Everyday household expenses can quickly add up and, if you’re not paying attention, they can end up consuming a large portion of your income. When this happens, saving enough for financial goals like buying a house, paying for a college education, or saving for retirement can become difficult. Below are eight ways you can reduce your monthly household expenses.
Losing a spouse is an especially painful time. Unfortunately, many people find their grief compounded by the complexities of figuring out their finances. The process for collecting Social Security Survivor Benefits can be particularly confusing, but we hope this primer will help you wade through the confusion and better understand the benefits you may be eligible for.
If you’re like most people, you don’t understand your portfolio and each of the individual mutual funds you own. A fund analysis can help.
A fund analysis, basically an audit, will determine if you have too many funds and reveal important information about each one. It will show you the actual, direct expenses of each fund, as well as the hidden costs you never see. You’ll know how much risk you have in each fund, as well as how much each fund has lost in the past.
It’s tempting to think about retirement savings in black and white: there’s a “right” number you need to reach, at which point you have enough money saved to sustain your retirement. The trouble is, there is no right number because every retiree has a different picture of what their ideal retirement looks like. That means the amount of money you’ll need to retire could be vastly different – either far more or far less – than others your age, or even in your social circle. In order to truly understand what your retirement savings goal should be, you need to forget arbitrary numbers and come up with you own personal estimate.
How familiar are you with Wall Street Math? The stock market lost -50 percent during the 2000-2002 Technology Bubble and lost -50 percent again during the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis, crushing American portfolios and dreams.
In 2008, the US economy lost an estimated 22 Trillion dollars! You lost so much because you didn’t know how much risk you were taking and don’t understand Wall Street Math.
When it comes to retirement, most retirees want less risk, smaller losses, to earn a reasonable rate of return, liquidity, and income that is guaranteed for life.
That’s why we created our 3 Bucket Approach, using multiple conservative asset strategies.
Wouldn’t you love to make money when the stock market goes up but never lose anything when the stock market goes down? You can!
A fixed index annuity bases your annual gains on a portion of an index you choose, such as the S&P 500 Index, without suffering any losses in the years your index goes down. If the stock market crashes you get zero percent, so you’re completely protected against market losses.
In our many years working with clients, we have noticed a disturbing trend: most people are investing based upon two faulty premises, both of which are pervasive myths and neither of which are in an investor’s best interest:
Have you heard these? Are you investing based upon them? If so, you’re not alone. However, we’re here to tell you that these myths are old-school and outdated, and they aren’t serving you as well as you may believe.
Are you comfortable with the risk, volatility, and potential losses in your 401K plan? We have found most people have a large portion of their retirement savings are dependent on their 401k plans, yet they don’t understand or even like their 401K. They feel stuck.
If you’re working and 59 ½ or older, the IRS allows you to enact an “In-Service Transfer” of your current 401K plan to your IRA of choice, and you won’t pay any income taxes on the transfer. An “In-Service Transfer” can be very beneficial for a 401k plan, if you are trying to reduce risk, fees, or establish a plan now that will provide you guaranteed lifetime income when you retire.
The number 1 fear almost every retiree has is running out of money during retirement, however, there is a way that you can set yourself up for dependable income in retirement. If yours is not guaranteed to be paid to you for as long as you live, you’ll continue to worry day-after-day, year-after-year.
You can eliminate your fear of running out of money by creating income in retirement that’s guaranteed to be paid to you for as long as you live, regardless of stock market volatility, losses, or longevity.
Stocks can’t provide you a high level of income guaranteed for as long as you live, neither can mutual funds, bonds, bank accounts, or CDs.
