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5 Lies We Tell Ourselves About Retirement Saving

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Lies We Tell Ourselves About Retirement SavingWe all tell ourselves lies from time to time. It makes life easier and we are able to get along with our lives. The problem is when we begin believing these lies and do not do something about the issues. But what about Lies We Tell Ourselves About Retirement Saving? We could find ourselves in serious trouble at some point. We may not achieve the retirement that we have always dreamed about. Our team summarized 5 lies we tell ourselves about retirement savings in an effort to help people identify these issues. they may be able to make the changes they need to make to ensure a comfortable and happy retirement.  If you have dreams like the couple in this picture sitting on a sailboat or some other dream, pay attention and quit telling lies to yourself.

5 Lies We Tell Ourselves About Retirement Saving

I have time to catch up on my savings. This is the biggest one that we all fall into. It is simple math to figure out how much money you need to save each month to achieve the level of savings that you will need in your retirement. Your financial adviser can help with these calculations.  You will need to know how much income you need once you retire. What the sources of the income will be? Some will come from pensions and social security. The remainder needs to be generated from savings. How long will you save? How much can you save each month? What interest rate will you assume and how fast will you take out your money in retirement? Your adviser can help you with these assumptions and do the calculation for you.

I am going to die broke. But what happens if you live longer than you expected and now have to live in poverty? Can you predict when you will die? Even if you do not want to leave money for the kids, you still need to make sure you have sufficient funds to live out your life in comfort.

More Lies We Tell Ourselves

I will not linger. Maybe your parents did not linger, but with better health care, we are all living longer. Sometimes we live in spite of ourselves. When the time comes none of us really want to die.

Investment companies just want our money. Yes they want to make a profit, but they only make money over the long term if their clients are doing well. They get paid and they invest your money wisely. At the same time never blindly hand over your money to an adviser. Diversify your investments and get involved so that you know what is going on.

I will adjust to the income I have – easy to say but sometimes very difficult, especially if you must downsize your lifestyle. When we retire we have more time on our hands and that usually means that we spend more money too. Adjustment can be very difficult.

Website Page Load Speed Matters

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Website Page Load Speed MattersWebsite page load speed matters to your customers. It also matters to the search engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo as well as other lesser-known search engines. First, let’s discuss your customer experience. We will define your customer as anyone who comes to your site looking for information or to place orders. Customers are willing to wait a very short time before they click the back button. Or go to another site. reports indicate that a one-second delay can lead to an 11% drop in page views and lower customer satisfaction by 16%.

It all has to do with customer expectations. In today’s fast-paced world customers are typically looking for a page to load in 2 seconds or less. If a customer is dissatisfied then they are less likely to make a purchase on your site or contact you for more information. If this is not bad enough, then there is the SEO ranking. Your customers may not even be presented with your website in the first place by search engines if your site is viewed to be too slow.

Website Page Load Speed Matters – Search Engines

Search engines like Google use all sorts of indicators to rank a web page. One of them is the speed at which the page or pages load. If yours is not loading fast, then you probably are going to be ranked lower than many others. Your page will be well down on the list of search results. A potential customer will never be presented with your page because of this.

Of course, there are many other factors that could be a factor in the SEO results, however, this seems to be an important one.

This site struggles every day with ways to load our pages faster. It appears to be variable and dependent on many factors including how busy the server is, traffic on the internet, and even the user’s computer. Monitoring your results and ensuring that processes working on your site are kept to a minimum. This helps to ensure that the server can focus on delivering your page is always a good thing to consider.

How to Retire Rich

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How to Retire RichKnowledge is everything and as it turns out it is true when it comes to retirement. Having enough money to meet your goals and objectives during retirement is critical on how to retire rich. One study confirmed that if you could answer questions about interest rates, inflation etc, you stood a much better chance of having enough money to retire.  Most people cannot answer these questions and have to live unknowingly with less money than they should be. It affects their quality of life during retirement which is when we should all be enjoying our lives.

In fact over your working life you could end up with 25% more savings if you understand and can answer the following three questions.

How to retire rich – Three Important Questions

  1. Interest Rate: Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow? Answer choices: More than $110, Exactly $110, Less than $110.

The answer is More than $110, assuming that you reinvested the interest income each year. At the end of the first year you would have $102. At the end of the second year you would have $104.04 An additional four cents is not much in this example, but it adds up quickly when you are talking thousands of dollars.

  1. Inflation: Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account? Answer choices: More than today, Exactly the same, Less than today.)

The answer is less than today. Your savings account would have $101 dollars in it at the end of the year. With two percent inflation your original $100 would only purchase $98, add your $1 income and you have a total of $99 in purchasing power at the end of the year. If you had to pay income tax on this income, then you will have even less to spend.

  1. Risk: Is this statement True or False? Buying a single company’s stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.

Diversity is incredibly important to avoid losing everything when you invest on one company and it goes bankrupt. Mutual funds go up and down. But at least you are protected because you are invested in many companies in stocks and bonds as well as cash. Remember that regardless of how you invest, spread your investments across good quality mutual funds or stocks.

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Moving Content to a New Domain

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Moving Content to a New DomainIn our last post, we discussed moving content to a new host. This post will focus on moving content to a new domain. Before you take this significant step we encourage readers to evaluate this step carefully and plan the transfer. Regardless of what you do, your traffic stats may suffer and you may lose some revenue as a result. Once you have decided to change domains, plan it around a low-traffic period or time frame to minimize the impact of the overall move. There are steps that can be taken to minimize the overall impact, although often the reason to move content to new domains is usually that the content is old and not generating the kind of traffic you are looking for.

Moving Content to a New Domain

The first step is to set up the new domain. Point it to a hosting address that you have configured with a content management system such as WordPress.  You will have added the appropriate theme you want to use. Also, configure the widgets that you plan to use on the new site. Test your new site to ensure that it is working in the manner you wish. Create one or two posts and pages before submitting them to google and others for indexing.

Next, evaluate your old content. Anything that is out of date or poor quality you should either rewrite or eliminate before the transfer. You may also want to eliminate content that is not generating the amount of traffic that you are looking for. Once this step is completed, it is time to export all of your content into a file. Import the material into the new content management system attached to the new domain. Make sure you include all images and videos as well as part of the export or via a separate manual transfer.

Once the content is imported, test every link, every page, and every post. You may have to implement 301,302 or 404 redirects to make sure that the search engines can find the new location for the content.

Alternately submit your sitemaps to Google etc and patiently wait until the content is fully indexed in its new home.

Moving Content to a New Host

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Moving Content to a New HostThere are a variety of business reasons to consider moving content to a new host. These can include better response times, better service, lower prices, consolidating content on one host, etc. It can be a lot of work and also problematic if not completed properly. It is also much easier if you are using a content management system such as WordPress as depicted in the diagram to the left.  Either way, planning is key to the success and operation of your website on the new host. We will cover some of the broad steps required in moving content to a new host in the following paragraphs.

Moving Content to a New Host

The first step is to prepare your new host location. Once you have been provided with a new address for the host, set your directories. You can then install your content management system. Host providers such as Godaddy will provide automated installation and setup processes. These processes make it easy for installing many of these content management systems including WordPress.

Next, configure WordPress on the new host to duplicate your existing one. Add all the appropriate widgets and adjust the settings as needed. Add your theme and any other custom changes that you may have added. This may include Google Adsense in your widgets for example or other forms of advertising that you may have on your site.

In the next step, you will want to go to your old site and export all of the posts, pages, images, and videos that you have on your site. If there is other content of some kind that is not captured by the export using your content management system, you will need to transfer this content manually. Usually, this is done by transferring to your local computer and then to the new host. Now that you have exported the content and transferred it to the new host you are ready for the next step.

Go to your domain management system and repoint your domain from the old host to the new host address. You can get the information needed from your new host management system. While entering the data will be immediate, it can take up to 24 hours before the systems, routers, etc have propagated the new address and start to point to the new host from the old host.

Import Your Data

Import all of your data that was exported and begin testing to make sure that all pages and posts along with other functionality are working properly. Only when you are sure that all is in working order should you erase the old content on the old server. You will want to continue testing especially after you have erased the old content to make sure everything is working properly. Before erasing the content on the old server, I will often rename the top directory to confirm that the domain is actually pointing at the new host. If you get an error you know that something is not working properly.

The last step is to erase your content and terminate the host arrangement you have with your current hosting provider. Good luck, plan and verify each step before executing to make sure that each step is ready to go.

Avoid Penny Pinching in Retirement

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Avoid Penny Pinching in RetirementThis is not rocket science although some financial advisers will try to make you think that it is. If you want to avoid penny pinching in retirement, there are some basic rules that need to be followed throughout life and they are pretty simple. Keep working, save for retirement and save for emergencies. Finally don’t touch either of these savings areas until you actually retire or have a real emergency. Sure there are some calculations that need to be done to avoid drawing too much money out too quickly, but for the most part you need to set sufficient money aside for retirement.

Steps to Take to Avoid Penny Pinching in Retirement

  • Work longer
  • Reverse mortgage
  • Reduce spending
  • Save more
  • Start saving early

Work longer – while you may have wanted to retire early, if you do not have the money to do some of the things you want to in retirement, you may have to work a little longer than you planned. Every extra year you work adds to your savings and provides income to live on.

Reverse mortgage – we are not fans of a reverse mortgage, however if you have equity in your home and do not want to move, then a reverse mortgage is one way to get at some of the money locked up in your home. Of course at some point you will need to sell your home to pay off the mortgage that has accumulated through a reverse mortgage.

Reduce spending – examine all of your expenses. Decide which ones are must haves and those that are nice to have. Reduce your spending wherever you can without entering the penny pinching mode.

Save more – more cash towards your retirement. Set aside at least 10% of your gross income every week or every pay check. Start early when you begin working and do not touch it until it is time to retire!

Start saving early – start on your first job and invest 10% of your income. Once you get use to doing this and living on 90%, you will not miss it. Your retirement will be secure providing that you work a normal life and do not touch your savings until you actually retire.

Leaks in your Retirement Savings

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Leaks in your Retirement SavingsYou have worked hard to save for retirement. Your family may have forgone other experiences etc in your life to save for retirement. You expect that there will be enough money at the end of your working years to live comfortably. But what if you found out that there are leaks in your retirement savings in small amounts over the years. That this amount was going to make you have to work a few years longer. Or perhaps forget about trips that you may have planned for your retirement. This is the subject of this post. How to identify leaks in your retirement savings? Also how to prevent them from making a significant difference in your retirement life style.

Leaks in your Retirement Savings – What are they?

They are divided into two types, some under your control and others that are smaller and sneaky but still have an impact on your total value of your savings when you retire.

  • Hardship withdrawals
  • Withdrawals prior to full retirement
  • Loans from your retirement plan
  • Cash outs from plans
  • Excessive trading fees
  • Mutual Fund fees
  • Administration fees
  • Selling low and buying high

More Details

Hardship withdrawals – funds are withdrawn and not repaid to deal with extreme hardship issues such as medical situations

Withdrawals prior to full retirement – funds withdrawn after age 59 to deal with pre-retirement issues and not repaid. Once these funds are withdrawn they are not earning income and you also lose the compounding effect

Loans from your retirement plan – taking a loan from your plan and not repaying it. Not only do you have to pay taxes on the withdrawal, you lose forever any future income that this money might have generated.

Cash outs from plans – employees change employers all of the time and you do not want to lose site of the money that has been set aside for your retirement Transfer the funds into the new employers retirement fund or into a locked-in plan

Excessive trading fees – trading fees are expensive and if you are doing a lot of trading you could be eating into any profits that you may have made.

Mutual Fund fees – they charge a fee usually hidden regardless of whether the fund does well or not. Can you afford to pay 1% to 2% every year to your mutual fund management team?

Administration fees – some advisers charge a fee every year to administer your account. Is it reasonable? Can you get the same service or better service somewhere else?

Selling low and buying high – timing the market is extremely difficult. Most people end up buying as the market is increasing and then selling as it is declining because they are afraid they are going to lose everything. Invest in blue-chip dividend-paying equities and focus on the long term.

Should we worry about thin content?

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thin contentThe answer is to absolutely worry about thin content if you want your website to rank well in search results. Focus on whatever topic or market you are aiming at. The search engines have traditionally labeled sites with thin content as not being worthy of having the information that their clients are looking for. However, this may be changing as they become more sophisticated at indexing website pages for presentation in search results. Thin content is only one of the variables they look at and we will discuss this in more detail.

Thin Content – Does it Answer the Question

A page with thin content can in fact answer the question that the consumer is looking for. Take for example, “when does daylight savings time begin?”. Search for this string. You will find many pages that have content that is very limited and answers the client’s question.

If the page is informative, useful, adds value, and has the necessary quality for the topic being searched for, then a thin content page could in fact rank very high in search results. As SEO webmasters we need to make sure that the content we write addresses these issues for our customers. While at the same time ensuring a well-ranked page so that the page has a chance of being clicked on when presented in the search results.

We still need to take typical search terms that customers will use. Create pages around these terms while delivering the results that the searcher is looking for. Thin content can be ok in some situations. In other situations for more complex subjects a longer piece of text needs to be used to fully explain the topic, deliver the answer the customer is looking for, etc.

In summary, all content must be informative, useful, add value, and has the necessary quality for the topic being searched for. Maybe this is all I needed to say rather than going into detail to explain this topic. What do you think?

Financial Mistakes Retirees Make

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Financial mistakes retirees makeWe all make mistakes from time to time when it comes to our finances regardless of what age we are. For those who are younger and still working, they have time to recover from their mistakes and prepare for retirement. Retirees on the other hand have limited room for mistakes. They do not have enough time to recover from any mistakes that they may be involved with. We have summarized a number of areas that retirees will make a mistake managing their money. Especially when approaching and during retirement. As we mentioned if you are just starting to think about retirement, these items are worth reading about as well. They might save you a great deal of money over your life time.

The basic guideline for anyone is to invest in blue-chip companies, that are managed well, pay dividends on a regular basis and have a history of increasing their dividends over time. Diversity is also extremely important. Never place all of your money in the same investment no matter how good it sounds. In fact no more than 10% of your savings should be in one investment. If you are above 10%, it may be time to re-balance.

Financial mistakes retirees make

These are some of the more significant mistakes people make.

  • Timing the market,
  • Trading too often
  • Reacting to the market
  • Making emotional decisions
  • Working with the wrong adviser

More Details

Timing the market – is next to impossible and many people lose money every year trying to time the market. Long term charts of the markets show that the Dow, the TSX, etc have all been on a steady up word trend. Sure there have been some dips, however, if you are in the blue-chip companies, those that are here to stay, then you will survive those dips and also participate in the market gains as well along with sustaining dividends over the long term.

Trading too often – every time you trade, there are fees to your adviser which can be very expensive. These fees can eat into any gains or income you may receive. Trading often can even cause your portfolio to head into negative territory. Buying good quality stocks as we mentioned and holding them to collect increasing dividends will not only maximize your income, it will also minimize your expenses as well.

Reacting to the market – the market is volatile at the best of times. Swings or 1 to 5% are the norm and swings of more than that can send shivers through the investing public. The thing to remember is that the market has shown that it will always recover and if you’re invested in dividend-paying stocks, you will continue to receive stocks even though the value of the stocks is down for a temporary period.

Making emotional decisions

Always go by the numbers, never by emotions when making decisions. You might get lucky, but then if you are reacting to a volatile session in the market or to a speculative tip, the majority of investors are going to lose.

Working with the wrong adviser – work with one that you trust, that gives good advice and one who has a good track record. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is and if he or she is trying to push you into investing or doing a lot of trades, ask for a second opinion. In fact, if you have sufficient money, it might not be a bad idea to diversify and have two advisers to compare their recommendations.

This is your money and it needs to last you in your retirement. don’t make mistakes and decrease your chances of having the retirement you always dreamed of.

Tax Issues for Small Business

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Tax Issues for Small BusinessTax issues for small business owners can take them away from focusing on their main business objectives. As a result, small business owners risk heavy penalties and professional fees by mixing personal and business records. It makes it difficult for them and the government tax auditors to assess if there are any irregularities.

Combining personal and business accounts is one of the most costly mistakes many new business owners make. Subsequently, this mistake can cost thousands of tax penalties and professional fees.

Business owners may find it easier to deposit checks to a personal bank account. Or perhaps to charge business expenses to a personal credit card. As a result, these actions place them and their businesses at risk. Making mistakes regarding claiming personal vs. business expenses is a  mistake that can cost them thousands of dollars.

Keep a separate bank account and credit card for your business expenses and never mix the two. With separate accounts, there is a record of all expenses, the date, the item purchased, and how much was spent. Not room for confusion and errors to creep in.

A business is required by law to keep adequate and accurate records of all income and business expenses.

Tax Issues for Small Business – Tips

  • Keep personal and business separate.
  • Have two separate bank accounts: a personal account and a business banking account.
  • Keep good records.
  • Seek expert advice. Include a business banker, tax, and legal professionals.
  • Have an expert complete your taxes

If you are organized, keep excellent records. Have a tax adviser complete your business income tax records. As a result, there is a lot less chance that the government tax people are going to start checking. Believe it or not, by being organized, you will also save time in the long run. Subsequently, this means a whole lot less frustration with your taxes. You will also have more time to spend on your business. Which is the main area you want to spend time on?

Looking for missing receipts and miss-filed receipts is really a waste of time. In addition, straightening out transactions regarding whether they should be charged to your business or personal expenses is not the best use of time. Therefore keep your tax issues for small businesses to a minimum and focus your time on running your business.