Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 and is filed under Rebranding Annuities, Retirement Planning
At Women, Money, & Power, we specialize in helping women understand various retirement income planning options that can help them create a more secure feature. One great option is the Fixed Index Annuity, a high quality fixed income product that provides you income for life –– income you can’t outlive. A fixed index annuity also offers 100% principal protection, tax deferral, and the ability to lock in gains based on the positive performance of the stock market.
The reality is that fixed index annuities can offer many advantages. Unfortunately, there are lots of myths out there that cloud the message. We’ve put together the following to help clear up the misconceptions.
Once you get more comfortable with the reality of annuities, we’d love to show you how one can work in your retirement portfolio. Order your custom ‘Income for Life’ Illustration and take the guesswork out of retirement income planning.
MYTH: Annuities are very complicated to understand and own. (more…)
Monday, February 13th, 2012 and is filed under Retirement Planning
It is heart wrenching to be a spectator of a divorce. Many of us have witnessed one or more of our girlfriends go through the Big D (AKA hell) or, even worse, we’ve experienced it ourselves. No one wants to see a marriage dissolve – the parents, kids or the friends of the couple intertwined in the impending break-up. However, the divorce trend among couples over 50 is becoming a startling statistic. In the last 20 years, the divorce rate among baby boomer couples has doubled. (more…)
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 and is filed under Retirement Planning
Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and catfish the size of school buses…are they myths or reality? We’ve all seen crazy viral YouTube videos that make one stop and think, “Okay, maybe that’s real?” Then, luckily, most of us quickly come to our senses.
A myth is a widely held but false belief. And, unfortunately, there are some myths out there that are a lot more dangerous than a random Big Foot sighting…such as myths surrounding how you’ll live during your retirement years. (more…)
Monday, January 30th, 2012 and is filed under Retirement Planning
I recently came across a post on a large national newspaper’s blog talking about how investors should focus on generating cash flow during their retirement years.
This
makes a lot of sense. Many savers get discouraged when they discover how much money they’ll need to accumulate before retirement. The blog post provided this example: If you were using a “safe” annual withdrawal rate of 4%, you’d need to have $1.5 million saved in your retirement portfolio in order to enjoy $2,500 in monthly income over the course of 30 years. (more…)
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 and is filed under Retirement Planning
The statistics are staggering. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a husband and wife both aged 65 have approximately a 47% chance that at least one of them will live to his or her 90th birthday and a 20% chance of living to his or her 95th birthday. As life expectancy continues to climb, the fear of outliving one’s assets has become top-of-mind for most Americans. Today, it’s becoming more important than ever to put retirement strategies in place that guarantee lifetime income. (more…)
Monday, January 23rd, 2012 and is filed under Uncategorized
Bentley’s run about $200,000. There’s a slim chance you may hit one, but if you did, would you be covered?
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Thursday, January 19th, 2012 and is filed under Retirement Planning
Regardless of whether you’re retiring tomorrow or ten years from now, inflation can take a toll on your retirement nest egg. Don’t be part of the majority of people who underestimate its impact!
We encourage you to play around with an inflation calculator to get a firm understanding of how inflation can drain the power of your retirement savings.
You’ll quickly see that inflation relentlessly erodes the value of each dollar in your portfolio. As the years go by, many people find themselves forced into risky investments that promise to outpace inflation – or into low-risk, low-reward investments that at least hold their own. (more…)
Friday, January 13th, 2012 and is filed under Uncategorized
So did you bring in the New Year with a bang? Still feel it in your head? Unfortunately, your headache may linger. 2012 is shaping up to deliver a pain in the pocket book, too.
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Monday, January 2nd, 2012 and is filed under Retirement Planning
Resolutions are so much fun to formulate – they epitomize the best we want to be. However, time and time again, our resolutions slowly blur from the idealized vision we see for ourselves until we find ourselves falling back into just managing the minutia that makes up our day-to-day lives.
Maybe the larger truth is that better managing the minutia––not fulfilling lofty start-of-the-year resolutions––is the key to bettering our financial lives. (more…)
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011 and is filed under Retirement Planning
It’s hard to believe that another year has passed…which means tax time is now just around the corner. We don’t know about you but we feel it’s been just yesterday since we’ve rolled out our piles of receipts and sharpened our pencils in dreadful anticipation of April 15. With over 70,000 pages of complicated wording and, oftentimes, mind-bending logic and loopholes, the U.S. Federal Tax Code is impossible to get a handle on.
To help you out, we’ve found a handy reference article on year-end tax tips. Get up to speed on money-saving tax deductions that are set to expire in 2011 along with other tips with no expiration dates. Minimizing your tax burden is essential to your investment planning whether you’re still in the workforce or just about to retire. Call us today to schedule a complimentary beginning-of-the-year retirement planning checkup.
