Can You Rely on Social Security and Your Retirement Savings?

 Finances, Of Interest to Boomers  No Responses »
Mar 192012
 

By Art Koff (guest blogger)

Arthur Koff and his dog Duncan

Picture of Arthur Koff and his dog Duncan

Many current retirees can’t. Here’s why and what some are doing to create some income.

Older Americans have lost a good part of their retirement savings in the stock market, the value of their homes and properties have substantially diminished, pensions have been pared back or eliminated and the cost of health care has increased exponentially. Even those who are on Medicare are paying a great deal more than they anticipated. The average 65-year-old couple retiring in 2011 with Medicare insurance coverage would need approximately $276,000 to cover medical expenses over the course of 20 years. This estimate includes deductibles, coinsurance costs, likely out-of-pocket expenses, and some services excluded by Medicare. The figure does not include over-the-counter medications, most dental services, and most long-term care expenses and perhaps a good deal more if they need to use a nursing home.

Americans are living longer, and as a result, health care expenses continue for many years past what our parents and grandparents paid as a result of their shorter life spans. Once Americans make it to age 65, men can expect to live an additional 17 years and women can expect to live 20 more years.

If you are looking for suggestions, other than save and invest more, to help you live the lifestyle you had planned during your retirement years I have tried to address them.

To start off your thinking, I have included a list of small business enterprises which have been developed by seniors, all of which took very little capital and provide a regular income stream. They are listed to excite your interest in what can be accomplished and hopefully spur ideas that you might be able to develop yourself.  Click here

13 Secondary Effects of the Boomerang Generation

 Boomer Sites, Finances, Of Interest to Boomers  No Responses »
Dec 112011
 

A nice blog post located here (OnlineUniversities.com blog post):

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/13-secondary-effects-of-the-boomerang-generation

“In 1960, just nine percent of adult children lived with parents. Today, that number is closer to 17%, and grows to a whopping 52% when limited to new college grads. While high, the figures make sense when you consider the rather rough circumstances new graduates face when entering the real world. High debt from college loans and few job opportunities make it difficult for young adults to make it on their own, making it increasingly common to move back in with parents for support after graduation.

This phenomenon has long-reaching ramifications that extend well beyond those first few post-college years, however, both for parents and students. We take a look here at some of the secondary effects of the ever expanding Boomerang Generation and what they mean for the finances, attitudes, psychology, and future of parents and grads living through these strange times.“

To Baby Boomers Who Want To Retire But Have To Start Over!…There’s Hope!

 Commercial, Finances  No Responses »
Aug 052011
 

Does this resonate with you? Has this recession economy kicked your financial butt? Well you are not alone, not by a long shot.

Hi, my name is Tim Cronin. I am 58 years old. I was just like you. If you’re one of the Baby Boomer Generation who’s hurting right now the purpose of this article is to show you a way out. We Baby Boomers listened to the advice our parents gave us, didn’t we? You know, they told us to get a good education, go to college, get a good job, work really hard, put money away for retirement and then we would live happily ever after. Am I right? Then what happened?
We did all the things we were supposed to do only to be screwed by Corporate Greed and Government Incompetence! Through no fault of our own, the Baby Boomer Generation was pushed over the proverbial cliff! Millions of Baby Boomers have reached the age when they were planning to retire but cannot because they are BROKE!

Are you among the masses of Boomers who are unemployed? Or are you “under-employed”? That is, working a job that pays drastically less than you are accustomed. If you are in your late 50’s or 60’s and been laid off, who’s going to hire you? You can be easily replaced by a twenty-something with awesome computer skills that will take the same job for half the salary! Has your 401K Plan turned into a 201K plan? Has your stock portfolio lost most of its value? Are you being forced to foreclose on your home? The odds are that you are among the 80% of Baby Boomers who cannot make it to retirement because you simply do not have the resources or the means.

So how do these Baby Boomers start over?

Let me confess. I was one of these people. I got lost my high paying job over two years ago. One day I was called into the HR Managers office and BAM! They whacked me. Some trumped up B.S. about reorganization and cost cutting, blah, blah, blah. Twenty years of my blood, sweat and tears and they kicked me to the curb. I was devastated. It quickly became apparent to me that I was not going to get another job that would pay me what my lifestyle required. It was time to go to Plan B. Lucky for me I had managed a large Information Technology company, which enabled me to acquire an intimate knowledge of the power of the internet! So I decided that I would take that knowledge and learn everything I could about internet marketing. So I spent every waking hour absorbing as much as I could about making money with a home based online marketing business!

The good news is that I cracked the code! I figured out how to earn a great income using the latest and greatest internet marketing tools like Facebook, Google, YouTube, Affiliate Marketing and much, much more! And the GREAT NEWS is that I am going to teach what I’ve learned to you! My Mission is to help Baby Boomers like me to recover financially by tapping into the most powerful money making invention in the history of mankind: THE INTERNET!

Most of what I’ll show you is FREE! And what’s not free is very low cost! And you don’t need advance computer skills! All you really need is access to a computer with an internet connection, some time, a coachable mindset, and a BURNING desire to learn and succeed! I’m going to show and teach you My Plan B!

Sound too good to be true? Yeah, maybe. But it is going to require A LOT of hard work! But we Baby Boomers are used to working hard right? I can’t guarantee that you’ll be successful. But I promise you I will be dedicated to helping you in any way I can!

Are you ready to get started?

Step # 1-    Click on this link: Your Plan B_ Fill in the opt-in box with your information. You will receive 7 FREE videos about starting an Affiliate Partner internet marketing business. (I’m not going to ask you to join a MLM company!)

Step #2-    Visit My Blog: http://thevaluemarketingcoach.com Read some of my blog posts and sign up for all the free video trainings! Read the post about Affiliate Online Marketing!

Step # 3-   Go to my Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/valuemarketingcoach.com When at my FB page click on “Like”. If you don’t have a Facebook account yet you NEED one! It’s required for you’re internet marketing education and success!

Step # 4- Email me: tim@thevaluemarketingcoach.com and we’ll get you started on a plan to build an Affiliate Partner Marketing Business!

I look forward to hearing from you!

Become A Person Of Value,

Tim Cronin
The Value Marketing Coach

Credit Reporting is A Scam

 Finances  No Responses »
Jan 062011
 

Let’s see…  The credit reporting companies gather our personal financial information, and then sell it to anyone who will pay for it.  They make a profit doing this.  Yet, if they make a mistake, it is up to us to get it fixed, with very little help from them.  If they sell information about us that is incorrect, and that causes us great harm, they are not responsible for that harm.  Sounds like a big scam to me.  And even worse, if we want to see the information about us that they have gathered and are selling, just to make sure it is correct, we have to pay for it!!

Their product is our financial information.  The quality of their product, and any harm their product does, is not their responsibility!  What other industry can get away with that?

BB

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ThirdAge

 Finances, Well Being  No Responses »
Apr 212010
 

Another great boomer site!

“A web site for baby boomers with articles, resources and information tailored to health, aging, finance and retirement. We’ve been online since 1997 and have created thousands of articles written by experts in their respective fields.”

 

Income Tax Time

 Finances, Politics & Religion, Science & Technology  Comments Off
Feb 272010
 

I have been doing my taxes for a couple of days, and as usual it is depressing.  I actually stopped working at the end of March in 2009, but I have made several large withdrawals from retirement accounts.  So, total income was quite high.  The standard withholding when you make these withdrawals is 20%, which is not really enough.  If you end up with a small income, it might be OK, but it is not enough for higher incomes.

I have always maintained my finances in Microsoft Money, but Microsoft is abandoning Money, and soon will not support it anymore.  So, I switched to Quicken, and used a conversion program to convert my Money file.  This worked pretty good, but I did take the time to go thru all transactions in 2009 and make sure I assigned them to the correct categories.  Starting with transactions in 2010, I am thinking about using the “split” functionality to record sales tax, other state and local taxes and fees, and bank charges.  I just spent a lot of time going thru all my 2009 paper receipts and online billing statements to try and compile total sales tax paid.  The standard amount the IRS calculates from income is always low.

Logically, I understand and agree with the reasons that we have to pay taxes, but emotionally it is always shocking to see how much it costs us.  This is specially true when you consider how ineffective Congress can be on such things as health care reform.  There are many, many goods and services that the federal, state, and local governments provide to us, so paying taxes is not simply giving the money away.

But it sure does hurt!!

BB

 

 

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The Other Side of 50

 Boomer Sites, Entertainment & Sports, Finances, Well Being  Comments Off
Feb 252010
 

This new site has everything for the generation over 50–articles about arts & entertainment, financial advice, retirement advice, health tips, and so much more…it’s a community where we can share and enjoy!

www.tos50.com
(The Other Side of 50)

Less than Two Months to Go!

 Finances, Thoughts, What's Happening?  Comments Off
Dec 052008
 

So, there are less than two months remaining in my work life. I will retire at the end of this January! A life of leisure without having to come to work every day. Getting up when I want, going to bed when I want. Spending time on what I want to do instead of what I have to do. What an extremely odd concept!

:p:p:p

Of course, life becomes somewhat constrained by the lack of income. I will have a decent monthly pension coming from a company at which I worked for 26 years, and adding that to Social Security, I may still be making a gross amount of over $40K a year. Of course, the big un-equalizer is medical insurance. Cobra will be costing me more than $500 a month, and that only lasts for 18 months. Then I have another gap of 18 months before I can start getting medicare.

Is seems ironic to me that, when you have the money to really enjoy yourself, you do not have the time, and when you have the time, you do not have the money! Who designed this system anyway??
BB

YOUR CREDIT, THEIR PROFITS!

 Finances, Opinions, Thoughts  Comments Off
May 092007
 

Time for a short tirade about those companies that sell your credit information for profit. We have all heard the horror stories about people who have had their identity stolen, or have had some fraudulent debt show up on their credit reports. It happened to me some time back, and it took almost six months to get fixed.

So here is my question. If someone holds your credit rating in their hands, then they pretty much hold your life in their hands. This is America! We cannot do much without credit. So, if a company maintains your credit rating, and sells that information to any debtor who needs it, why are they not 100% responsible for the accuracy, completeness, and currency of the information?

In my case (and my late wife’s), several years after we moved to the Seattle area from Los Angeles, we were trying to refinance our house (we had a balloon payment coming due), and found out that someone in LA, after we left, had opened a credit card with a bank using my wife’s SSN. And, they had run up over $20K in debt. We spent many hours on the phone being bounced back and forth between the credit company and the bank. Days, weeks, and even months went by without a resolution to the problem.

Finally, I did some research on the Internet and found the name of the President of the bank. I guessed his email address from the standard format being used at his bank, and sent him a nasty email letting him know that his bank’s negligence was going to cause us to lose our home. Finally, we got some action (and even a small token amount of money as restitution for our troubles).

But that is not the point – first, how does a bank let someone open a credit card without verifying their identity? And second, why does the credit reporting company not have any responsibility in the matter? They are selling your information (and therefore controlling your ability to obtain credit), and making money doing it. They should be responsible and liable for the quality of the information they sell, AND for the consequences to others when they sell incorrect information!

BB