Retirement Planning Before You Retire

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Very few people think about Retirement Planning before they retire. They wait until it is getting close to the time they will be retiring. Retirement is not even in the equation when you are young or just starting out. There are far too many other things to consider, such as how you will spend your first paycheck. The car you will buy and the clothes that you will purchase. The same thing applies when you are raising a family and have all sorts of expenses, including the kid’s education, the mortgage to pay for, bills associated with the house, etc. Retirement is a long way away, and there is much time to save for that later.

No wonder people wake up one morning and realize that they will have to keep working for many more years than what they had planned because they did not save for retirement. What a shock to the emotions when you realize that you do not like your job, you want to retire, and you may even be downsized, yet you do not have sufficient savings to get you through your retirement years. This can be a serious time in your life, stressful if you still have lots of bills to pay and loans to discharge, not to mention getting the kids through school.

Start Retirement Planning Before You Retire

The best advice I ever received from a mentor was that I should set aside 10% of everything I earned for retirement. Invest it conservatively and only touch the money once it is time to retire. He told me this when I was in my early 20s, and if I had followed his advice from that day, I would be able to retire when I was 50, well before most people start thinking about retiring.

As it turns out, I was able to retire from my career job at 49 and went on to try some things that I had always thought about. I did not apply retirement planning before you retire advice; I just used the 10% rule, and it worked for my family and me. This approach gave me the freedom to continue working, to retire fully, or to retire and try a different career. This freedom and reduction in stress is really wonderful. Start now and save for retirement if you still need to do so.

Retirement Planning Before You Retire When you are 50

If you are just starting to plan for retirement and you are around the age of 50, you really do not have that much time left before you will be forced to retire either for health reasons, workforce adjustment, or downsizing. Pay off your bills, save everything you can, and have a financial adviser assess your situation regarding how much income you will actually have when you retire. It is never too late unless you are being walked out the door in a downsizing situation.

This approach will help you decide how many more years you need to work, how much you need to save, and how much you can spend while in retirement.

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Web site small business

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There are many things to consider when developing a website for small business. Aside from the overall design, hosting, domain name, and registration, there’s also content that should be included on the website. We have tackled several of these issues on other posts on this website. One thing that most people, business owners, and website developers forget is security! This is an essential aspect of all websites, for small businesses as well as personal websites. If you do not pay attention to this issue, you will be hacked. It starts with having a secure password that is not easily figured out.

Web site small business – Security

Hackers can gain access to your website through many different means. They may come in through the back door through your hosting company. The situation develops when they gain access to the server that your site is hosted on. They come through someone else’s site, and they can infect your files.

Another approach is to provide comments on some of your pages. They come with links to malware, phishing sites, and pages that contain code that will infect your website. Always be careful about comments that you approve, and review all links before approving them.

Poor password policies can also allow hackers to gain access. If your password is not strong, you may find your site compromised. A password should contain letters, numbers, symbols, capital letters, and lowercase letters. If not, then your site may be accessible to hackers. Some people will use simple passwords, allowing hackers to gain access quite easily. Use a password design tool to pick one considered strong and challenging to break.

Website small business – Access

If several people access your site to perform various functions, they will all need a password to gain access. Password management is critical in situations like this. Frequent changes in passwords, security of passwords, and avoiding sending passwords by email can enhance the security of your business website.

In summary, protect your website, your passwords, and IDs for your website like it was your bank account. You don’t give that information out easily and don’t give out your passwords for access to your website easily, either.

One hacker even tried to guest post on one of our sites with hidden malware in the guest post. Fortunately, we caught it before it was posted to our website and did any damage. Always be on guard and use virus detection programs to check all of your software on your website and the pages posted on your Business website. Among all the other things you need to do on your website, pay a lot of attention to website security.

Self-directed retirement plans

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Anyone who is self employed and does not participate in a company retirement plan will be setting up a self directed retirement plan. Self-directed retirement plans are very popular with many people. They feel that they can do a better job than many financial advisers who are just interested in generating more commissions.

The reality is that it is very difficult to do well. Advisers are well schooled in risk analysis, reading financial reports, etc.. They cannot predict how the market is going to react any better than anyone else.. The vast majority of advisers are order takers. They promote diversity and re-balancing of your plan to ensure that your risk profile is maintained. These are good things to do, make no mistake. However, they are not something that the average investor cannot follow as well.

Self-directed retirement plans – Get Involved

This investor feels that consumers should take the best of both situations. Use an adviser and listen to what they have to say and recommend.Â Do your own analysis and make your own decisions and be wary of advisers who are pushing a lot of sales so they can generate more commissions. I once had an adviser who admitted to me that he needed a few more sales to achieve a bonus level that would allow him to go on a trip paid for by his company. This was such a turnoff for me that I almost walked out of his office. Needless to say, I did not initiate any sales that day.

I also had an adviser that could not recall my name and was surprised when I moved my investments elsewhere. The message is to take control of your investments and make your own decisions. Ask for advice and seek out various opinions before you make and implement your decisions. At the end of the day, you’re the only one who will pay the price of a bad decision. Even if you rely on an adviser 100%, it is not their money that they are risking. It is your money and that is why it is so important to be involved and be informed.

Managing Your Own Investments

Managing your own self directed retirement plans takes time and effort. You need to read a lot, you need to understand what the market is doing and most important you need to have a strategy that you review and update every year based on how your investments are doing and also your personal needs. Our previous post talked about a simple retirement plan strategy that we have followed for our own retirement plan. Keep your costs down, be conservative, and go with high-quality stocks that pay dividends on a regular basis.

Web developer for small business

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We offer small business web sites for customers who want to write their own content and just need someone to set the infrastructure up for them so they can get started. Many customers prefer this approach because they want to retain control over their content and the look and the feel of the web site. We have the perfect inexpensive suite of services that will match this need. Just check out our services on the top right hand side of the page and click one of the links.

On the other hand if you need more support and really would like to have someone set up your web site and also add your content for you following guidelines supplied by you, we can do that as well for your business. We are a web developer for small business and can provide these services as well.

We may need to understand your business, obtain pictures of your products etc and descriptions of your services. This is still a basic blog since it is really only providing information to people who land on your site and probably will include a call to action suggesting that they get in touch with your business team for more detailed information, products, quotes or to set up an appointment

Attracting Customers to Your Site

Once you have a site set up, the next question is how do people find you online? There are many ways. Most business owners employ several kinds of advertising methods in addition to having a web site.

This includes placing your web sites URL on everything. Include business cards, advertisements on radio, TV or the newspaper as well as flyers etc. Placing your websites URL on all invoices is another method, and any emails that you send out.

More and more customers are using their smart phones to search for products. They also use tablets and iPads. They use one of the search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo to search for various topics. If your web site does not rank well on the index that the search engines establish, these potential customers are never going to find you. Your web page will be ranked well down the list on pages of results that will never be looked at.

How Can a Web Developer Help to Search Engine Optimize Your Site?

There are lots of companies out there advertising all kinds of services and results. From twitter followers to Facebook friends etc. The only real answer to being indexed well is to have high quality content. Content that provides the customer with what he or she is looking for. The content also must discuss the topics that people search for as well.

For example we are a provider of basic web sites that give small business owners and opportunity to manage their own web site. They do not need to make a huge investment in time or money. Some people will search for web site developers. However this page probably would not rank well since we do not use that term very much in the post.

This post is focused on web developer for small business. Hopefully the search engines will pick that up and rank this page well when a search for this term is made. Then the customer has an option to select our link or not from among the top ten results provided.

This is an additional service that we can provide to you in addition to a basic web site for your business . We can bring many more potential customers to your business which can be converted into paying customers. For more information about our service and web developer needs for small business, call us or send an email requesting additional information.

For more about website design, click here.

Simple retirement plan

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Many people wonder if they have saved enough for retirement. They fall prey to financial planners or advisers. They are really only interested in generating more commissions on sales of mutual funds and stocks. It is really tough to know if you have enough. It is even more difficult to know if you are paying too much in fees as well for trades that you might be doing. As well do not forget hidden fees that are charged by many mutual fund companies.

Simple retirement plan

There are some simple guidelines that we have followed. We think they will benefit many people as long as you have patience. If they are willing to read a little bit and keep up with what is going on in the stock markets. My guidelines that I have followed over the past 10 years has benefited us greatly. We wanted to pass this along to our readers. You will be better off with your retirement if you follow these general guidelines.

Retirement Plan Guidelines

Invest in Blue chip companies
That pay dividends
That have a long history of always paying their dividends
That also have a history of increasing their dividends
That allow you to re-invest those dividends into the company at a discount
Diversify your investments across several companies
No more than 10% of your investment in any one investment
Avoid doing trades if at all possible
Constant re-balancing only costs you money
Stay away from mutual funds, they get a management fee every year
Buy good quality corporate bonds
Re-invest the bond income in more stocks
Above all do not touch your investment until it is time to retire

Stay Away from Mutual Funds

The mutual fund industry has done a great job of marketing these products to consumers. they promote professional management and they promote results that are sometimes impressive, but what they do not tell you is that they fall just as fast as the market when there is a downturn. Even if you invest in a dividend income mutual fund, and collect dividends into the mutual fund, they always pay themselves first. For example if your dividend income from all of the stocks in the mutual fund average 5%, your net income to the mutual fund after fees and expenses is going to be well below 4%.

By investing directly in stocks as per the guidelines above, you will collect all of the dividends and they will all be re-invested for you with no fee if you take advantage of the dividend re-investment plans offered by many companies.

This is about the most simple form of retirement plan that most consumers can follow and come out ahead of anything that you could do with a mutual fund investment. Note that if you worry about investment in your retirement plan, you may want to stick to guaranteed investment certificates. Although they do not pay very much they are guaranteed and you will get your money back when you need it. Unfortunately with stocks there is more risk and there is danger that your investments will not be as high as you had hoped when it comes time to retire, but the returns are far greater if you stick to quality investments and avoid the very high risk investments.

Self Employed Retirement

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Self employed individuals must plan their retirement even more so that someone who has a company pension to count on. Even folks with company pensions should not just count on their company pension. It may not be enough to live on comfortably. However, that is the subject of another post. This one is focused on what the self employed individual should be doing to ensure that they have the quality of life they desire. Whether they retire early or late this will give them some flexibility regarding the time of their retirement.

Self Employed Retirement – Your Business is Successful!

Right now your business may be wildly successful and seemingly there is no end in sight. We all know that 20 years, 30 years and 40 years of business can bring a lot of changes. Some positive and some not so positive. The main message we want to provide in this post is that they need to be saving for retirement every year they are working. Whether it is for yourself in a self employment situation or even if you own a small business. We never know what life will bring us. It is always important to plan for the unknown.

Invest a Minimum of 10%

The best way to do that is to lock away a minimum of 10% every year in a retirement plan. If you can do that beginning at age 20 or when you start working, you will have sufficient money by the time you are 50. Provided that it is well invested.Â This approach will allow you to decide what it is you want to do and not have someone else make the decision for you.

Of course, you can keep working if you want. But the real message is that you are free to make your own decision about what you do next. You can have the flexibility to make your own decisions about how you want to continue your life. Just imagine not having to worry about having enough money during retirement. Or even when you are approaching retirement.

Invest Well, Focus on Diversity, Don’t Chase High Risk Stocks

When you invest your retirement savings, focus on blue-chip stocks. Focus on stocks that regularly pay dividends and grow their dividends over time. These blue-chip companies will increase in stock value and the income will be paid every three months. The dividends will be invested in more shares, growing your investments even further. This is by far the best way to increase your retirement savings. Especially if it is in a registered plan that is not taxed until you remove the funds from the plan.

As you build your business, don’t forget to focus on the long term plan for your retirement years so that they are as rewarding and successful as your working years.

Design Business Web Site

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Small Business Web Sites to match your budget

Designing a business web site can be relatively easy with today’s online tools and processes. Chose the domain name. This is the name of your website that you will provide users, customers and acquaintances. This website name is commonly referred to as the URL. It is the name of your online Company website. Then you need storage space and a content management system or CMS.

Storage Space or Web Hosting

Obtain storage space on a server located somewhere in what today is called the cloud. There are many companies that provide storage space. They can be located anywhere in the world. All you need is the IP address of the server which you will use when you are setting up your URL.

Obtain a Domain Name

Once you have your storage space and address you can then point your domain name towards the server. It will provide the storage that you have reserved. You also need to make sure that there is something on the server to respond to customers or browsers of your web site.

Now you have a domain name that is pointing to a server that has no information on it. The next step to design a business web site is to install a content management system. This system manages all of your data including text, images, and any charts, etc. that you might be using on your website.

A typical content management system is WordPress. WordPress is a very popular content management system used by millions of websites around the world. It is user-friendly, easy to install, and once set up is extremely easy to update content and to add new content for your readers.

Design Business Web Site Services

We offer all of these services for you and will install and build your website to your design. Once the website including the content management system is installed and the first few pages created. Business owners have the option of updating their own content at their convenience or having us provide and develop additional content for them.

We like to use information that they provide in terms of pictures, images, videos, and text from your company. This helps ensure that everything is accurate and portrays the image that you’re looking for regarding your online presence.

As we mentioned business owners can update their own content or have us do it for them. These content management systems are easy to use once set up. There is no need to have a lot of IT knowledge. For more information about creating a business website, maintaining a business website please send us an email or give us a call to discuss in more detail.

For small business ideas and suggestions, click here.

Retirement Planning Options

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The baby boomers are retiring by the thousands. Some are retiring of their own free will, while others are being forced out of the door. Some are taking up new hobbies. While others are following hobbies that they gave up while raising a family and following their career. There are many options and activities that consumers who are retiring can consider. We thought we would review a few of these Retirement Planning Options in this post to provide readers with some ideas. If you are following a retirement plan or option that we missed, feel free to leave us a comment and we will add it to the list.

Retirement Planning Options – What to Do?

Volunteer – a lot of people are satisfied financially, but they cherish helping and being with people. Volunteering meets these objectives and gets them out with other people of like-minded ideals. Sometimes a volunteer position leads to a full-time job.

Start a New Career – you may have work in one industry, but have always wanted to try something different. Whether you retire on your own or are forced to retire ahead of their schedule, this is the time to follow and develop that new career.

Start a small Business – some will begin a new business. There are literally thousands of small business ideas to follow and try out. Be careful to manage your money. Avoid sinking all of your retirement funds in a business that does not give the returns you are looking for.

Look after the Grandkids – some parents help their kids by babysitting the grandkids. This keeps them active, they help out their own kids and they may even make a little bit of money out of the activity as well. It is a great time to bond with their grandkids.

Work Part Time – is another situation that provides some extra money. It also keeps you in the workforce and gets you out fairly often. You still have some time to do many of the other things we discuss on this list.

More on Retirement Planning Activities

Travel – can be expensive. However, if you manage the travel costs, make it your job to find the deals and travel smart. You can virtually travel the world without spending a fortune. Don’t put it off, you never know when you will be forced to limit your travel due to health reasons.

Focus on Hobbies – one person we know loved to buy small appliances, repair them, and resell them. It was a hobby at first, but then it turned into a small business opportunity. Which helped to pay for his tools and some of his expenses.

Focus on Your investments – if you have retirement savings, it is important to manage them, rebalance once per year or when major positions change, ensure that you are diverse in your investments, and decide when to use the money during retirement.

Help the Kids – everything from renovations, to helping the kids with moving and odd jobs around the house.

Move to a New Location – many people will downsize and move to another city to be near family etc. Although this is a short term project, it does take a lot of planning and organization to move from one house to another.

Renovate Homes – buy a house at a low price, renovate it and resell it. This sort of project can be risky, however, if you are a handyman at all, money can be made if you purchase a home at the right price, upgrade it and resell it.

Work for your Kids – if your kids have their own business, why not work for them. You can choose to be paid or just help them out. Either way, you will have lots to do and you get to spend more time with your children.

All or Some of the Above

Regardless of what you do it is important to have a plan. Some people will even start out with one idea and then switch to another based on their experience and enjoyment. Many will be doing some or all of the above at the same time. One thing we know for sure is that by taking up some or all of the above, you will never be bored or wonder what to do next. For more information about retirement planning, click here.

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Greening Your Office

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Everyone is concerned about the planet getting warmer, except, of course, some people who are worried about losing money. But the bottom line is that if we do not do our part, our weather is going to change, and not for the better. We all need to do our part in reducing greenhouse gases. There are many green ideas for greening your office that employees may consider.

Go electric
Paper
Lights
furniture
Commute
Dress Right
recycle bins
switch off

Greening Your Office – Go Electric.

Technology is here for a reason — digitalize and dematerialize as much as possible. emails, invites, calendars and files can all be saved onto your computer rather than on paper. Back up all information on an external hard drive — as much as we love technology, computers do tend to crash and burn when loaded with too much information.

Paper

Print only if you must, as most of the time, you can make changes directly on the screen without printing. When you do print, choose a double-sided setting, which will print on both sides instead of just one. When restocking, use recycled paper. Encourage people to use email, etc, and avoid delivering paper reports.

Lights

When you leave the office, turn off all lights, especially desk lights that are smaller yet easily forgettable but still powerful. Switch to LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs, which are more efficient than traditional ones and will last much longer.

Furniture

Choose office furniture — desks, chairs, filing cabinets, made from sustainable wood, recycled metal, and non-toxic waste. If you need to change furniture, donate it so that it can be reused again and again.

Commute

Public transport, such as buses, subways, trains, and cars, is overcrowded and stressful. It also contributes to your carbon footprint and the toxic fumes emitted as you complete your journey. If the work is not long-distance and the weather supports it, either cycle or walk to work. It’s a healthier and cheaper option with minimal impact on the environment.

Dress Right

Summers are warm, and winters are cold. Dress appropriately so that you don’t turn the heater or air conditioning on full blast as you step foot in the office. Bring an extra jumper or pair of tights to cozy up in the cold, and if it’s too hot, buy water spray or a small fan.

Recycle bins

Have one main recycling bin where everyone can throw paper, cardboard, and plastic waste. Place it somewhere obvious with easy access. Although you may not save money, you will at least be helping to protect the environment.

Switch off

Leaving your computer on overnight will eventually burn out its battery, which is unnecessary. Set up your system so that hard drives switch off after a certain number of minutes, and your screen protector activates and shuts down the screen when not in use. This will extend the life of your computer significantly.

For more lifestyle ideas, click here.

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Your estate and family money

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Prepare your family for what’s coming. The first time that your family finds out how much money they’re getting should not really be at the time that your will is read. It Should not be a surprise, you should be able to plan for this transition so that taxes are minimized and expenses associated with your state are well managed and maintained during the transition. Manage your estate and family money.

Give them some practice managing money

You may want to give them a little bit of practice managing money. If they have not already had this kind of situation to deal with. All children should have already savings set up for retirement. Your estate will just add to the retirement. In the event that they are not very good at managing money, you may want to give them a chance. Providing them with say $10,000 to give them a feel for what it’s like to have some money. Some will blow it spending the money on frivolous things, and then wonder what you’re going to do.

It can be a good lesson to find out what it’s like to have received some money. They may spend it and then realize that it’s gone. When you provide practice money for them you may want to also include some guidelines for how they should manage this money. Another approach is to help your children out when they most need it. For example if they need help paying off a loan, paying down the mortgage. Or paying for a car this might be a good time to provide them with these funds. You will get some of the benefit but seeing how much they appreciate the money that you’re helping them with.

Your estate and family money

Put your trust in a trustee

If you have a large estate, or feel that you need someone independently managing your estate, you may want to employ a trustee. Yes it will cost you some money which the estate will pay for. But you will have the satisfaction and confidence of knowing that your estate is well-managed> It will be managed along the guidelines that you provided.

Attach some guidelines with your estate

By all means provide some guidelines with your estate. Which either your children must follow or your trustees must implement. If your children are under 21 you may require an estate trustee to manage the estate. Provide the appropriate guidelines of how you want your estate managed. On the other hand if you may want to wait until your children are older and more mature. Let’s say 35 years, you can place your money in a trust. Arrange to have it managed by a trustee again according to the guidelines that you provide.