Do the IRA accounts have any effect on debt settlement?

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An IRA is considered to be one of the best options for you to save money for retirement. There are various benefits of saving money through IRA’s, and the main one is the tax benefit. However, the question is can the IRA account help you with managing debts? Does it in any way affect your debt settlement ability? You will be required to know all of the details regarding the IRA accounts. You will also need to know your total debt situation. Who you owe money to. How much you owe and how long it will take you to repay these debts.

IRA and debt

There mainly are two types of IRA accounts and these are the simple IRA and the Roth IRA accounts. Both of these have some forms of tax advantages, but the benefits differ on the basis of account type. Put money into your IRA account so that you can go on to lead a stress free retired life. However, can you use the money from the IRA accounts to manage your debts? First of all, if you arenâ€™t aware of the complexities, the most obvious fact is reduction in the amount saved. When you will be withdrawing money from the IRA or the Roth IRA account, it is going to result in loss of the total amount saved. Another disadvantage is that if you withdraw money from the IRA accounts, you will have to pay tax on that.

Still, if you are too deep in debt, and all other sources have been exhausted, using money from IRA accounts can help you avoid bankruptcy. The IRA accounts can help in improving your credibility to settle the debts. The IRA accounts have the capacity to stay put with the different types of retirement investments carriers like that of bonds and stocks, the money market funds and so on. Therefore, reaping the benefits becomes easy with the IRA account.

Debt Settlement Process

Debt settlement is the process through which the outstanding debt amount gets settled. So, if you can settle the debts, it becomes easier to become debt free, as the amount gets lowered. Although, not all creditors agree to settle the debts, you still can get some to settle debts. If you have been missing payments for quite a long time, and if you can exhibit that you are in serious financial hardship, and that there’s no way the creditor can get more than what you are offering; they may agree. Managing payments on a small debt is easier than a large debt. Therefore, if you can go on to let the money grow from the beginning in the IRA account, you can use some of it to make the debt payments, even after settlement.

However, if your debt problems are minimum and if you think that there are still other options, it would be better to try out those, rather than withdrawing money from IRA accounts. This is mainly because, there are tax consequences of the withdrawal. So, weigh all of the options, and the pros and cons before opting to use the IRA account.

Surprise – you are About to Retire

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A surprising statistic about people when they expect to retire suggests that only 23% of people expect to retire before they turn 65, While fully 69% actually retired before they turned 65. This is a really huge change in plans for many people. We wonder if they were ready emotionally and financially to retire and really not take another job. For many people it comes as a big surprise.

Surprise – you are About to Retire

For many people they end up retiring early due to health reasons. As long as you have your health there is a really good chance that you will continue working. But many are finding that their health gets in the way of working. They have the decision made for them. In addition, many companies regularly go through downsizing of some kind. The package offered to older workers is just to good not to take advantage of. For whatever reason, many of us end up retiring much earlier than planned. For those of you reading this post, the message is get your retirement savings in order. Make sure you have the flexibility at least from a financial perspective to retire whenever it is right for you.

Emotionally you may not be ready for retirement. You feel too young and you feel that you have a lot to contribute to the company and to society. You may miss the social life at work. Many have not developed the hobbies and the interests that will sustain them in retirement. Developing the emotional and social plans to be ready for retirement before you retire is something that many people may want to consider. Going cold turkey i.e. quitting work without a plan can be very difficult.

Take Stock of Your Situation Now

If you suddenly find yourself in retirement due to health issues or your company has downsized, it is time to take stock of your situation. Assess your financial readiness for retirement. Do you have enough money saved which combined with your pension will allow you to live in the manner you envisaged during retirement? If not you may have to take some steps towards either finding another job or downsizing your expenses.

Downsizing your expenses is best accomplished by first developing a budget. Figure out how much money you have in terms of income each month and then assess all of your expenses. If income minus expenses is a negative number, it may be time to cut back in some areas and reduce your expenses until the income“ expense equation becomes positive.

Take the time to be realistic about your retirement. Investigate self-help information available on this website and others. Figure out emotionally how you want to deal with retirement and decide if you need to downsize your home, your cars, your travel plans in order to fit your expense budget with your income budget.

The transition for some people will only take a few months, while for others it may take a year or more. Give it time and rely on others in similar situations for help and guidance. They may not be experiencing the same things as you are but they may have great ideas about retiring gracefully.

Professional Web Site Design

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There are probably as many opinions about professional website design as there are websites on the internet. Some people believe they should be flashy with lots of catchy pictures and colors. While others are much more conservative and frankly boring. The bottom line is really determined by the owner of the website and the customers/clients/ readers or visitors think of the site and whether they come back for whatever reason.

Professional Web Site Design

Basic Functionality of a WebSite

The basic functionality of a site should include what services or products your company provides, where you are, and how to contact you. You will be able to include the URL on your business cards and people will be able to find you on the internet if they search specifically for your name or your company’s name.

Delivery Information

Your website can also deliver information. This can include sales promotions, information about new products, new staff members, and general information about the company. The sky is the limit in terms of what you may want to provide on your company’s professional website.

Increase the Customer Relationship

Providing social networking links, accepting and monitoring comments by customers, and adding testimonials are just a few of the things that can be added in this area. Basically, you are attempting to create customer loyalty in this area of your website. Customers might subscribe to a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, or an RSS feed to keep abreast of some of the products and services that you offer.

Full E-commerce Site

One of the next stages is creating a full e-commerce site that customers can interface with and order products and services. They should be able to pay for what they order and be able to also follow up and review the status of the order. This is a major step up from a basic site requiring much more in terms of design and back-office support.

Decide What the Objectives Are

Before you begin, we urge all customers to assess what their objectives are. A basic site represents your company. It is the online version of your storefront. It needs to be accurate, it needs to be pleasing to the eye without being complicated or gaudy, and it should deliver whatever you need it to deliver to your customers. Give some thought to what you are trying to achieve. You do not need a Cadillac design when you just want the basic information out there.

Hire the Right Company to Design Your WebSite

Most companies can set up basic websites and provide hosting. Not all companies can set up a detailed e-commerce site for prices that you can afford. Knowing your objectives and deciding what you need ahead of time will help a great deal.

Focus on Getting the basic Information to Your Readers

Start by getting the basic information to your readers. Spend the time you need to obtain the right domain name. The website design can always be upgraded at some future time. The domain name is the online version of your company’s name. It should, in some manner, be related to your company or the products and services the company provides.

Check out our services and prices here if you need help setting up your company or personal website. Click here

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Retirement NINJAs

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Retirement NINJAs – No Income, No Jobs, and No Assets!

This is quickly becoming the situation that many Americans and Canadians are facing. No jobs, no income, and no assets to sustain them. This happens when they are out of work let alone approaching retirement. This is a dire predicament for many consumers these days. They struggle to put food on the table and a roof over their head. They may not be old enough to retire. However, they are effectively retired and have no way of generating income for themselves.

If there are no jobs and no way of making money, many consumers will turn to family and friends to help them out. This works for a while but then they become a burden on their families as well. Â Seniors may need to move in with family members to control or eliminate housing costs that they cannot afford. It can turn into a very desperate situation with seniors going hungry and cold in the wintertime.

Low Paid Jobs are Not the Answer

There has been a lot of talk about people having low-paid jobs which are essentially minimum wage jobs which are insufficient to save for retirement and basically insufficient to live on as well. They need to pool their income with other people, they’re living with, their families etc. in order to be able to live a decent style of life. It often means for larger families living together and pooling their assets and income.

When you are making minimum wages you also need to work many hours just to survive. It is not uncommon for many consumers to work 50 and 60 hour weeks just to make ends meet for tier families and themselves. One wonders just who is looking after the kids in a situation like this? They are home alone and we all know that idle hands usually mean trouble of some kind. The TV and video games do not provide a useful learning tool and our kids also end up with a very skewed view of the world.

No Income, No Jobs and No Assets – Retirement NiNjA’s

These people also have exhausted all of their assets trying to make do on no income or at best a minimum wage that just does not measure up to what they need to support themselves and their families.Â Once your assets are gone, the only thing left is to live with your family and try to find a job that pays better. Don’t give up, work hard, and pool resources and you will eventually get out of the pit you are in. After all, the family is the most important asset that we all have.

Professional Web Site Services

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Most small business customers are looking for a basic web site. It should come across in a professional manner without having to spend a lot of money to develop it. They want something they can link their customers to. They want an URL that they can show on their business cards. A site that they can easily update from time to time. They may or may not link to the social side of the internet with Twitter and Facebook. That is ok, it can come later once they see the value of these sites.

Professional Web Site Services

A professionally design site may look great, be a nice clean site providing all of the basic information, but it may not be easily found unless your customers have the exact address to type into their browsers. You really want to make sure the site can be found. Without adequate search engine indexing and advertising your site will not be easily found by any new customers.

Online advertising is one method to use. Google for example provides a service that a website owner can use to advertise their site on other customers web sites. It is called Google AdWords and works very well. However, there is a cost to it based on the number of times your advertisement is clicked on. It is best to set up a monthly budget for advertising if you plan to use this approach. Ensure that your costs are kept to a reasonable level.

Professional Web Site Services – SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO also works. This page is an example of what is needed to increase the indexing of a site, in this case, our site. Google and Yahoo as well as Bing use various algorithms to figure out what information to display. Always have great original content that provides information to the searcher in the area they are looking for. The search engines will rank your site higher. They will show your information on the first page of search results. If you are down on the 50^th page, you will never be seen and no one will come to your site.

Contact Us For More Information

Social networking such as Twitter and Facebook pages and tweets can be set up to increase your company’s exposure. A company’s web site can obviously go far beyond the basic 5-page web site that provides contact information, where to find you, the services offered, etc. however if you are looking to get started with a basic web site which can evolve to something more complex later on, contact us via our contact page for more information. Click here.

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Real Retirement Issues

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Sometimes people have lots of time to prepare for retirement. They are able to work as long as they want to and select the date they will finish work. Many people however get a surprise. They walk into work one day to find out that they are being laid off or have to select between a retirement package vs. being laid off. They are the lucky ones. These are real retirement issues that people face every day.

Either way, many of us plan for retirement and many do not. Some because they just do not want to think about it. While others are just not that organized. The bottom line is that if you want to enjoy your retirement and have enough money to do some of the things you want to during retirement, you should probably devote a little time to planning your retirement.

Real Retirement Issues to Think about

These are a few of the issues retired people wish they had thought about before they retired:

Planning for taxes
Left money on the table
Forget about the past
Don’t plan more than you can do
Enjoy life more
Made a bucket list
Cherish every day

If you have been laid off and are now looking for a job because you feel that you are not ready to retire or just need the money, you are probably going through a number of emotions. There may be depression, there may be anger and there may even be a relief because you hated your job in the first place. But the bottom line is to get through these stages as quickly as possible and move on with your life. This includes finding that job or realizing that there is life after work.

Get On With Your Life

Whatever you plan to do, it is important to think about your financial situation. Make whatever arrangements you need to make to get your life in order and ready for the next stage in your life. Focus on some or all of the issues we listed above. Think about your own personal needs and desires along with those of your family and specifically your spouse. There is a lot of potential stress when it comes to retirement since your daily routine is going through major changes and many people do not deal with change very well.

We write a lot of articles about various topics associated with retirement. They cover tax issues, savings plans, and some of the emotional issues about retiring from the work force. We urge people to read some of these posts and if you have comments about our ideas or feel that we missed some, let us know.

When deciding on a great place to live, what is most important to you?

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We were wondering what are the most important factors that determine where a person lives? How do you choose a great place to live? Do they focus on jobs that are available? Do they focus on good schools for their kids? Are they focused on interesting things to do? What about the cost of living and housing? Does it depend on the stage of life that they are in? Maybe being close to family, getting away from the cold and the snow, and other areas that are important to people in their lives all come into focus when they are considering where they will live. It really boils down to what is important to them and how they want to live their lives.

Young Adults

It appears that most young adults are focused on where they can get a job once they graduate from school. The overriding factor is to find a job and if that means they need to move, then that is what they will do. They are relatively mobile with few ties and encumbrances like homes and furniture to be concerned about. Given a choice they will prefer a location that maximizes their social life, whether that is skiing or wave boarding or even both in some locations

Adults with Families

Life suddenly got a lot more complicated. While they will move to take a job, these moves are not taken lightly. Spouses may have jobs to think about and there are often children’s schools to think about. If the kids are older, there may be some resistance to moving as well due to leaving friends, etc.

This is all a balance in lifestyle, however the most important thing for most people is to find a decent job that they can obtain to pay for a home and food, etc. if there are no jobs, then the family may have to move regardless of the other priorities in life.

Retirement great place to live

This is often very difficult for many people as well. Do they stay in their current home? Are there sufficient support services available to help them when they need help? Are they healthy enough to look after the home and travel or do the things that they like to do while retired? Where is the family? Should they move closer to the family or should they move to a location that has always been their dream?

One of the issues that people who are retired have is that they have just too many opportunities and too many choices. Sometimes they cannot make up their minds what they want to do and end up just staying where they are.

Your comments and plans about the life stages and where you want to live would be appreciated. What drives you to stay or move? For more posts about lifestyle issues, click here.

Web Designer for Small Business

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Many small businesses know they need a web site. But they feel they cannot afford to hire a web designer to set up a web site for them. They really do not understand the costs involved. Many look at having a website as something they should have. But it may not be considered as part of their core business activities or core advertising business.

In this post, we decided to provide three examples of small businesses that needed a web site and the solution that they eventually went with for their business. All wanted the basic information to be online so they could refer their customers to the sites for more information, they wanted to be able to add the URL to their business card and they hoped to gain customers through their web site from visitors that found them on the internet. When they advertised using traditional models, they would also list the web site.

Electrician and Residential Gas Fitter

This customer really only wanted five pages initially with all of the basic information about his company and the services they provided. He wanted to add some pictures as well that showed some of the installations that he worked on along with testimonials from his customers. This was easily accomplished for him and other than the initial fee to set up the website, he only needs to pay the annual domain name fee and the hosting account fee.

Since we used a blog engine, we also set him up so that he could add pages or blog posts himself and he could also update existing material as his business changed. This was a really attractive advantage to him since he did not want to pay for updates to pages or adding pages. He had a very limited budget and this met his objectives.

Unfortunately, his web site is not ranked very high by the search engines since it is not SEO optimized. There are simply not enough pages with keywords that people usually use to search for the services he offers. At the present time, he is satisfied with that and will continue with his current arrangement.

Ski Club

While this is technically not a business, they have many of the same requirements that the above customer needed. Inexpensive and limited update costs were paramount. This site is used to keep members informed about trips and membership updates. There are only 5 or 6 pages that need to be updated. They want to be able to also make their own updates.

They already have a domain name, but no hosting location. Their budget is even more limited. They are presently looking for free hosting and someone to update their pages for them. They are still thinking about the services that are provided and that they need as well as looking for free hosting which one of their members may be able to provide. Again, they are willing to work on the content and just need the basic website structure to be put in place which a content management system such as WordPress can provide.

Word of Mouth Lawn Care Provider

Another potential customer has been offering lawn care services in the area for many years. He is trying to decide if he wants to increase his business or keep it at the present level. He does not have a web site and relies on word of mouth for his business advertising.

While this works for him at the present stage he is at. He knows he needs a web designer for his small business. He also needs a domain name, hosting account, and a web blog that would be easy for him to upkeep.

Although the costs are very low, he is trying to decide what his business strategy will be. Before he takes the next step should he try to turn his part-time business into a larger full-time business? This will involve personal commitments that he is not sure he is ready for.

For more information about our services and our costs for those services, click here. We can help you with your website requirements.

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Retirement Super Savers

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Retirement super savers have a plan and a set of objectives for their lives. They are focused and are determined to be independent financially as early as possible so that they have the freedom to do what they want. This could mean retiring early or it could men working until they are in their 80â€™s. The thing they have in common is that they are working under their own terms when and where they want. There are lots of benefits to having the freedom to retire when you want. Just knowing that it does not matter if you work or not can significantly improve the stress level in your life, give you freedom to travel and enjoy life when other people are going to work everyday and envying your lifestyle. The following is a list of potential objectives that anyone including retirement super savers may have.

Review them and decide what you need to do to achieve your objectives. Change them if you want, but make them your own. Set up a plan to achieve then and stay focused. The main objective is independence. Some of these are both objectives and benefits depending on how you look at them.

Objectives of retirement Super Savers:

Retirement at 65
Save at 10% or
Super save at 20 or 30%
Retire early
Change careers
Independence to do your thing
Invest well
Diversity
Income & growth
Stay away from high risk
Work as long as you want then change careers or retire

Fundamentally if you aim to have enough savings to allow retirement to be considered in your late forties or early 50’s, then you really have a lot of flexibility in terms of what you do with the rest of your life. You can keep right on working if that is what you really want to do. You can also play golf every day or travel etc. The point is that you will have the flexibility to whatever you wish to do and not really have to worry about where the money is going to come from.

Some people love to work. But they really do not like the job they are currently doing or they want to start their own business. Now they can do this if they were a super saver during the early part of their career. The one caveat that we want to bring to everyone’s attention is that they need to protect the nest egg they have created. For example we do not think it is a good idea to take all of your savings and sink it into a new business venture no matter how strongly you feel about it. You risk your savings and could find yourself having to go back to work if the business fails for whatever reason. Diversity is always one of the most important caveats of the super savers.

Working Beyond 60 Needs a Healthy Body

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More and more people are planning to work beyond 60 simply because they cannot afford to quit their jobs. They did not save enough money for retirement, and they do not have enough money coming in from pensions, so they have no choice but to work. As long as their health holds out, they can continue working beyond 60 with no problems, but as soon as health issues get in the way, they may not be able to work, even sitting down at a desk. What are they to do at this moment?

This is a tough question that more and more baby boomers are beginning to face. They do not have enough money to save for retirement and cannot work. How will they survive Working Beyond 60?

Sufficient savings, no worries

You have no worries if you have sufficient savings to generate an income. Continue working as long as it is interesting and meets your objectives. This is the most enviable position since you can quit when you want to retire or find another job that gives you some pleasure. But if you do not have enough money, it is time to start saving.

Not enough top-up savings

Save as much as you can for retirement. If you start late, you may not be able to save enough, but then something is better than nothing. Talk to a financial advisor and figure out how much you will need to save to have the lifestyle you want, then start saving money now.

Working Beyond 60

Even if this means you have to work well into your 60s, at least you will have a plan that will make your life a little easier. If your health gives out and you cannot work, then you have something that you can fall back on. Working when you know you have savings to fall back on is much easier than when you have nothing or not nearly enough saved and must work just to make ends meet.

Set aside a minimum of 10% from every paycheck and watch it grow over the years. The earlier you start, the faster it will grow.

A healthy body helps.

Keep your body healthy. Exercise a bit, go for 20-minute walks every day, and eat the right foods. When you exercise, your odds of maintaining your health will be better, and if you need to work, you will be able to. This is one of the most important things you can do to ensure a healthy body if you need to work.

Take care of it and avoid getting some ailments many older people get when they do not eat right, exercise, etc. Stop smoking and reduce your drinking as well to protect your body.

Health issues get in the way.

When you do get sick, it usually means time off the job. Serious health issues can take a long time to deal with, and they can mean a lot of extra costs and reduced income. Having a large savings and paying for health insurance until Medicare kicks in will help you avoid becoming totally broke as you age. Health issues can come up at any time, so you need to be prepared.

Plan for surprises

One of the largest issues many people have to deal with is that they are not ready for surprises from a financial perspective. Whether repairs to the car or the house or some other major issue, if you do not have the savings for major issues such as these, then the money has to come out of your current income, which can be difficult to deal with.

It also means you must keep working for a longer period than you planned. Always have at least six months of equivalent income saved up to deal with layoffs and other emergencies that occur from time to time. If you must dig into your emergency savings, top it back up as soon as possible.

For more thoughts about retirement risks, click here.