Archive for the Advice and Guidance Category

If you’re a future retiree, it’s never too early to start thinking about where you’ll live when you retire. Here’s how to get started, in five easy steps.
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If you’ve been talking to a commission-based financial planner about your retirement, then it’s quite likely you’ve been encouraged to purchase a variable annuity. Why? Because these contracts typically generate generous commissions for those who sell them. They are, however, a far-less-than-ideal investment for most future retirees. This article explains what variable annuities are, their advantages and disadvantages, and how to use them, if at all, in your retirement planning.
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If your retirement money is invested with an FDIC-insured bank, then you know that it’s safe (at least up the FDIC limits of $100,000 or $250,000, depending on the type of account). That’s because FDIC is more than just an insurance company. It’s backed by the “full faith and credit” of the Federal government, meaning that in a worst-case scenario, Uncle Sam will step in. And Uncle Sam has the authority to print money.

But what about money that’s invested with a broker, like Charles Schwab or Merrill Lynch? Unlike banks, brokerages are generally members not of FDIC (the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), but of SIPC (the Securities Investor Protection Corporation). The two sound similar and fulfill similar purposes, so they’re pretty much the same thing, right?

Wrong. While we don’t want to encourage panic or fear-mongering, we’d like to point out that SIPC is an entirely different animal than FDIC—and a less robust one, at that.
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Every week, it seems, a new story surfaces about a retiree whose golden years have been ruined by an investment scam. The stories are depressingly similar. They begin with people struggling to make ends meet. Then come telephone sales pitches, free-lunch seminars, friendly but pushy “advisors,” and promises of high returns coupled with absolute safety. The stories inevitably end with huge losses and shattered lives.

Yet you have to invest your retirement nest egg somewhere. And you want to get the best possible return on your investment, both to have enough to live on, and to ensure that it won’t be eaten up by withdrawals and inflation. How can you be sure that an investment “opportunity” isn’t really a scam? Follow these six guidelines
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Only a minority of baby boomers will be able to enjoy a “traditional” retirement. Members of this fortunate group will simply quit working at age 65. Then, by drawing on Social Security, a corporate pension, and their own savings, they’ll be able to maintain a standard of living close to the one they’d enjoyed while working.

A much larger number, lacking significant savings or any income other than Social Security, will face a radically different fate. They’ll be forced to work for many more years, perhaps until they’re physically incapacitated, or will face poverty.

But what of those in the middle? Most boomers will have significant retirement income, but it won’t be enough to maintain their lifestyles. So they’ll have to earn extra money.

Flipping burgers, or repeating the phrase “Welcome to Wal-Mart” a thousand times per day, is neither financially nor personally rewarding. So what are some other options? Here, based on information from the U.S. Department of Labor, are the most promising jobs for boomer semi-retirement, i.e. part-time working.
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