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Smart Ways for Seniors to Tap Home Equity
Tweet Share on Facebook February 29, 2012 CommentHome equity is a major financial asset for older homeowners, and the only sizable asset for many of them. With home prices continuing a five-year plunge, many seniors have growing concerns about what to do about not only their homes, but their overall retirement plans. A new website set up by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) is designed to deal with these issues.
[See 10 Ways Your Home Can Pay You Money.]
"For many middle-income families, home equity is their most valuable asset," says Barbara Stucki, vice president for home equity at NCOA. Home Equity Advisor is the name of the group's new initiative. Stucki says it's designed to centralize the extensive information, expert advice, and decision-making tools that will help consumers make informed choices about their homes.
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3 Reasons to Consider Medical Tourism
Tweet Share on Facebook February 28, 2012 Comment (2)Medical tourism has been promoted as an inexpensive and even enjoyable way to see the world while getting high-quality cosmetic and elective surgeries for pennies on the dollar, compared with U.S. healthcare costs.
Despite that rosy outlook, however, most Americans are just not interested in leaving the country for their healthcare needs.
[In Pictures: The 10 Best Places to Retire in 2012]
The underlying conditions needed to support medical tourism are largely being met, experts say. The quality and depth of foreign medical facilities has continued to improve. Costs are still a bargain for many procedures, and medical tourism travel brokers have become better at putting together the packages needed for a successful experience.
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Technology Still a Big Disconnect for Older Americans
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2012 Comment (1)Older Americans and particularly those over 85—sometimes called "the old old"—are not participating in the online revolution. There are rosy predictions for how easy-to-use technology will help them. Tablet computers require little technical skills. Digital assistants can be accessed by voice commands and respond to plain spoken English. Tools for people with hearing and vision impairments are proliferating. However, there is next to no evidence that these efforts have made a material impact.
[See 10 Things States Are Doing to Make Senior-Friendly Communities.]
About 4 in 10 people who are 65 or older use the Internet, according to the Pew Research Center. That's sharply less than younger age groups. Among boomers ages 50 to 64, for example, 74 percent use the Internet, and the percentages flirt with 100 when it comes to young Americans as well as households making more than $100,000 a year.
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Health: The Biggest Determinant of Your Retirement Security
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2012 CommentBeing healthy may give you enormous financial advantages as well as provide physical and longevity benefits. In a recent study that tracked the retirements of older Americans up until the time they died, health differences emerged as a significant determinant of retirement success.
[See The 10 Best Places to Retire in 2012.]
"A substantial fraction of persons die with virtually no financial assets—46.1 percent with less than $10,000," said the study, "Were they Prepared for Retirement," by economists James Poterba, Steven Venti, and David Wise. "Many of these households also have no housing wealth and rely almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support."
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9 Key Ages for Retirement Money Decisions
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2012 Comment (1)The idea of retiring at 65 seems almost quaint these days. Even before the recession, rising numbers of people were working past their 65th birthdays, and this trend has accelerated during these past few years. For many, retirement is a forever-retreating goal. For others, moving to part-time work as part of an incremental retirement strategy makes sense.
[See 10 Steps to Fine-Tune Your Retirement Plan.]
Whatever your retirement prospects look like, there are many dates besides the day you stop working that can influence your decision. Here are different age milestones that might affect your retirement decisions.
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Longevity Is for the Young, Too
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2012 CommentLongevity has been one of the great success stories of the past few decades. Miracle drugs, better healthcare, and improved lifestyles have combined to add many years to average life spans. For people who take good care of themselves and do not have adverse family health histories, living well into their 90s is held out as the norm, not the exception.
[In Pictures: The 10 Best Places to Retire in 2012.]
Some of the attention on longevity has been precautionary. The financial services industry, for example, has been beating the drum to raise concerns that people will live so long that they will risk running out of money before they die. Of course, investment firms are more than happy to help people map out better retirement programs.
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Near-Zero Interest Rates Challenge Old Bond Portfolio Rules
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2012 CommentWith the Federal Reserve publicly committed to keeping short-term interest rates near zero until the end of 2014, investment advisers are scrambling to find sources of retirement income for older clients. In the process, some long-held views about the appropriate types of bonds in retirement portfolios are being challenged.
[See 10 Ways to Give Your Money a Makeover.]
"As those of us in the trenches craft portfolios for our clients who require income, many traditional asset allocation models no longer provide the stable income needed," says Lynn Ballou, whose Lafayette, Calif., firm advises clients in the Bay Area. The Fed's policy is understandable, she says, but "frustrating" for clients in and near retirement.
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How Spending Priorities Change as We Age
Tweet Share on Facebook February 15, 2012 Comment (2)Household spending declines at a steady pace among retirees, according to a new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Beginning with spending levels at age 65, the study said, "household expenditure falls by 19 percent by age 75, 34 percent by age 85, and 52 percent by age 95."
[See Do You Face 'Money Death' in Old Age?]
Actual spending patterns of older Americans differ substantially from the advice often given to retirees that they should expect to spend 75 percent to 80 percent of their preretirement spending after they've stopped working.
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10 Smart Money Tips for 2012
Tweet Share on Facebook February 14, 2012 CommentWe've already become savvier consumers and cut back on spending. So, if there's a dominant consumer theme in 2012, it will be to look for small savings, particularly in charges and fees that are often hidden. Transparency should be your friend. Here's a checklist of 10 things you should do to make better use of your money.
[See 10 Steps to Fine-Tune Your Retirement Plan.]
Know what you spend. Do you really know where your money goes? Spending patterns often can get hardwired into our behavior. Vendors like it that way because it's easier for them when you just fork over the money every month without thinking about it. But you should be thinking about how your money is spent and, in particular, where you can spend less of it.
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5 Reasons It's OK to Feel Good About the Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook February 13, 2012 CommentThose millions of lost jobs are not coming back soon. And forget about higher home values allowing 11 million underwater mortgages to resurface. But Americans are nothing if not optimists. And there certainly seems to be a sense of rising hope that the economy just may have finally turned a corner, if not the corner.
[See 10 Steps to Fine-Tune Your Retirement Plan.]
It often appears hard to find anyone happy these days about life in the United States. Folks with a lot of money are portrayed as being preoccupied with fears of higher taxes. Folks without a lot of money are portrayed as permanent picket-line members trying to occupy a downtown or political rally.
