is often ignored. Not intentionally, it just happens.

While the day-to-day of the next stage of your life may be unknown, what not to do is actually quite clear: Don’t invest too conservatively, don’t overspend and don’t neglect your health. Seems like common sense,

Read the entire article: 3 mistakes to avoid in your first 3 years of retirement – MarketWatch

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How to Find Previous 401(k) Accounts — The Motley Fool

Financial Planning, Retirement

There are several ways you can try to locate lost retirement money.

Using an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan can be a great way to save for retirement. The downside of 401(k)s, though, is that they are tied to a specific employer. As a result, when you switch jobs, your 401(k) money won’t automatically switch with you. Rather, in many cases, it will stay in your account. Below, we’ll run through

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The riskiest stock to own? Your employer’s

The riskiest stock to own? Your employer’s

Financial Planning, Retirement

The riskiest stock to own? Your employer’sShortly before Enron collapsed, 62% of employees’ 401(k) assets were invested in Enron. Above, Playboy magazine’s “Women of Enron.” Pension plan consultants, in the wake of a recent Supreme Court case, are telling retirement plan sponsors to reconsider their decision to offer company stock in a 401(k) plan.

You might want to do the very same: Revisit your decision to invest in your company’s stock in your employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Consider: “Defined-contribution plan participants frequently allocate too much of their total retirement portfolio to company stock,” Mark Teborek, a senior consulting analyst with Russell Investments in Chicago, wrote in a recent paper, “Revisiting Company Stock in Defined-contribution Plans.”

In fact, company stock represents on average a whopping 22.5% of defined-contribution assets among plans with more than 5,000 participants, according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s 57th Annual Survey, 2014.And that sort of outsize position in company stock might be considered […]

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Opinion: 7 ways to catch up if you’re behind on retirement savings

Opinion: 7 ways to catch up if you’re behind on retirement savings

Financial Planning, Retirement

Opinion: 7 ways to catch up if you’re behind on retirement savingsMost financial advisers agree: The simplest way to ensure you retire comfortably is to start saving early and let the power of compound interest work for you over time.

But what happens if you’re getting a late start on retirement, or financial troubles in middle age ate into your nest egg and now you’re playing catch-up?

The hard reality is that the vast majority of Americans get a late start on retirement planning. Consider a 2011 study from the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School, which found a staggering 68% of Americans age 25-64 weren’t even participating in an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401(k).

More recently, a 2014 survey from finance website Bankrate.com found more than one-third of Americans don’t have a penny saved for retirement, including more than a quarter of those age 50 to 64.It’s also important to point out that many Americans grossly underestimate […]

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Reading Your Employee Handbook Can Pay Off In A Big Way Before Retirement

Reading Your Employee Handbook Can Pay Off In A Big Way Before Retirement

Financial Planning, Retirement

Reading Your Employee Handbook Can Pay Off In A Big Way Before RetirementThere are a myriad of things that people must consider before they retire. They contemplate whether they will have enough money or not; if they’ll out live those fund; and whether they have their savings allocated correctly to name a few.

But many people don’t think about flipping through their employee handbook before retirement and as a result may be leaving unclaimed time and money on the table.

I was recently talking to a family member at an event and learned he was retiring. After congratulating him, I asked when the big day was and what led to him making the decision.

He was very specific, including both a date and time.“January 31, at 4pm” he said.“Okay, you’ve really got the date and time nailed down don’t you,” I replied… adding, “Any significance to the 4pm?”He laughed, “Yes I was going to retire at the end of the year but after I […]

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Why Inflation Is Lower Than You Think

Financial Planning, Markets

at-painter1Financial pundits routinely claim that inflation is much higher than the reported statistics. We hear, for example, that food prices have risen much faster than the roughly 1.5% increase in the consumer price index (CPI) over the past several years. Viewed over the longer term, however, inflation is far lower than reflected in the published data.

The reason for this anomaly is that the CPI doesn’t reflect the rapid advances in technology and the new products and services that have benefited everyone.

The implications are profound. For example, real GDP growth is greater than has been reported, and some claims of income inequality are misleading.

This theme was the focus of two recent presentations I attended. On October 18, the economist Woody Brock hosted a private gathering of investment professionals from Australia and New Zealand, organized by the Portfolio Construction Forum , at his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. On October 22, Rick […]

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