Will you outlive your retirement plan?

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Will you outlive your retirement plan?My wife and I were talking about our investment plan and our retirement the other day. We were discussing how much money we should take out of our savings plan and our retirement pension plan. How much should we enjoy while we’re still healthy. I was talking also about the interest income we’re making on our bonds. Also  the dividends that we are collecting from our stocks and how volatile the stock market is. Our planning horizon is roughly 20 years to 25 years.

Her comment about all of this was that this was one of the biggest gambles that we are taking in our lives. Many people will mention that buying a house is the biggest purchase. The biggest gamble that many people will take in their lives is their investments for retirement. I feel that actual retirement planning and making sure that your money will last during your retirement years is by far the biggest money decision.

Will you outlive your retirement plan – Alternatives

Retirement Plan – The 4% Rule

The industry suggests that you should take 4% of your total retirement plan out every year and this is the amount that you should budget for your retirement. They say also that you have an 80% chance of your investment plans lasting your lifetime with this approach.

It takes into account stock market fluctuations both up and down as well as periods of time where the income isn’t sufficient to make up the 4% that you were taking out of your plan. We have found that judicious investment in dividend yielding stocks will yield 4% to 5% over the period that you are planning for and judicious investment in blue-chip corporate bonds will yield between 3% and 5% at the present time.

With this level of income you should be able to generate 4% from your retirement plan with no problems whatsoever.

Retirement Plan – What about the Capital

Don’ttouch the capital. The dividends and interest income are close to 4%. You will have an excellent chance that your money will outlast your retirement years.

Monitoring your investments every year and working with an advisor will help you manage your investments to ensure that you have sufficient income and money to last during your retirement. It is one of the most critical things that you can do during retirement years.

Also make sure that your retirement plan is set up so that it can run on automatic pilot, should you not be healthy enough to administer your retirement plan. While you are healthy now, can make decisions etc, there may come a time when your financial adviser will need direction as to how to handle your money. Your living will can also specify how your money should be managed and designate a family member to make those decisions.

Reducing bounce rate on your website

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Reducing bounce rateMany people might be wondering what the term, bounce rate is. Bounce rate is when someone surfing the Internet lands on your website, stays for only several seconds, and moves on to another website. For people running a business, having someone land on your website and not stay because they found that they did not like the page, your products or services are potentially lost business. Reducing the bounce rate should be part of your SEO plan.

Reducing bounce rate – Catch Their Attention.

If a potential customer comes to your website, likes what they see, and then browses other pages, your chances of making a sale increase dramatically. Managing the bounce rate and providing high-quality content are two ways of achieving this objective.

We have put together a list of suggestions regarding reducing the bounce rate and increasing the time spent on your website. Each of these suggestions depends on the kind of service, products, and website that you have. Here’s our list.

Guidelines to Reduce Bounce Rate

  • Avoid pop-ups
  • Provide clear navigation
  • Ensure your website is well-designed
  • Ensure that your server is providing a fast response time
  • Your website should be mobile-friendly
  • Provide information about your customer’s priorities
  • Segment the information into logical areas
  • Optimized for the intent of the customer
  • Can avoid having too many advertisements
  • Avoid slow loading of third-party content
  • Provide color contrast
  • Avoid blatantly obvious messaging
  • Reduce distractions
  • Offer related content
  • Leverage your internal search capability
  • Open the external link in a new Window
  • Prominently display your search box
  • Provide a helpful bed link page referred to as a 404 page
  • Keep it readable and avoid duplication
  • Split up longer posts

Apply those Guidelines that Make Sense

Following some of these suggestions can improve your bounce rate, retain customers on your website for longer, and improve the chances of converting them into paying customers.  Not all of the above suggestions will apply to your website. Each site is custom designed based on the product or services offered by a given company. Applying the correct ideas to make sense to the reader and add value to the reader’s experience is most important.  Part of retaining your customers on your website is creating an experience that is valuable to them and causes them to stay on your site because they find it helpful or interesting.

For more help on these topics and others, please feel free to give us a call or send us an email.

How is your portfolio doing

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How is your portfolio doingYou have spent years saving for retirement and now you have a nice little nest egg set aside to augment your Company pension and your government pensions. How is your portfolio doing overall and do you have enough saved for retirement?

You still wonder whether you will have enough saved to last through your lifetime in retirement. You also wonder how you’re doing relative to meeting that objective. There are several ways to compare your progress in your portfolio. We will review three of those methods in this post.

How is your portfolio doing

Capital preservation

Some people will have an objective of living only on their interest income and dividend income. They can do this if the portfolio generates enough income and not touch the principal. Many advisers support this approach. One must be careful and not chase high-risk investments to generate income.

The odds are high that you will also have to dip into your principal at some point during your life. However this is a simple approach to assessing your portfolio health and if you can live on interest and dividend income alone along with your pensions you’re well on the way to living comfortably in your retirement.

Meeting a projected rate of return

In this approach you set a rate of return objective and assess whether you’re able to meet or exceed this objective at the end of each year. Some people will consider the plan a failure if you fall short of that goal.

Again this is a simplistic approach and some people may chase higher rate bonds and dividends in order to meet their objective which incurs more risk.

The balance sheet

Another approach and more complicated is to assess your balance sheet at the end of each year. This requires that you take the present value of all of your pension income, dividends and bond interest income and calculate a number. You do the same thing with your liabilities and compare your assets to your liabilities.

As long as your assets minus liabilities are the same each year or increasing you’re doing well. You must also include a factor for inflation to calculate your expenses in today’s dollars. You must also figure out just how long you expect to live.

Inflation factor can be 2.5% to 3% based on the past 20 years or so of inflation. Figuring out how long you’re going to live is a bit more complicated. Probably the best way is to look at your immediate family, mother, father, uncles etc. Pick an average based on how long they have lived.

We believe that you should use a combination of all three of these methods and reassess your situation anytime there is a major change in your financial, health, or personal situation to access if you’re still on target. At the minimum reassess how your portfolio is doing once a year and make any adjustments that you feel would be appropriate to ensure that you have the income that you will need in your retirement.

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Get First Decade of Retirement Right

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Get First Decade of Retirement RightGet first decade of retirement right.  Most people tend to spend more money than what they plan. As you get older, particularly after age 74 there is a tendency to spend less money, even when healthcare costs are taken into account. As you get older there’s less opportunity to spend your money and most people will save it with the intention of giving it to their children.

Consumers must also decide when they’re going to take their old age pension. If you wait until you’re 65 you will collect the maximum, or at age 67 with the new laws that are in place you will then collect your maximum. If you take your pension earlier there will be a penalty as much as 30%. Deciding how you’re going to handle your investments and make up for that loss of 30% is a particularly difficult issue for many people.

What should you do

The longer that you can delay taking your pension the more money you will have. If you can also work longer, or reduce your expenses to ensure that you have sufficient money to live on while you’re retired this is also a positive thing to do. Delaying taking your pension will decrease that 30% penalty and if you can wait until your age 65 or 67 you will have no penalty at all and will increase your overall pension income by 30%.

All of these issues are important to take into account while you’re planning your retirement income. Not all of the income that you will have from pensions, government and employee pensions, and also your investment income without having to touch the principal.

If the combined income is sufficient without having to touch the principal and you’re in a good position. If however you must start withdrawing principle you must take into account and plan for the future well into your 70s and 80s to ensure that you will have sufficient income.

Get First Decade of Retirement Right – Investments

What if the stock market tanks

You must also take into account the stock market will be volatile and will be significantly up one year and could be significantly down the next year by as much as 20 or 30%. If you are withdrawing principle when the stock market is down by as much as 20 or 30%, this can really eat into your overall savings and decrease the chance of your savings last your lifetime.

Do a risk analysis on your portfolio and assume a 20% decline in the stock market to assess whether your plan will last your lifetime. If your principal will not last your lifetime, you should probably consider taking less money out of your plan each year and making up the difference with either spending less, getting a job or selling some other asset.

The first years of retirement can be very difficult and critical in terms of ensuring that your investment plan will last your lifetime. get it right and you’ll be very comfortable, get it wrong and you will not have as comfortable a retirement as you had hoped.

Rules for early retirement
1: Early retirees: Don’t fear losing your health insurance
2: Getting ready to retire? Save more, spend less
3: Use your home to boost retirement savings
4: Budget and plan your financials
5: Retiring? Time to look for a part-time gig

Get first decade of retirement right and more information about retirement planning click here.

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Web Blog Sites

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Web Blog SitesBloggers for many years got a bad rap due to the poor material that was included in blogs and the inability to follow much of the information. There was much innocuous ranting and rambling of ideas and thoughts. Frankly no one really gave them much attention other than like minded people. Today search engines have de-indexed these sites due to poor content. You do not want your site to fall into this category. Make sure you have a content management system for your web blog sites. Provide quality original content that is interesting to your readers. Employ many other ranking factors that will help you to rank well.

Web Blog Sites – Content Management Systems

Blogs are moving into the mainstream now that really high-quality content management systems such as WordPress are available. They help communications and marketing managers manage the content, add features, and content-rich material. You do not have to understand much about what is going on in the background. Although it helps you really do not need to understand HTML any longer to use a WordPress content management system. Now you can focus on what really counts and that is the actual content that will entice your prospective customers to contact you and/or to place their orders.

Excellent presentation, easy to use widgets and themes that add a great deal of functionality and professionalism to the content management system that allows small business owners to craft their own web site and personalize it as well. Add logos, banners, images, and videos to your site to truly enhance the web site and interest the customer.

Once Your Site is Set Up with Hosting and WordPress

Company owners and semi IT professionals maintain content once it is set up on a hosting site. In fact, we can install WordPress for you and install the theme you prefer. We can also install various widgets and even some of the initial pages. Then you are ready to go with your own content being added as time permits and services or products are updated.

Some owners will create pages and posts that represent their latest suite of services and products. They will also use the services of a marketing writer to help them add content. this content represents their company in the best possible way while being SEO optimized as well.

SEO optimization is what brings potential clients to your site when they are searching for services or products.

Let us help you with your hosting and initial web blog design. We have a variety of options that are flexible. They are aimed at making sure that the web blog site you set up will be beneficial to your company. It also enhances sales and service at your company. Call or email us today for more information.

Posting in-depth quality articles to rank with Google

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Posting in-depth quality articlesMost SEO experts recognize that there can be as many as 200 different factors that Google takes into account when ranking a particular website and the content that they have on that website. These are not published by Google but are merely an estimate by those in the know associated with SEO activities. However there is one area that is an absolute must in order to have long term success with SEO. Posting in-depth quality articles is one of the best approaches to keep in mind.

Posting in-depth quality articles

However they all have come to the same conclusion and that it is quality content and in-depth articles that  are the premier content that Google and other search engines are looking for. All of the search engines want to be able to return quality results to their customers when they are searching for information about a variety of subjects.

If you are not providing quality content, that is well-written and providing information to your customers that would be interesting and useful to your customers then chances are Google and the other search engines will not rank you very well.

There is a difference of opinion on how long an article must be. Everyone agrees that the content must be high quality level, provide detail and deliver value to readers. If you can deliver that content in at 500 word article, this was considered approximately the right length of an article to post. Recently some SEO experts are suggesting that you should also have a number of 2000 word articles posted on your website providing great level of detail and content to your readers.

This SEO expert believes that you should be posting an article once a week of at least 500 words. Provide content covering a topic that would be interesting to your customers. It will rank well with the search engines. Once a month there should be a 2000 word article that should be included. It covers all the topics that you may have covered that past month. Some posts are only a few words in length because they also answer a specific question. They provide the reader with exactly what they are looking for. This is ok as well.

Content Strategy

Small business owner should also have a content strategy that allows them to post articles on a weekly basis. They can cover a number of topics as well as search engine terms that people typically search for.

Every article should also have a call to action. Or a reference to your main site if customers need more information and would like to contact you. In our case readers can click on services provided by our company for small business websites. They can receive more information by either contacting us by email or contacting us by phone.

What is the true cost of retirement?

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cost of retirementIf you are about to retire you might be wondering what is the true cost of retirement? Most financial advisers use a couple of assumptions in assessing how much money you need to save for retirement. The first is that they assume the standard duration of retirement will be 30 years. This is regardless of your health and retirement date. The second assumption that many advisers will use is that you will need 70% to 80% of your income after retirement. This is supposed to cover your expenses and retirement plans.

As always, with many planning activities, the devil is in the details. Every person and every couple has different requirements and needs. They have different situations that they are dealing with. A retirement plan should be customized for the couple or individual. It should ensure that they have sufficient money available for them in retirement to maintain their quality of life.

What is the true cost of retirement?

These two assumptions are a good starting point only.

For example, if you are 65 and just retiring, the 30-year life expectancy may be fine for one couple. Especially if their ancestors lived well into their 90s. On the other, if hand your family history suggests living to 70 or 80 years of age, a 15-year plan might be more practical.

True Cost of Retirement

With regards to only requiring 70 to 80% of your pre-retirement income. There are many variables that should be taken into account. We will cover a few.

For example, consider if you’re still supporting children who are in college. They may have tuition payments and other related expenses. You may need more than 80% for the first couple of years.

Are you retiring debt-free? Is your mortgage paid off? Are you still paying a car loan? These are major monthly expenses that have to be factored into your pre-retirement expense. As well as your post-retirement expense. These factors will help decide if you will have sufficient money to cover all of your cash expenses during retirement.

Consumers also need to consider what retirement expenses will increase during the retirement years. For example, inflation has been pretty constant and in a range of 3% for the past 20 years. It will eat into your retirement income, particularly if you are on a fixed income. The longer you are retired the more inflation can be a factor. It is very important to factor in inflation.

Don’t forget Healthcare costs

Healthcare costs must also be considered based on your family’s history of healthcare needs and situations.

Your consumption will also change over the years. As you get older most people will spend less on clothing, food, and other daily expenses.

All of this needs to be factored into your retirement plan to ensure that consumers have sufficient money during retirement. Start with the 70 to 80% rule. Then adjust based on your own personal situation. You may also require the help of a financial advisor to create a retirement income model. It should be based on your savings and pensions as mentioned earlier

Is your employer pension safe?

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employer pensionMost people would think that this question of whether your employer pension is safe or not would be unthinkable! People have worked all of their lives. They depend on the employer pension during retirement. They are more at risk these days than they ever were before. Unions had negotiated pensions for their union members. Now retired people are finding that the same companies are not able to fund their pensions.

In unprecedented moves, both public and private employers are raising the alarm bells. Employee pensions are at risk. Pensioners who have been retired for some time may experience a 50% drop in their monthly pension checks. This has many people worried. Many feel that they may have to go back to work or move in with the kids.

Several governments around the world have cut or reduced pensions to pensioners. In the United States, several cities and states are reducing or eliminating pension checks. The majority of people are still okay in terms of receiving the monthly pension check. However, as cities go bankrupt, State governments experience increasing financial difficulty. The only way they can turn is to reduce pension payments to their pensioners. This puts many people at extreme risk in their old age and during their retirement years.

Employer Pension – Diversity

One of the key building blocks for pension plans and investors saving money for retirement is diversity. Financial advisors will tell you to never place all of your investment in one company, one stock, or one investment vehicle. Diversity is the only protection you have against a particular company stock becoming worthless.

The same thing applies to pension plans. Company pension plans should be diverse. They should be managed properly, but the sad reality is that this is not always the case. As a result, more and more people are finding that they should also be planning their investment strategy. The pension plan is only one part of their income during retirement years.

It is too late for those people who are retired and in their late retirement years. Consumers who are still working have an opportunity to set aside money for retirement. Regardless of whether they expect to receive an unemployment pension or not, they should start doing so now.

Building up savings that can be used during your retirement years provides you with protection. This a big bonus, particularly if your employment pension comes through. Think of it as an insurance plan. It will enable you to have the quality of life that you would like to have during your retirement years. There will be much less stress on you as well. You don’t need to worry or be concerned about losing your government pension, your employment pension, or your union pension!

Web Site Designer

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Web Site DesignerWebsite design is a combination of technical capability, content creation, and artistic ability. We will examine each of these areas and give you our opinion on what each entails and how much time or money you should consider spending on each when you are a small business operator and just getting started. Most small business owners just want to have a website that advertises their business, provides contact information, and tells customers what services and products they offer. There can be much more to a website as we will discuss, and website designers need to know the details of SEO.

Technical Capability

Technically, your website needs to work and deliver content to the reader and perform whatever functions you build into it, i.e., contact forms, email, ordering, and cash management, to name a few. There needs to be a domain name that resembles as much as possible the name of your company or the business that you are in. It should also have a country reference. If you are in the US, you probably want a .com URL; if you are in Canada, you probably want a .ca URL. Next, you need to arrange for hosting. This is where your content will be saved and referenced when someone goes to your link.

The next major element is some sort of content management system. This system should make it easy for the nonprogrammer to upload content and to arrange their pages and posts so that readers can view them. It should also have several widgets and templates available so that you can customize your website along with several pictures or videos about your products, your services, and your company. We use WordPress for our content management system, which allows us to set up your website and then turn it over to the customer if desired to add their content. We can add the content for you as well if needed.

Website Designer – Content Creation

Your website needs content for several reasons. First and foremost, a business needs to tell readers what services or products they are offering. It is your statement about what you can provide to the readers and an encouragement for them to drop by your store or call you to discuss the services that you might provide to them. Secondly, this is where you also talk about who you are, some information about your company and how to contact you. For most companies and small businesses, this is all you need unless you want to pursue two other elements.

One of these is to monetize your site, and by this, we mean to allow your customers to place purchase capability on your website so that customers can place an order and pay for it on your website. This functionality takes you to another level of the website. Something like adding PayPal is relatively easy to do, while adding other payment methods, inventory control, etc., will take more time and effort.

The second major item of content to consider is increasing the probability that the search engines will index you properly for all of the typical search terms that customers might use when searching for your products and services. For example, if you are selling widget X, and your company website does not mention widget X anywhere on the site or with a combination of words that might be used, consumers searching for this term will never come to your site because you are not search engine optimized.

We can help you with Search Engine Optimization or SEO!

Website Designer – Artistic Ability

Finally, the last item is artistic ability. There are a lot of differing opinions about this area. Some people feel that websites need to be elegant with lots of pictures, etc., while others feel that you just need the facts. The bottom line is that it should be pleasing to the eye, and a little color does help. Business owners can spend thousands of dollars on a website, making it fancy and colorful; however, do you get your ROI for doing this? We do not think so, and that is why we do not promote spending a great deal of money on this sort of thing.

If you need a small business website set up for you, call us today or send us an email, and we will get you going with your small business website within a day or two at very reasonable prices.

For more ideas about what to consider in web design, click here.