A New Life – A New Career
For many the idea of retirement comes with the automatic translation that it means that you will stop working is just not acceptable. For many, retirement from work is equivalent with no longer living. If you have been a productive worker all of your life and someone asked you what your dream retirement might look like, you might respond “to work” because you may be one of those people for whom work is what gives meaning and purpose to life.
A New Life – A New Career - 753 words
A Place To Settle Down With
When you are looking down the road at that new lifestyle of retirement, there is a whole new way of life to be anticipated. And that is the fun of retirement planning because, as they say, anticipation is half of the fun. And part of the preparation for retirement is looking at various retirement facilities and retirement communities that you might look to call home.
A Place To Settle Down With - 742 words
Avoiding Retirement Shock
Have ever talked to someone who when speaking on the subject of retirement acts like it is a death sentence? For many the idea of not working and stepping down into the life of retirement with fewer daily duties is frightening and something to dread. That is why a big part of retirement planning involves getting emotionally ready for retirement so there isn’t a huge shock when all of a sudden you are a man or woman of leisure.
Avoiding Retirement Shock - 643 words
Born To Be Wild
In the 1960s, when many who are now entering retirement age were youths, a movie called Easy Rider made quite a stir. It was the story of two young men riding motorcycles across country to discover America and enjoy the freedom of unrestrained travel.
Born To Be Wild - 740 words
Can Your Parents Retire?
Not everybody is as good about getting ready for retirement as others. When you are growing up as children, you always had trust that mom and dad always had good control over their finances. But as we grow older, the roles of child and parent are often reversed.
Can Your Parents Retire? - 750 words
Conquering The Skill Of Saving For Retirement
There is no magic to getting financially ready for retirement. We all wish we could come up with some amazing way to put money back for retirement such as the famous genie in the Aladdin’s lamp. But if that genie came up and we asked him for a way to get ready financially for retirement, his answer would be short and to the point – “Start Saving!”.
Conquering The Skill Of Saving For Retirement - 648 words
Getting A Professional Into The Act
Do you see planning for your retirement as your responsibility or something someone else should do for you? That is a pretty shocking question isn’t it? It is the kind of question that makes it sound like if your retirement funds are under the care of your employer, that you are not being a responsible person.
Getting A Professional Into The Act - 644 words
Getting Rid Of The Stuff
One of the things that often keeps us from mentally crossing that bridge into retirement is the sheer volume of “stuff” that you have accumulated during a life of raising kids and just buying things over several decades of family life. If the kids have moved out but you and your spouse are living in the home you have occupied for years, the layers and layers of accumulation can be tremendously intimidating to think about going through and deciding what to keep and what to give away.
Getting Rid Of The Stuff - 648 words
Heading Off The Dreaded Nursing Home Nightmare
When you are looking down the road to retirement, the images that spring to mind can vary from the pleasant and fun to those of fear of the unknown. The image we get from the front cover of AARP magazine is one we want to envision for ourselves for our golden years. That idea of retiring in luxury to a life of golf, maybe roving the country in an RV or pretty much living on cruise ships is fun to look forward to and let it bring a smile to your face even if retirement is a ways off.
Heading Off The Dreaded Nursing Home Nightmare - 746 words
Helping Your Employees Retire
You know one thing about an employee that takes interest in your company retirement program. That is that he or she is taking a proactive interest in staying with the company long enough to retire. This is not a given for every employee. It used to be in the generation that was in the workplace of the nineteen fifties and sixties that staying with a company for thirty or more years and retiring with full benefits was the norm. That is not the norm any more.
Helping Your Employees Retire - 639 words
How Much Will You Need To Retire?
There are levels of preparedness when it comes to looking down the road at your retirement and how much you will need when you get there. The basic level of retirement planning is to sign up for your 401k at work, support legislation to keep Social Security intact, buy some life insurance and let it go at that. This system will work so there is reason to call this bad retirement planning. After all, if you began preparing for retirement in your early adult life and stayed with it, you will have a resource to retire on and that’s a good thing.
How Much Will You Need To Retire? - 650 words
Insurance For Your Retirement
If you are like me, it’s easy to get fed up with constantly paying insurance premiums. Writing a monthly check for car insurance alone will drive you crazy. Not to mention the direct withdrawals from your paycheck for health insurance and the hit to your mortgage for home owners insurance and you have a lot of money going out the window to pay for disasters that might not even happen.
Insurance For Your Retirement - 666 words
Make A Plan And Make It Work
Being ready for retirement is not something that just happens. Every single person you see in retirement today that is enjoying a leisurely life in their golden years are where they are because they planned for it. The first question that may come to mind is when the right time to start planning for your retirement might be. The answer is that if you are asking the question, it’s the right time. You really cannot start planning too soon. If you could start putting money back for retirement as early as right out of high school, that would be just that much more time you have to build up a really comfortable retirement nest egg that will serve you well when you need it in your golden years.
Make A Plan And Make It Work - 725 words
Make Your Retirement Money Walk With You
Planning for retirement is a project that you do for virtually your entire adult life. The earlier you start putting money back for retirement, the better your golden years will be. And if you have been faithful in participating in your employers 401K plan, you can start to some serious money begin to build up as you realize the vesting of the employer matching funds and you continue to make your contributions month after month. It can get pretty exciting when you get those statements and you see your retirement fund really start to take shape.
Make Your Retirement Money Walk With You - 680 words
On How To Not Screw Up Your Retirement Planning
Planning for retirement is something grown ups do. So as soon as you can when you settle into your adult life, if you can get your retirement planning moving, you will benefit from the wisdom of moving on this early in life when its time for you to retire. Too often young people live in a fantasy world that they will never grow old. But short of the worst case scenario of an early demise, everyone is going to get old and its far better to do so with a plan then to “let it sneak up on you.”
On How To Not Screw Up Your Retirement Planning - 643 words
Planning For That Final Moment
There is a phrase people use when referring to estate planning and all the things you do as a responsible adult so when you get into retirement years, you don’t have to worry about those things. That is because one of the big objectives of retirement planning is to put all of your “affairs in order” as they say so if something came up, your kids would not have to deal with it. So you go through the checklist and make arrangements for your will and your DNR or “do not resuscitate” so the medical people will know what to do in the event you cannot be brought to consciousness.
Planning For That Final Moment - 718 words
Retirement Looks Different Through A Woman’s Eyes
The classic picture of a couple retiring and the wife cashing in on the great retirement planning of the husband is a pretty picture for sure but it doesn’t always line up very well with reality. For thousands of women, seeing the retirement years ahead mean you will be making plans for retiring yourself. But even if you have a husband, it’s a good idea to look at retirement with the idea of what if you have to face it alone. It’s a sad statistic but women outlive men in general. So if you get to retirement or just before it and you find yourself facing that next transition of life, retirement looks a lot different through a woman’s eyes than when a man does the same preparation.
Retirement Looks Different Through A Woman’s Eyes - 746 words
Retirement Starts Young
It isn’t too surprising that the time when we really start thinking about retirement and planning for it is middle age. Perhaps it is when we have our lifestyles pretty well defined, perhaps the career is where you want it to be and the kids are here and growing up that you start looking down the road to the future. Perhaps it is looking toward the future in terms of insurance, planning for college and other issues such as this also gets your mind moving on how you will be ready when retirement gets here.
Retirement Starts Young - 572 words
Scaling Back The Farm
When you are in the middle of your years of raising a family, there is nothing like owning your own home to make that experience rewarding. So if you bought a home with the conventional yard, fence, neighbors, dog and all of the trappings of suburbia, you no doubt have many happy memories that you had “back at the farm” as you may have called it. Many people even go so far as to name their home something like “Happy Acres” to give their homestead even more personality and add that sense of ownership to it.
Scaling Back The Farm - 747 words
Taking Your Retirement Around The World
One of the most common dreams many people have for their retirement years is to travel. So often when you are in the middle of building a career and raising a family, your travel consists of trips to Orlando for Disney World or doing something focused on the kids. So when you get to that phase of life where your children are grown up and it’s just you and your spouse, now you can focus on trips that are for just you two going places you to go and doing things you want to do.
Taking Your Retirement Around The World - 748 words
The Hidden Dangers Of Retirement
We can all remember a time when we took the children to some event or theme park that was supposed to be “totally awesome”. Then when the kids get there and see that Mickey Mouse is a guy in a suit and that the rides are about the same as the local Six Flags, an inevitable let down and disappointment sets in. And that is no fun for the parents on the trip home when all of those expectations did not come to pass when the kids came face to face with reality which did not line up with their dreams and hopes.
The Hidden Dangers Of Retirement - 649 words
The Many Levels Of Retirement Planning
The concept of retirement planning brings up the image of you working with your investment counselor or setting up your 401K so you have adequate financial resources when you retire. And it is true that a big part of being ready to retire involves being ready financially to be able to step out of the work world and start to take life easier.
The Many Levels Of Retirement Planning - 749 words
The Who, What, When, Where And Why Of Retirement
In the newspaper business, when a reporter wants to find out all about a case, they always ask the big five questions which are who, what, when, where and why. If the reporter can get these basic questions answered about any story, that is considered good research.
The Who, What, When, Where And Why Of Retirement - 740 words
Turning That Mortgage Around
Your house that you bought so many years ago represents one of the biggest investments of your life. By the time you approach retirement, if you have stuck with it, you may well have that house paid off. And with appreciation, that home may be worth twice or three times what you paid for it and you have all the equity from those years of house payments. Therefore, in addition to the joy you have had living in that house and raising your family there, that house is also can be a big part of your retirement planning as well.
Turning That Mortgage Around - 641 words
Your Financial Future Is In Your Hands
All of us have one big transition facing us not that far down the road. Of course life is all about transitions. We make a transition from childhood to adolescence. We transition from being a child of a house to adulthood and independence. And we make big transitions through marriage, parenthood and even becoming a grandparent. But of all of these, maybe the one we need to focus on in terms of preparation is the big transition to retirement.
Your Financial Future Is In Your Hands - 719 words