Balanced Life Style

Balanced Life StyleEveryone should think about maintaining a balanced life style. What does this really mean and why is it so important? It all comes down to maintaining your health over the long-term. This was explained to me by a senior manager who was providing some mentoring to me one day. I think that he thought that I was working too hard. He wanted to make sure that I maintained a balanced life style for myself and my family.

His guidance to me was based on the following. If you assume a basic work day is eight hours and you have 8 hours for sleep, then that leaves 8 hours for family and social activities. This is a pretty good balance if you can maintain this, since we all need on average at least 8 hours of sleep every day.

Balanced Life Style – Work vs. Personal Life

Now if work gets busy, maybe you are trying to get promoted and want to put in more effort. Chances are you are going to be at the office for more than 8 hours. Let’s assume 10 hours for the sake of illustration. We still want to maintain our time with the family and with our social activities. After all this is part of the reward and is fun as well for most people. If we work 10 hours and play 10 hours, then that only leaves 6 hours for sleeping!

Now once and awhile is really not a problem for most people. You are tired the next day due to lack of sleep. But then you work a regular day and get a good nights sleep that next night. The problem creeps in when working 10 hours at the office becomes a habit, a regular occurrence. The amount of sleep you get on average gets a lot closer to 6 hours instead of eight.

Balanced Life Style – Considerations

Now with lack of sleep creeping in, people are making more mistakes. They do not operate machinery or cars nearly as well. They have accidents! In addition their bodies do not have as much time to recuperate. There is a greater chance of becoming sick which means time off the job.

This is some of the best advice that I ever received. Hopefully other people will read this material and they will change their life for the better. Stay healthy, spend time with your family and work smart at work to succeed in life. The company will not remember you. They will not care about you if you get sick and have to retire early or quit work altogether.

Mid Year Tweaks to Your Retirement Plan

Tweaks to Your Retirement PlanGold is down significantly from the beginning of the year. Many people who are the so-called gold bugs have lost significant amounts of money as a result. Stocks are up a great deal. They are also volatile with quite wide swings. This volatility can unnerve many investors who depend on their savings for their retirement income. It might be time to make mid-year tweaks to your retirement plan. Monitor your retirement savings and make cautious adjustments to ensure that your plan is not jeopardized over the long term. Work with an adviser to ensure that you do not sell low and buy high. If you can live on income and not touch your principle, you will be sheltered from any of these wild swings.

Tweaks to Your Retirement Plan

Interest rates edging up over the past few months for loans and mortgages. Many people who did not lock in a mortgage interest rate before the rise are now wondering if they should put off buying a home. An increase of 1% can add hundreds of dollars a month depending on the size of the mortgage. Recently interest rates have settled down. Governments in North America are suggesting that they will remain low for the next year and a half.

The economy is slowly improving and for those people who have a job, life is tolerable. But if you do not have a job or if you are just making enough to pay the bills, retirement savings are something that you dream about vs. actually having. Let’s hope the slow economic improvement continues. It is better than drastic increases which can go down equally as fast providing for a lot of turmoil in people’s lives. Although frustrating for many people, a long slow improvement is actually better for everyone than a fast trip up and then down over the cliff.

Storm Clouds Brewing

Nevertheless, there are lots of storm clouds churning away. Europe is still unstable but making progress. China is slowing its growth forecast and even in the US, the slow economic improvement is a worry for many people. There have not been any major storms this year that affected the economy or the oil industry. But there have been a lot of smaller storms that have hurt people really badly, however not on the scale of some of the bigger hurricanes.

There is always something going on and with all that is currently taking place, it is time to review your retirement plan. You may need to make mid-year tweaks to your retirement plan if necessary based on a thorough balanced review. Tweak only if necessary to balance your retirement plan, reduce risk, increase income and make cash available when you need it. Check with your financial adviser to confirm you have a well-balanced retirement plan. Invest for the longer term and avoid reacting to short-term stimuli from outside sources on the stock market.

Ten Best Things to do in Retirement

Ten Best Things to do in RetirementThis is the list of the Ten Best Things to do in Retirement that we recently read and wanted to pass this along to our readers. Basically you can do something that keeps you busy and that you find rewarding or you can help people. Sitting around and doing nothing really does not help you or anyone else that matters. Why not make a contribution to society in some manner? Sitting around being bored is actually bad for your health and will actually shorten your life. Be active and do something that you enjoy and really get into your retirement.

Ten Best Things to do in Retirement

  • Get a job
  • Take up a sport
  • Volunteer
  • Start a business
  • Start a hobby
  • Travel the world
  • Take a year off work
  • Go south for the winter
  • Go to a camp for adults
  • Meet new friends of all ages

Get a job – a lot of people will take a second job after retirement. They make a little money to pay for the extras they want and to also replace the social life that they lost when they retired.

Take up a sport – there are lots of sports that retirees can participate in. Some are expensive such as golf, but others such as bike riding is relatively inexpensive.

Volunteer – helping other people is rewarding. It makes a contribution to society while adding some social activity as well to your life.

Start a business – starting a business is a challenge for many people. Some retirees miss the challenges that work gave them. Starting a small business is one way to replace that loss.

Start a hobby – that hobby you always wanted to pursue but never had the time is ready and waiting

Travel the world – if you have enough money traveling can be a wonderful pastime, provided that you have the budget available to travel in the lifestyle you prefer.

Take a year off work – instead of retiring, take a year off work to see if you are ready and develop some of the things that you will be doing during retirement

Go south for the winter – lots of people cannot stand the winter and love to travel south for the winter where they can golf and pursue some of the sports they enjoy in the summer.

Go to a camp for adults – we are not sure about this one, but you can pick a camp that caters to your interests and meet new people at the same time.

Meet new friends of all ages – take the time to meet new friends, everyone has a story to tell and many are really interesting to listen to.

Add New Life to Existing Content

Add New Life to Existing ContentSometimes old content on your blog becomes out of date, the details change, posts are too short and to maintain the value of this content writers should really spend time updating them and tweaking the content. It is time to Add New Life to Existing Content. With perhaps thousands of pages, how does one go about updating this content and keep it fresh? This is a huge problem for large and small companies. They may be limited by staff levels and also want to continue generating new and fresh content. We have outlined a few ideas about how to go about this. Make efficient use of your time and still generate new content aimed at your readers.

Add New Life to Existing Content – Approach to Updating Content

One approach is to add to your daily schedule an objective to update content each day. Perhaps you modify one post per day. Bring it up to current specifications and update the information so that it is relevant to today’s readers. If you have thousands of pages, this may need to be done to many files per day. However, you also must be careful to avoid signaling to the search engines that your content is spam by mistake. Our approach is to update no more than five posts each day. Tweaking them here and there, adding a few sentences, correcting spelling and grammar, etc. We also update the Google Adsense code on these pages as well when Google makes changes to their code.

It may take us several years to get through all of the content. However, that is much better than never going through it at all at the same time. We also are using this opportunity to remove links that are no longer valid or perhaps do not align with our content. With Google’s focus on indexing good quality content, we feel that this is another excellent approach to take over time.

Advertise Your Web Sites Content

You need to advertise as well on your message boards, twitter, Facebook, etc. Get your message out there so that readers are aware of what is available and can link to it as they refer content to their friends etc.

A good time to update old content is when the creative juices may not be flowing. No one can write every day and all day. We get tired, we run out of ideas and it is just too difficult. By taking the time to update old content, you are keeping your old content up to date and you just may get some ideas for new posts from your old content. This is an excellent way to help develop new ideas as well since the process of rewriting content or updating it sometimes gets you thinking about ideas that were not covered in the old content. Depending on the topic, this may be an opportunity to create a new post about this new topic and link back to the original post.

Paying for special needs

Paying for special needsPaying for special needs can place an extra load on a family in all kinds of ways. This post will take a quick look at retirement options . What it may mean for couples looking after someone with special needs.

Consider a special needs child who has no way of earning an income. The child depends on his parents for everything. As the parents plan for retirement, they also must plan for an extra income that will look after their special needs child. This must include when they are retired and later when they are no longer alive. This is a very serious situation that keeps many people up at night worrying about what will happen to their child. Also their spouse or someone they are looking after. Another situation is where one spouse becomes sick or has a major health challenge. They may need special care in a health facility costing thousands of dollars. While the other remains at home with all of the normal home-related expenses.

Paying for special needs – Set Up a Trust Fund

For many couples, this means setting up a trust that will have sufficient money to look after their child as long as he or she lives. There also needs to be instructions as well for what to do with the trust when the child also passes away. There are also must be a trust administrator to make sure the trust is maintained. They must look after the child’s financial requirements.

All of these factors can be handled by your lawyer or a trusted financial adviser. It is important to have things set up in a professional way with everything set out properly and clearly. The paperwork and financial plans are important. There are other factors that need to be considered. For example, after you are gone who will administer the trust fund. More importantly, make sure that your child is looked after? Selecting an administrator is an important decision.

The Personal Touch

While it is nice to have the money in place, it is also important to have someone that you trust to look after the special needs person. Usually, this is a brother or sister, or a cousin that is close to the family and can be trusted to take good personal care of the person. Aside from paying for whatever services you may need, it is the personal needs, such as clothes, toiletries, visitations, medical visits, etc that also need to be taken care of.

This can be a significant commitment for many people and sometimes it will be shared by members of the family so that not all of the time and the work is born by one person. When people share responsibilities it can be much easier for everyone. Still, there must be one person that takes the responsibility to coordinate and manage everything. Diplomacy is required since you want to avoid creating differences that become major issues at the same time. Choose wisely.

Tax Deferred Retirement Plan

tax deferred retirement plan A tax deferred retirement plan is an investment plan that allows us as tax payers to invest pretax dollars into a plan, and collect income within the plan without paying tax as long as the funds are left in the plan. This is an excellent way for individuals to save for retirement using income that is only taxed when the money is withdrawn from the plan. The usual mantra is to invest in these plans when you have a high income and are attracting more income tax, then withdraw income when you are making less income. You still will pay tax, but at a lower rate of tax. The theory is that there will be a net savings for the tax payer and in many cases this is true.

Consumers can build up huge retirement savings by using pretax dollars when invested wisely with diversity in mind and in quality stocks and bonds. There will be wide swings in the actual value of the plan since stocks and mutual funds will vary a great deal, however if you are well invested in high quality dividend paying stocks, the value of your investment plans will continue to increase over time. This increase will be from both income from dividends and interest as well as appreciation of these investments.

Tax Deferred Retirement Plan – What to do With Tax Refunds

Consumers can save thousands of dollars with pretax money by using a tax deferred retirement plan. They can save much faster with pretax dollars than they could with after tax dollars. If they are in a high tax bracket they can save or reduce their tax payable by a significant amount. Withdraw the money when they are in a lower tax bracket after they have retired. Tax refunds that are triggered due to investing in a tax deferred plan should always be invested. Invest into these plans or use the funds to reduce other debt such as mortgages and loans.

For example, $10,000 invested in a tax deferred retirement plan would trigger a $5000 tax savings for a person at a 50% tax bracket. Therefore the cost to the tax pager is only $5000. Later when he retires he can begin to withdraw money. Let’s assume now that he is in a 25% tax bracket and withdraws the same $10,000. He will only pay $2500 in tax for a net tax reduction of $2500. This is the real power of a tax deferred retirement plan. Tax planning and income planning is something that your tax adviser or your income adviser can help you with. Determine the best time to withdraw money from your plans.

Sheltering Income

All income in the tax deferred retirement plan is tax sheltered until it is withdrawn from the plan. This is a really powerful method for consumers to save money for their retirement! Begin early in your life by saving money in a tax deferred retirement plan. It is quite easy to accumulate well over a million dollars in the plan for your retirement. Save for retirement even if you have a company sponsored retirement plan. With a tax deferred retirement plan as well you will have the confidence of knowing that your retirement is financially secure.

Why Should You Invest in a Tax Deferred Retirement Plan when you Have a Company Plan

Many lucky people to have a company pension. Consumers ask themselves why should they save additional money in a tax deferred plan. Turns out there are a number of reasons to save in one of these plans over and above the savings you get from decreasing your taxes.

These reasons include the following:

  • Not all pension plans are sufficient to provide the quality of life you may want to have in retirement.
  • Many companies do not survive long enough to provide a pension
  • Not all companies pay sufficient money into the company pension plan
  • Early layoffs and retirements can mean a lower pension than planned

Assume that none of these things mentioned above occur. The real bonus is that you have a savings plan sitting there. It can be used to provide you with a better quality of life than you were expecting. We really are suggesting that consumers should plan for the worst. In most cases the worst does not happen. You gain the benefits of having a savings plan to use for improving your quality of life during your retirement.

Sell your home fast for top dollar

Sell your home fast for top dollarSell your home fast for top dollar. Selling your home is one of the most important steps in your life. This nine steps system will give you the tools you need to maximize your profits, maintain control, and reduce the stress that comes with the home selling process;

Know why you’re selling and keep it to yourself. The reasons behind your decision to sell, affect everything from setting a price to deciding how much time and money to invest in getting her home ready for sale. What’s more important to you; the money you walk away with, or the length of time you’ve your property is on the market or both? Different goals will dictate different strategies.

However, don’t reveal your motivation to anyone else or they may use it against you at the negotiating table. When asked, simply say that your housing needs have changed.

Do your homework before setting a price.

Settling on its offering price shouldn’t be done lightly. Once you set your price, you’ve told the buyers the absolute maximum they have to pay for your home, but pricing to high is as dangerous as pricing too low. Remember that the average buyer is looking at multiple homes at the same time they’re considering yours. This means that they have a basis of comparison, and if your home doesn’t compare favorably with others in the price range you said, you will be taken seriously by prospects or agents. As a result, your home will sit on the market for a long time and, knowing this, new buyers on the market will think that there must be something wrong with your home.

Do your homework. Find out what homes in your own and similar neighborhoods have sold for in the past 3 to 6 months, and research what current homes are listed for. That certainly helps prospective buyers will assess the work of your home.

Find a good real estate agent to represent your needs.

Nearly 3/4 of homeowners claim they wouldn’t use the same real estate agent who sold their last home. Dissatisfaction boils down to poor communication, which results in not enough feedback, lower pricing, and strained relations. Picking the right agent is one of those critical issues that can cost or save you thousands of dollars. It is important to find out what unique plan And programs and agents have a place to make sure that your home stands out.

Maximize your home’s sales potential.

Each year, corporate North America spends billions of product packaging design. Appearance is critical, and it would be foolish to ignore this when selling your home.

You may not be able to change your Holmes location or foreplay, but you can do a lot to improve its appearance. The look and feel of your home generate a great emotional response than any other factor. Before showings clean like you’ve never cleaned before. Pick up, straightened, uncluttered, scrub, scour, and dust. Fix everything, the matter how insignificant it may appear. Present your home to get a wow response from prospective buyers.

Allow the buyers to imagine themselves living in your home.

The decision to buy a home is based on emotion, not logic. Prospective buyers want to try on your home just like they wanted a new suit of clothing. If you follow them around pointing out improvements, or if you’re decorous so different that it’s difficult for a buyer to stripping away in his or her mind, you make it difficult for them to feel comfortable enough to imagine themselves an owner.

Make it easy for prospects to get information on your home.

You may be surprised to know that the two marketing tools that most agents used to sell homes are actually not very effective at all. In fact, less than 3% of people purchase their homes as a result of calling to a classified ads, and less than 1% of homes are sold at an open house.

Furthermore, the prospects calling for information on your home probably value their time as much as you do. The last thing they want to be subjected to is either a game of telephone tag with an agent or an unwanted sales pitch. Make sure the ad your agent places for your home is attached to a 24-hour prerecorded hotline with the specified telephone number for your home which gives buyers access to detailed information about your property day or night seven days a week, without having to talk to anyone. It’s been proven that three times as many buyers call for information on your home under the system. And remember, the more buyers you have competing for your home the better because it sets up an auction-like atmosphere that puts you in the driver seat.

Sell your home fast for top dollar – Know your buyer.

In the negotiation process, your objective is to control the pace set the duration. What is our buyer’s motivation? Does she or he need to move quickly? Does she or he have enough money to pay you your asking price? Knowing this information gives you the upper hand in the negotiation because you know how far you can push to get what you want.

Make sure the contract is complete.

For your part as a seller, make sure you disclose everything. Smart sellers proactively go above and beyond legal requirements to disclose all known defects to their buyers, in writing. If the buyer knows about a problem he or she cannot come back with a lawsuit later on.

Make sure all terms, costs, and responsibilities are spelled out in the contract of sale and resist the temptation to diverge from the contract. For example, if the buyer request to move in prior to closing, just say no. Now is not the time to take any chances of the deal falling through.

Don’t move out before you sell.

Studies have shown that it is more difficult to sell a home that is vacant. Because it looks forlorn, forgotten, simply not appealing. You could even cost you thousands. If you move, you’re also telling buyers that you have a new home. It sends a message to buyers that are probably highly motivated to sell fast. This, of course, will give them the advantage at the negotiating table.

For more posts about selling real estate, click here.

Retirement Plans for Self Employed

retirement plans for self employedRetirement plans for self employed people are one of the most important issues that people who run their own businesses have. Most do not even realize that their quality of life is going to be impacted by poor planning. They are focused on running their business and building it into a successful operation. They sometimes give very little thought to long-term planning. If we can get even one person to think about their retirement and plan for it, then we have done our job.

Obviously we would like many people who are self employed to embrace retirement planning. In addition, many employees of small companies also do not have company sponsored retirement plans. They must do their own planning as well for their retirement.

Retirement Plans for Self Employed Business People

Many business owners believe that their business will be their retirement plan. They will either sell it or will turn it over to a family member who will run it for them and they will reap the benefits. We hope that this strategy works for everyone. But we also believe that there should be a backup plan just in case the business fails, it does not sell for what you think that it should or it cannot support multiple family members  in a life style that everyone would like. Having a backup strategy just makes good business sense and that is why we think that business owners should save for retirement outside of their business operations.

If they are successful in selling their business and have retirement plans set up as well, then this is a total bonus situation. The best of both worlds. If on the other hand their business venture does not turn out as well as they had hoped they still have their retirement savings to live on.

Employees who participate in a company pension plan will receive a pension from their employer when they retire. They may choose to top up their employer sponsored retirement plan to provide them with the quality of life during retirement that they are looking for. Self employed individuals must plan 1005 for their retirement and set aside money that will give them the quality of life they are looking for. They must 100% fund themselves and they must manage their retirement savings to deal with market changes over a period that could be as long as 40 years in some cases if someone were to begin work at 20 and retire at 60.

Biggest Mistake for Retirement Plans for Self Employed

The biggest mistake that most people make about retirement is that they start saving for retirement much too late. They end up not having enough money to retire in the lifestyle that they had assumed that they would have. There are only so many options when faced with this kind of situation. Either you continue working and work longer than planned, or you reduce your expectations during retirement and do not have the quality of life you had planned.

We mention quality of life several times. For some people this is traveling and vacationing around the world when they retire. For others, living at the cottage and spending time with the family is what is important. Whatever your plan is, we suggest that you take the time to figure out how much money you will need each year to live in the manner you prefer and then ensure that you have a savings plan in place that will allow you to achieve these retirement dreams.

One last point we would like to make. Sometimes unforeseen events come along that prevent us from working as long as we had planned. It could be everything from a failed business to health related issues. In addition to your retirement fund, try to also have an emergency fund set aside to deal with these unforeseen surprises. If you never use the emergency fund, then you will have more for your retirement!

The real estate market has changed

real estate marketThe real estate market has changed in the last few years partly due to the recession and partly due to the fact that people in general have less money to spend after paying for many of the other things we need to survive in life. Everything has gone up in price. While many people have lost jobs or are in jobs that do not pay well enough for them to be able to afford a home of their own.

Remember not so long ago, when you could make your fortune in real estate. It was nothing then to buy a home, wait a short while, and then sell it at a tidy profit. And then they would do it again. Inflation was raising the price of homes dramatically. Then came the huge recession. The price of homes dropped like a stone with many homeowners losing their homes because they could not afford the mortgage. If you had money at this time, a lot of money can be made in real estate by buying when prices were low. They have since recovered somewhat.

Real Estate Market Seller Mistakes

Well, as you probably know, times have changed. Since markets are constantly fluctuating, real estate markets are unpredictable because of changing prices and interest rates. Therefore, it is now more critical than ever to learn what you need to know to avoid costly seller mistakes in order to sell your home fast and for the most amount of money.

Buyers are far more discriminating, and a large percentage of homes listed for sale don’t sell the first time they are listed for sale. Buyers want everything to be upgraded or they want the home to be priced so low that they can afford to do the upgrades themselves. Then again many buyers do not want to be even bothered with the mess and difficulty of upgrading a home.

Older Homes

For example, if you have an older home with wood-framed windows, these windows require painting every few years. They may need to be replaced if the wood begins to deteriorate. Windows can be expensive to replace. Some homes costing as much as $15,000 or even more to replace all of the windows. Many buyers want to see that this upgrade has already been completed. They do not want to have to deal with it and come up with the money. At the same time sellers will sell their home faster and for a little more money than they would with a home with wooden windows. But they do not reap the entire amount when they sell.

The same situation applies to kitchen and bathroom upgrades. Someone who has taken excellent care of their home may feel that their kitchen and bathrooms are in excellent condition. But the problem is that in a 25-year-old home they are outdated. They are not attracted to someone who is looking for a beautiful bathroom with marble counters and tiled showers. Kitchens need to have granite countertops. Upgraded or modern cupboards as well and new appliances to be attractive to buyers, particularly the younger buyers.

Real Estate Market – Don’t Spend Too Much

Some homeowners will spend up words of $50,000 on these upgrades. Only to find that the price of their home does not increase accordingly. It will definitely sell faster. They will get more for their home than the guy next door who has not completed any upgrades. But they will not get the full amount that they have put into their house.

For most people this is ok. Since they plan to stay in their home for several years and enjoy the work they have done on their homes. When they do decide to sell they at least have enjoyed what they have. At the same time will obtain a higher price for their home than they might have otherwise.

Fixer-Uppers

Some consumers are willing to purchase homes that need work. However, they expect a corresponding decrease in the cost of the home they are buying. With the money saved, they plan to do the upgrades to meet their personal taste and then enjoy them. These consumers tend to know the cost of upgrades, and are good at estimating the costs. They are good at designing their own rooms the way they want them to look. They also are willing to put up with the dust and the construction activity while it is being completed, which many people are not.

The real estate market has certainly changed and if you are planning to sell, you must take all of these factors into account when you prepare to sell or buy a home.

Retirement Plans for Individuals

Retirement PlansThere are several questions which will make a huge impact on your success at planning and saving for retirement! All the rest of the decisions are trivial by comparison. Fussing over the rise and fall of the stock market will make little difference in the big scheme of things over your working life. Investing in quality investments and not chasing get rich quick schemes will also make a difference. Â Depending on how you answer these questions and how you apply these answers to these questions will determine your long term retirement lifestyle and quality of life. This is important since it affects how well you will live during your retirement, the quality of your life, and what if anything you leave to your heirs. Focus on these for success.

Retirement Plans Questions

  1. Are you a saver or an investor?
  2. How should you divide up your money?
  3. How much help do you really need?
  4. What’s the best use of tax-deferred plans?
  5. How much can you draw from your savings?

More Details

1. Are you a saver or an investor? Long term savings using conservative investments have proven to be more successful over the long term compared to chasing the elusive stock speculation objective. Saving at least 10% of your income every year is going to make a huge difference. Not touching this money and not taking it out early will ensure that you have adequate savings when you retire. Some experts suggest that you need 11 times your salary saved up to ensure that you have adequate funds for retirement.

2. How should you divide up your money? Practice diversification between stocks, mutual and bonds to protect from market swings. Avoid placing all of your money in one investment or even with one investment manager. Diversity over the long term is the key element along with investing in quality stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Focus on dividend-paying stocks who have both a growth trend in the value of their shares and a history of increasing the dividends each year.

Get Advice

3. How much help do you really need? Get advice from experts and teach yourself about investing and planning for retirement. If you need help with calculations of how much retirement income you will need and how much you will have don’t hesitate to ask for it. But fundamentally retain control and never turn complete control over to a so-called expert. Be involved in all decisions and if you do not understand what is being suggested, ask enough questions to allow you to understand, and if you still don’t get it, then back off until you do understand.

4. What’s the best use of tax-deferred plans? The experts can help you figure out the right balance between tax-deferred plans and regular savings plans. Remember that tax-deferred plans mean that taxes are deferred until later in life presumably when you have a lower tax rate. The government wants you to be self-sufficient, but they also want your taxable income as well.

5. How much can you draw from your savings? When should you retire and how much can you take out each year to make sure your money lasts through your retirement. Some experts say that if you take out 4% each year you have an 80% chance of your money lasting during your retirement. This obviously depends on how you are invested and how long you live. Â Investing in GIC’s at 1 to 3% will likely mean your money will run out early. Investing in dividend-paying stocks and living on the income only will ensure that the money lasts much longer. Figure out how much you need and withdraw money from your accounts accordingly.

Retirement Plans – Summary

That’s it, lots to think about but only five questions! They are complicated questions but given our lifelong practical experience, we think these are the important ones. Invest wisely, get involved, and keep abreast of what is happening in the markets. Focus on the medium to long term and do not react to the short term volatility of the markets.

If the market’s plunge and you are well invested in high-quality blue-chip stocks you probably will be ok. The markets will recover. You must monitor and make sure that you are not invested in a company such as GM who was considered blue-chip at one point then went bankrupt when the economy tanked and they could not react in time. Bankruptcy was the only option to clear debt and to clear union contracts that were holding them back and making them totally unprofitable. So monitor and if you are concerned talk to the experts and then make you own decision.