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4 Ways to Boost Your Retirement Nest Egg
Tweet Share on Facebook February 29, 2012 Comment (1)Numerous studies have found that, on average, we haven't saved enough money for our golden years. But how exactly should we go about building a bigger nest egg? Some people increase their investment risks in an effort to get higher returns. But, as we all learned during the recession, choosing more risky investments is not exactly smooth sailing to prosperity. Here are four alternative ways to increase your nest egg:
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10 Tips for Renovating Property in a Foreign Country
Tweet Share on Facebook February 28, 2012 CommentDo you harbor a dream of acquiring a labor of love in some romantic corner of the globe? Perhaps you could find a charming, old, and historic home in need of a face lift. I sympathize.
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Can Baby Boomers Cope with Retirement Realities?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2012 Comment (1)The tsunami of baby boomers rolling into retirement age will continue for the next twenty years, with approximately 10,000 people daily reaching the age of 65. The journey into the retirement years can be surprisingly emotional. Most baby boomers realize they will soon be forced to confront their retirement preparedness. They will also find out if they are mentally ready to retire.
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A Plan to Prevent Professional Athletes (and You) from Going Broke
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2012 Comment (3)Allen Iverson was once the most famous basketball player in the NBA. According to one report, he earned a salary of $154 million during his playing days. Now he may be broke. The same report indicated a judge in Georgia ordered him to pay $860,000 to a jeweler. He didn’t have the cash, so the Court ordered his bank accounts frozen and his earnings garnished.
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Health Insurance Options for Early Retirees
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2012 Comment (2)One of my biggest worries about early retirement is health care. The cost of health care keeps increasing every year, and it is outpacing inflation by a wide margin. Sometimes I wonder if my investments can keep up with rising health care costs. This is a big problem for early retirees because we won’t qualify for Medicare until age 65. If you retire before then, medical insurance can be very expensive and difficult to find. Here are some options for those of us who dream of early retirement:
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Retirement Gotchas Experts Rarely Talk About
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2012 Comment (1)Retirement planning is full of rules of thumb. The 4 percent rule can help you to decide how much to withdraw from your retirement savings each year, and aiming to replace a certain percentage of your pre-retirement income can give you a rough idea of how much to save. However, this well-intentioned advice sometimes gets slowly twisted into something else that does more harm than good. Here are some ways following expert advice can actually harm your financial future.
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6 Ways to Save on Vacations
Tweet Share on Facebook February 21, 2012 CommentNo one has to tell you that traveling is expensive. And it often seems more so, because much of the traveling we do is optional.
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Budgeting for Housing When Retiring Overseas
Tweet Share on Facebook February 21, 2012 CommentBefore you consider where in the world you would like to spend your retirement years, you need to figure your retirement income. This is the total amount you could have available to fund your retirement overseas including pension, Social Security, and investment income and the proceeds you would realize if you liquidated all your assets. This amount will determine where you are able to comfortably retire.
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Why Older Workers are Better Workers
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2012 Comment (2)At a time when high unemployment numbers constantly make the headlines, companies can be selective about whom they want to hire. Older workers generally don’t make the top of lists of potential job candidates for a variety of reasons, some real and some imagined. But with 10,000 baby boomers reaching the age of 65 each day for the next twenty years, hiring companies would do well to re-evaluate this untapped pool of labor, especially once our economy finally gets back on track.
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Invest With the Silent Minority
Tweet Share on Facebook February 16, 2012 CommentA routine report from Morningstar contains some great advice for investors, if you know how to interpret it. The report notes that passively managed funds (basically index funds) had a net inflow of more than $76 billion in 2011. In stark contrast, actively managed funds, where highly paid fund managers attempt to beat the returns of a designated benchmark, had net outflows of $9.4 billion.
