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.
It used to be that to take advantage of that equity when you enter retirement, you either had to sell the house and go live in a nursing home or retirement community or you took out a new mortgage borrowing against the equity and you find yourself paying huge interest payments all over again.
But a new kind of mortgage called the “reverse mortgage” is now available so a senior citizen who is preparing for retirement can begin to realize some of that equity as capital and not have to take on a loan payment or move out of their home. This innovative new program allows you to set up the equivalent of a home equity loan but instead of getting a huge lump sum, you can have the equity sent to you in the form of monthly payments so the equity of your home can actually become part of your monthly budget to supplement Social Security or other retirement funds.
What is great about the reverse mortgage type of financial vehicle is that you are never required to pay back the loan of the money that is based on your equity. The only time that loan amount would be required of you would be if you moved, sold the house or passed away in which case the sale of the house would realize the equity to retire the loan. In other words, if you take out $100,000 from your home for medical costs or just to finance a comfortable retirement living, you are not called upon to pay back that money and you can continue to live in the house for as long as you want to.
This is a phenomenal arrangement that seems tailor made for senior who want to enjoy their retirement years without financial worries and do so living in the house where they raised their children and a home that has become so precious to them. For children of a retiring parent, the reverse mortgage is a godsend because mom or dad can stay in their own home where they are happiest. And if they can keep the old homestead, the whole family will continue to enjoy coming to visit there, seeing the grandkids run and play in the same yard they grew up in and having holidays there as well.
Like some of the best programs for retiring persons, the reverse mortgage was originally put together by the US. Department of Housing and Urban renewal. It isn’t often that the government gets something right but they hit one out of the ball park with the reverse mortgage. It is a program and provides federally insured funds to seniors so they can supplement their income in a safe way that allows them to use the equity of their home for their retirement comfort without ever having to give up that home. And because the money coming out of a reverse mortgage is technically a loan, you never have to pay taxes on that money which is another big financial blessing. The reverse mortgage is an option worth considering as part of retirement planning. It gives seniors one more option for keeping their homes. And that is good for everybody.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
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.
Moving from the world of work and the active life that all that entails to retirement and your golden years is a huge adjustment for people. There are lifestyle changes, changes to your goals and priorities and even in how people view you. But the changes to your finances are perhaps the ones you will notice the most. When you move from getting a steady paycheck to living on your Social Security and retirement, that is a major shift in your expectations and how you plan your life.
The saddest thing we see when it comes to people in late middle age are those who are depending on Social Security to be the sole means of their support in retirement. While Social Security is a fine program, it has created a false illusion of “security” that somehow the government will take care of you in your old age. The “brass tacks” truth is that if you are depending on any outside agency to be your means of support in your retirement years, your assurance that you will be conformable in your retirement years is not assured.
Even if you are currently working at a job that has a retirement program or a 401K that you put some into, you may still be allowing yourself to “depend” on your job to be there for you when you get to retirement age. And the horror stories of the elderly who finally arrive at retirement age to discover that what they thought they could depend on was not reliable are tragic.
This is why starting now to prepare for you financial future will be the best way you can be absolutely sure you will have what you need as you enter that time when you should be able to relax and enjoy the fruit of your labors. This is a major attitude shift and if you can accomplish it and take charge of your financial future, you will approach retirement with much greater confidence.
The outcome of your decision to take charge of your retirement will be that you won’t just let money get put away for you without any oversight on your part. You cannot always trust that the managers of your retirement account at work are handling the money correctly. By staying on top of how those funds are being invested and doing all you can to direct where those funds go, you are making sure that you get maximum return on your investment all along the way. And when its time for you to need those funds, you will be ready to use them because you are acutely aware of their value.
We cannot control Social Security and there is a chance it will be there for you when its time for you to retire. But instead of depending on Social Security, build a financial future that is secure whether it is there or not. Then when you retire and your retirement packages begin to kick and give you that lifestyle of leisure and financial safety that you want, if you do see Social Security add a few dollars to your monthly funds, so much the better.
By taking control over your financial future, you are putting the security of your funds and the planning that you will have what you need when those wonderful years come along. You are depending on the one person you know is in turn with what you will need and has always been abler to plan and provide for yourself and your family and that is you. It’s a good feeling to put the management of your financial future in your own hands in preparation for retirement. But it’s a wonderful feeling you worked hard to enjoy so you deserve it.
Moving from the world of work and the active life that all that entails to retirement and your golden years is a huge adjustment for people. There are lifestyle changes, changes to your goals and priorities and even in how people view you. But the changes to your finances are perhaps the ones you will notice the most. When you move from getting a steady paycheck to living on your Social Security and retirement, that is a major shift in your expectations and how you plan your life.
The saddest thing we see when it comes to people in late middle age are those who are depending on Social Security to be the sole means of their support in retirement. While Social Security is a fine program, it has created a false illusion of “security” that somehow the government will take care of you in your old age. The “brass tacks” truth is that if you are depending on any outside agency to be your means of support in your retirement years, your assurance that you will be conformable in your retirement years is not assured.
Even if you are currently working at a job that has a retirement program or a 401K that you put some into, you may still be allowing yourself to “depend” on your job to be there for you when you get to retirement age. And the horror stories of the elderly who finally arrive at retirement age to discover that what they thought they could depend on was not reliable are tragic.
This is why starting now to prepare for you financial future will be the best way you can be absolutely sure you will have what you need as you enter that time when you should be able to relax and enjoy the fruit of your labors. This is a major attitude shift and if you can accomplish it and take charge of your financial future, you will approach retirement with much greater confidence.
The outcome of your decision to take charge of your retirement will be that you won’t just let money get put away for you without any oversight on your part. You cannot always trust that the managers of your retirement account at work are handling the money correctly. By staying on top of how those funds are being invested and doing all you can to direct where those funds go, you are making sure that you get maximum return on your investment all along the way. And when its time for you to need those funds, you will be ready to use them because you are acutely aware of their value.
We cannot control Social Security and there is a chance it will be there for you when its time for you to retire. But instead of depending on Social Security, build a financial future that is secure whether it is there or not. Then when you retire and your retirement packages begin to kick and give you that lifestyle of leisure and financial safety that you want, if you do see Social Security add a few dollars to your monthly funds, so much the better.
By taking control over your financial future, you are putting the security of your funds and the planning that you will have what you need when those wonderful years come along. You are depending on the one person you know is in turn with what you will need and has always been abler to plan and provide for yourself and your family and that is you. It’s a good feeling to put the management of your financial future in your own hands in preparation for retirement. But it’s a wonderful feeling you worked hard to enjoy so you deserve it.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
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.
Now there is no reason not to go ahead with plans to retire from your job and start that lifestyle as soon as your finances are able to let you do that and you are ready to step out of the working world. But for many of us, the real transition of becoming fully retired happens when we pare down our possessions, sell the family estate and move into a quaint bungalow, retirement apartment or assisted living center to begin enjoying a life of fewer responsibilities and a lot more fun.
The first step of taking on the challenge of how to attack the mountains of stuff is to get a rough inventory for what you have and what you can get rid of. You can start on this quest as early as you feel ready to put your retirement planning on the front burner. Many start on it as soon as they enter the “empty nest” phase of their life and the kids are gone and you can begin to convert their rooms into usable space for you and start getting their stuff out of the house as well.
So your kids are the first line of defense or rather of offense of attacking the sheer volume of stuff you own. Now is the time to start the inheritance process early. There is no doubt many things in your family possessions that the kids cherish from their upbringing in your home and that you will want to pass along to them. So let them know that over the next year or so, you are going to expect them to come along and get the stuff they want before you sell the house.
This can be a progressive process. If the kids live far off, you can use visits for the holidays to go through closets and box and ship their precious memories and mementos from their childhood years so those things can start living at their homes and not at yours. This is a big step toward getting rid of all the stuff.
Next you should start to think about the amount of space you will have in your new space and what you are going to need and use regularly when living in that smaller living quarters. Be pragmatic here so you are only looking at things from a usability point of view. On your first pass, many things will make the cut to be saved because they are either useful or nostalgic or both.
But also begin to go through the house room by room and separate things into “keep’, “give away” or “trash”. You will find lots of stuff you can give to Good Will or to charities which gives those things a new life and you a small tax write off for next year. But be brave about throwing away things that just have no real value any more. Remember, if you don’t get rid of it, you are going to be living with it for another twenty years and that is what we are trying to get away from. By giving yourself some time to get ready to move into the smaller space, this process of paring down the possessions can be rewarding and fulfilling and a good next step into your next phase of life.
Now there is no reason not to go ahead with plans to retire from your job and start that lifestyle as soon as your finances are able to let you do that and you are ready to step out of the working world. But for many of us, the real transition of becoming fully retired happens when we pare down our possessions, sell the family estate and move into a quaint bungalow, retirement apartment or assisted living center to begin enjoying a life of fewer responsibilities and a lot more fun.
The first step of taking on the challenge of how to attack the mountains of stuff is to get a rough inventory for what you have and what you can get rid of. You can start on this quest as early as you feel ready to put your retirement planning on the front burner. Many start on it as soon as they enter the “empty nest” phase of their life and the kids are gone and you can begin to convert their rooms into usable space for you and start getting their stuff out of the house as well.
So your kids are the first line of defense or rather of offense of attacking the sheer volume of stuff you own. Now is the time to start the inheritance process early. There is no doubt many things in your family possessions that the kids cherish from their upbringing in your home and that you will want to pass along to them. So let them know that over the next year or so, you are going to expect them to come along and get the stuff they want before you sell the house.
This can be a progressive process. If the kids live far off, you can use visits for the holidays to go through closets and box and ship their precious memories and mementos from their childhood years so those things can start living at their homes and not at yours. This is a big step toward getting rid of all the stuff.
Next you should start to think about the amount of space you will have in your new space and what you are going to need and use regularly when living in that smaller living quarters. Be pragmatic here so you are only looking at things from a usability point of view. On your first pass, many things will make the cut to be saved because they are either useful or nostalgic or both.
But also begin to go through the house room by room and separate things into “keep’, “give away” or “trash”. You will find lots of stuff you can give to Good Will or to charities which gives those things a new life and you a small tax write off for next year. But be brave about throwing away things that just have no real value any more. Remember, if you don’t get rid of it, you are going to be living with it for another twenty years and that is what we are trying to get away from. By giving yourself some time to get ready to move into the smaller space, this process of paring down the possessions can be rewarding and fulfilling and a good next step into your next phase of life.
Friday, April 18, 2008
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.
Of course that is not the purpose of the question. If you have taken the step of participating in your employer’s retirement program or 401K, then you are definitely showing plenty of personal reasonability for your retirement planning. But when you think about it, what happens to your 401K funds once they are given to your employer? Most of us don’t know. We know that we get statements that show that what we invest is gaining in value and that the principle is safe and for us, that is often enough.
But it is easy to trust your employer that the funds are being managed well and that it all will be there when the time comes for you to use that 401K for retirement. The truth is that your employer probably has nothing to do with how well your retirement portfolio performs once the funds are taken out of your paycheck. In most cases, your employer hires a professional retirement planner who invests those funds to give you at least a modest return on investment. And that service is also taking a fee from your funds which is something that is done without giving you the chance to evaluate if they deserve the money they are making.
You have some rights when it comes to your retirement funds. So part of your rights is to see that people that work for you, such as a retirement planner, know what they are doing and are held accountable on a regular basis for the outcome of their financial management of your retirement funds. At the employer level, you probably won’t fire the financial planner. But you can demand to meet with them and communicate your financial plans. You can get a name of is responsible for what happens with your money. And if you find out who they really are, you will have more success in getting them to be accountable to you.
But you may also find yourself engaging a financial planner for funds that fall outside of employer 401K plans. For example if you leave a job, you can roll your 401K into a private IRA account and engage a financial planner to invest that money so it continues to grow steadily until you need it at the time of retirement.
Develop some standards by which any retirement planner you engage must be judged. A good way to pick a good financial planner is to use people you know and trust to give you guidance. If family members or close associates already are using a good financial planner, get that person’s name and phone number and schedule an interview. You can also find out if your bank, insurance company or credit union provides this service. They already work for you the good reputation of these trusted financial services people can pay off when you use them for financial planning for retirement.
Put some time and effort into researching if the retirement planner you are considering is capable and has a good reputation. They should have no trouble giving you references and documenting their success to show you that they can be trusted to take good care of your retirement funds. And if you do some up front due diligence, in the end you will be able to entrust this important resource to them knowing they are good stewards of the money that is going to give you a happy and peaceful retirement life.
Of course that is not the purpose of the question. If you have taken the step of participating in your employer’s retirement program or 401K, then you are definitely showing plenty of personal reasonability for your retirement planning. But when you think about it, what happens to your 401K funds once they are given to your employer? Most of us don’t know. We know that we get statements that show that what we invest is gaining in value and that the principle is safe and for us, that is often enough.
But it is easy to trust your employer that the funds are being managed well and that it all will be there when the time comes for you to use that 401K for retirement. The truth is that your employer probably has nothing to do with how well your retirement portfolio performs once the funds are taken out of your paycheck. In most cases, your employer hires a professional retirement planner who invests those funds to give you at least a modest return on investment. And that service is also taking a fee from your funds which is something that is done without giving you the chance to evaluate if they deserve the money they are making.
You have some rights when it comes to your retirement funds. So part of your rights is to see that people that work for you, such as a retirement planner, know what they are doing and are held accountable on a regular basis for the outcome of their financial management of your retirement funds. At the employer level, you probably won’t fire the financial planner. But you can demand to meet with them and communicate your financial plans. You can get a name of is responsible for what happens with your money. And if you find out who they really are, you will have more success in getting them to be accountable to you.
But you may also find yourself engaging a financial planner for funds that fall outside of employer 401K plans. For example if you leave a job, you can roll your 401K into a private IRA account and engage a financial planner to invest that money so it continues to grow steadily until you need it at the time of retirement.
Develop some standards by which any retirement planner you engage must be judged. A good way to pick a good financial planner is to use people you know and trust to give you guidance. If family members or close associates already are using a good financial planner, get that person’s name and phone number and schedule an interview. You can also find out if your bank, insurance company or credit union provides this service. They already work for you the good reputation of these trusted financial services people can pay off when you use them for financial planning for retirement.
Put some time and effort into researching if the retirement planner you are considering is capable and has a good reputation. They should have no trouble giving you references and documenting their success to show you that they can be trusted to take good care of your retirement funds. And if you do some up front due diligence, in the end you will be able to entrust this important resource to them knowing they are good stewards of the money that is going to give you a happy and peaceful retirement life.
Monday, April 14, 2008
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!”.
But for millions of people in the working world, it’s hard to save. You need every dime you have to pay the bills, get the kids through their dentist bills and clothes for school and have a little left over at the end of the month for matinee movie with a small popcorn. So how can we ever find a way to put money back for retirement under these circumstances?
The key to savings is to take advantage of changes in your income to start a savings program. For example when you start a new job with a new salary. Before you get used to that paycheck, set up a direct deposit of a small amount of money into a tax deferred financial fund such as an IRA. The money goes straight in there and you never see it in your paycheck. The funny thing about how we all think is that you live up to the level of money you are getting. So if you never see that $50 or $100 in your paycheck, you will adjust your lifestyle accordingly and suddenly you have a program in place to save for retirement.
You can apply the same principle to payments you may have automatically deducted from your account. If you are paying a car payment or you have a health club due taken directly out of your account, when those things come to an end, think about whether you want to see those direct withdrawals stop entirely. If you are not used to having that money in your budget, you may be able to have your bank direct deposit some or all of that amount directly into your retirement account.
Just think how great it would be if you could put a car payment a month into retirement savings. You would see a very significant amount of money build up in that account in no time. And when you start seeing the financial reports start coming in from your bank or whoever is managing your retirement funds and you see it really start to build up, the vision of a secure retirement future for you and your spouse will begin to become a reality for you.
Another fun way to build up that retirement account is to make a project of it. You and your spouse could take on the challenge to do some form of contract or temporary work every month or so and put all of that money into your retirement fund. Maybe he can go out with friends and cut wood and sell it around town for firewood. Maybe she could use her artistic skills to make original art works and sell them at the local crafts fair or flea market.
There are lots of ways each of you can find odd jobs or part time employment just to build up that fund. You can work department stores at Christmas time or sign on with Manpower and go on one day assignments every once in a while. You can even find ways to make money on the internet if you have technical skills. Tap your talents and find that work and the amazing thing is that it will be fun because this is not working extra because you are in financial trouble. It is building for a secure retirement together and making it a challenge and a game is a way of putting your creativity into the process.
But for millions of people in the working world, it’s hard to save. You need every dime you have to pay the bills, get the kids through their dentist bills and clothes for school and have a little left over at the end of the month for matinee movie with a small popcorn. So how can we ever find a way to put money back for retirement under these circumstances?
The key to savings is to take advantage of changes in your income to start a savings program. For example when you start a new job with a new salary. Before you get used to that paycheck, set up a direct deposit of a small amount of money into a tax deferred financial fund such as an IRA. The money goes straight in there and you never see it in your paycheck. The funny thing about how we all think is that you live up to the level of money you are getting. So if you never see that $50 or $100 in your paycheck, you will adjust your lifestyle accordingly and suddenly you have a program in place to save for retirement.
You can apply the same principle to payments you may have automatically deducted from your account. If you are paying a car payment or you have a health club due taken directly out of your account, when those things come to an end, think about whether you want to see those direct withdrawals stop entirely. If you are not used to having that money in your budget, you may be able to have your bank direct deposit some or all of that amount directly into your retirement account.
Just think how great it would be if you could put a car payment a month into retirement savings. You would see a very significant amount of money build up in that account in no time. And when you start seeing the financial reports start coming in from your bank or whoever is managing your retirement funds and you see it really start to build up, the vision of a secure retirement future for you and your spouse will begin to become a reality for you.
Another fun way to build up that retirement account is to make a project of it. You and your spouse could take on the challenge to do some form of contract or temporary work every month or so and put all of that money into your retirement fund. Maybe he can go out with friends and cut wood and sell it around town for firewood. Maybe she could use her artistic skills to make original art works and sell them at the local crafts fair or flea market.
There are lots of ways each of you can find odd jobs or part time employment just to build up that fund. You can work department stores at Christmas time or sign on with Manpower and go on one day assignments every once in a while. You can even find ways to make money on the internet if you have technical skills. Tap your talents and find that work and the amazing thing is that it will be fun because this is not working extra because you are in financial trouble. It is building for a secure retirement together and making it a challenge and a game is a way of putting your creativity into the process.
Friday, April 11, 2008
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.
When you and your brothers and sisters grew up and moved out of the house, it was natural that you would become absorbed in your new lives of raising families of your own and getting your careers established. You may know that there is coming a time when you will take on the responsibility to help your parents make that transition to retirement.
Sadly, as much as you would suspect that they did prepare for retirement, you should not take that for granted. The trials of raising a family with all the financial demands can take its toll on any budget. So it’s appropriate to ask the question, can your parent retire? And if there is any doubt, you should begin looking into how you as their children can help them.
This is a natural first step toward you and your siblings being more involved in mom and dad’s life as they age. Many times the toll that aging takes makes older people less able to plan and perform financial maneuvers with the same skill they had when they were raising you. Be sensitive when you are around them to find out if they can speak intelligently about their retirement and the next step along the way of living a full and rich retirement lifestyle.
One service you can offer to your parents that may be more welcome than you could imagine is for you to start helping them plan their finances and organize their money. It might be true that in many ways, your parent has already started that path into retirement. If dad has stopped working or Social Security is starting to be collected, they may be in that category. But they need some help to lay down the worries of adult life and make the transition to a lifestyle where life’s worries are not such a burden and they can relax and enjoy their golden years.
You might take advantage of the sibling with the strongest financial skills and start to move the handling of your parent’s accounts to a child so they can let that area of worry go. This is where you would work with your parent to get that child the Power of Attorney so they can sign on their account, pay bills and do business on behalf of their parents. And once that is all in place, an organized evaluation of your parent’s retirement preparations can be most revealing.
By helping your parents simply organize the assets they may already have, they may be able to step into a much more worry free life and really start enjoying the fun and relaxed lifestyle that retirement can really mean for them. Along with organizing their finances, there is a lot the kids can do to help mom and dad get ready to become retired people not just in a financial sense but in terms of lifestyle. The biggest transition they will go through and the one they will be the most resistant about will be giving up the house and moving into an assisted living center or retirement community. But as your parents continue to age, having them somewhere that they can get care if it is needed will give everyone more peace of mind about their future.
The best approach to helping mom and dad transition to this move is to put it in the most positive of light. If they are experiencing some physical decline, they may already aware of the danger living alone in that old house might pose. You can use that to get their interest in living in a place where there is always someone to come running in the event they fall or have a medical problem.
But also emphasize the social side of living with other seniors and enjoying their company. By helping them see that retiring in every respect possible is the best thing for them, they will eventually embrace the change. And when they are happily “retired” and enjoying that life, you will know that you kids did the right thing taking good care of your parents the way they took good care of you.
When you and your brothers and sisters grew up and moved out of the house, it was natural that you would become absorbed in your new lives of raising families of your own and getting your careers established. You may know that there is coming a time when you will take on the responsibility to help your parents make that transition to retirement.
Sadly, as much as you would suspect that they did prepare for retirement, you should not take that for granted. The trials of raising a family with all the financial demands can take its toll on any budget. So it’s appropriate to ask the question, can your parent retire? And if there is any doubt, you should begin looking into how you as their children can help them.
This is a natural first step toward you and your siblings being more involved in mom and dad’s life as they age. Many times the toll that aging takes makes older people less able to plan and perform financial maneuvers with the same skill they had when they were raising you. Be sensitive when you are around them to find out if they can speak intelligently about their retirement and the next step along the way of living a full and rich retirement lifestyle.
One service you can offer to your parents that may be more welcome than you could imagine is for you to start helping them plan their finances and organize their money. It might be true that in many ways, your parent has already started that path into retirement. If dad has stopped working or Social Security is starting to be collected, they may be in that category. But they need some help to lay down the worries of adult life and make the transition to a lifestyle where life’s worries are not such a burden and they can relax and enjoy their golden years.
You might take advantage of the sibling with the strongest financial skills and start to move the handling of your parent’s accounts to a child so they can let that area of worry go. This is where you would work with your parent to get that child the Power of Attorney so they can sign on their account, pay bills and do business on behalf of their parents. And once that is all in place, an organized evaluation of your parent’s retirement preparations can be most revealing.
By helping your parents simply organize the assets they may already have, they may be able to step into a much more worry free life and really start enjoying the fun and relaxed lifestyle that retirement can really mean for them. Along with organizing their finances, there is a lot the kids can do to help mom and dad get ready to become retired people not just in a financial sense but in terms of lifestyle. The biggest transition they will go through and the one they will be the most resistant about will be giving up the house and moving into an assisted living center or retirement community. But as your parents continue to age, having them somewhere that they can get care if it is needed will give everyone more peace of mind about their future.
The best approach to helping mom and dad transition to this move is to put it in the most positive of light. If they are experiencing some physical decline, they may already aware of the danger living alone in that old house might pose. You can use that to get their interest in living in a place where there is always someone to come running in the event they fall or have a medical problem.
But also emphasize the social side of living with other seniors and enjoying their company. By helping them see that retiring in every respect possible is the best thing for them, they will eventually embrace the change. And when they are happily “retired” and enjoying that life, you will know that you kids did the right thing taking good care of your parents the way they took good care of you.
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.
There is a term from the world of scuba diving that refers to a medical problem that happens when a diver returns to the surface to fast and the shift from high pressure to lower pressure of the world above the water is too fast. It’s called “the bends” and it’s a serious medical moment. Well, we don’t want to get “the bends” when we leave the high pressure world of work and achievement for the low pressure world of retirement and a life of ease.
So to avoid retirement shock, you should start well ahead of you retirement party getting ready for that lifestyle. The worst thing you can do is wake up on the first day of your retired life with nothing to do and that feeling of emptiness and loneliness because you miss your old life and have no plans for how to fill the hours and days that lay ahead in your life as a retired person.
One way to avoid retirement shock is to do a bit of daydreaming about all the things you want to do once you are retired. Many of us put off creative interests and adventures we might have pursued except as a member of the working world, a parent an active participant in school, church and civic groups, there is just no time for that before retirement. But now that you have laid down so many of those responsibilities, give yourself permission to throw yourself into a creative hobby to let that side of you out to grow and mature.
Another great coping mechanism so the shock of moving into retirement isn’t so severe is to continue to work at a reduced pace. If your employer values your decades of experience and devotion to duty, they may put you on in a part time capacity to come in and help the young people learn the ropes and learn the lay of the land of the business world. You know that landscape well so you can be of real value to make that transition a success.
Retirement is also a time when you can travel and spend more time with family and friends. If you always wished you could be available to baby-sit the grandchildren, now is the time. Your kids not only will love having free child care while they go about dealing with their busy lives but you will enjoy getting to know your grandkids and maybe being a kid with them for an afternoon as well.
Volunteering is another great way to fill all of that extra time you now have on your hands. By keeping busy helping worthy causes, you keep your self esteem because you are making a real difference in the lives of others and for your community. You can meet so many wonderful people while volunteering and the social side of it keeps you young and overcomes loneliness which is a big problem when you first enter your retirement years.
By laying out plans to enjoy a hobby, continue to work part time or volunteer when retirement starts, you can get rid of that sense of dread that you may have about your upcoming retirement. Instead start to get excited about this new phase of life and the new life that lies ahead of you in retirement.
There is a term from the world of scuba diving that refers to a medical problem that happens when a diver returns to the surface to fast and the shift from high pressure to lower pressure of the world above the water is too fast. It’s called “the bends” and it’s a serious medical moment. Well, we don’t want to get “the bends” when we leave the high pressure world of work and achievement for the low pressure world of retirement and a life of ease.
So to avoid retirement shock, you should start well ahead of you retirement party getting ready for that lifestyle. The worst thing you can do is wake up on the first day of your retired life with nothing to do and that feeling of emptiness and loneliness because you miss your old life and have no plans for how to fill the hours and days that lay ahead in your life as a retired person.
One way to avoid retirement shock is to do a bit of daydreaming about all the things you want to do once you are retired. Many of us put off creative interests and adventures we might have pursued except as a member of the working world, a parent an active participant in school, church and civic groups, there is just no time for that before retirement. But now that you have laid down so many of those responsibilities, give yourself permission to throw yourself into a creative hobby to let that side of you out to grow and mature.
Another great coping mechanism so the shock of moving into retirement isn’t so severe is to continue to work at a reduced pace. If your employer values your decades of experience and devotion to duty, they may put you on in a part time capacity to come in and help the young people learn the ropes and learn the lay of the land of the business world. You know that landscape well so you can be of real value to make that transition a success.
Retirement is also a time when you can travel and spend more time with family and friends. If you always wished you could be available to baby-sit the grandchildren, now is the time. Your kids not only will love having free child care while they go about dealing with their busy lives but you will enjoy getting to know your grandkids and maybe being a kid with them for an afternoon as well.
Volunteering is another great way to fill all of that extra time you now have on your hands. By keeping busy helping worthy causes, you keep your self esteem because you are making a real difference in the lives of others and for your community. You can meet so many wonderful people while volunteering and the social side of it keeps you young and overcomes loneliness which is a big problem when you first enter your retirement years.
By laying out plans to enjoy a hobby, continue to work part time or volunteer when retirement starts, you can get rid of that sense of dread that you may have about your upcoming retirement. Instead start to get excited about this new phase of life and the new life that lies ahead of you in retirement.
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.
The song that got most associated with that movie was called “Born to be Wild”. This is an image of unrestrained freedom that seems to stay in our spirits even as we move through life and into our retirement years. Small wonder you may have as your retirement dream the idea of selling the house, moving into an RV and hitting the road to discover America yourself, maybe not as young hippies but with that same sprit of adventure and fun.
This is an “alternative lifestyle” that many people enjoy in their senior years. And to be fair, RV technology is so advanced that you really can enjoy virtually all of the luxuries of home but be able to rove the countryside bedding down anywhere you can find an RV hookup and some water.
But even though this exciting prospect for your retirement years scratches that itch for you to be “born to be wild”, you are not so wild that you are not going to do some careful planning so you and your spouse can pull off this big change of lifestyle comfortably and safely. And because it is a big change for both of you, careful planning is in order.
Probably the biggest investment of this retirement dream is that RV itself. Fully loaded, these magnificent living centers on wheels can often cost as much as a house itself. Now one way to really get your preparations underway would be to buy the RV well in advance of retirement. You can make payments on it and plan to pay it off when you sell the house and use the proceeds to make that traveling home your own.
By buying in advance, you can take some trial run trips for a few weeks at a time and begin to get used to the lifestyle on the road. These are important trial runs because there are going to be a lot of new issues that go with staying gone virtually forever that you will need to cover so you are not being irresponsible in your wild wanderings across the landscape.
Your kids will worry about this big adventure. But if you listen closely, buried in those worried lectures they are giving you is a sense of envy and admiration that mom and dad had the courage to get out there and live their dream with their retirement years. And you can help them feel less anxious by keeping communications active on any trip. With modern cell phone technology, not only can you always stay in touch, you can text them, email them and even send them pictures from your travels for them to live the traveling lifestyle with you vicariously.
You will need to make arrangements for mail to do your banking from the road. Your retirement program and Social Security can auto-deposit in your bank back home but you will be using those funds all over the country so it will take some smart planning to stay fiscally responsible while living the free and easy lifestyle of a road warier.
One approach to organizing your finances is to do all of your financial activities through the internet. You can keep wireless communications going in the RV and be able to log into your bank accounts to make sure everything is as it should be. You can pay for most things by credit card and pay the credit card off via automated bill pay from your bank account. And by making arrangements that all of your bills be sent to you via email, you can do your budget and pay your bills all at the comfort of your laptop computer screen.
By living smart and using the best of modern technology, you can hit the road and enjoy the wide open spaces and the freedom that will make you and your spouse the “easy riders” of your time. And by living out your dream, you are doing what millions of people say they will do with their retirement years but never do. You are living life to its fullest and letting retirement be the best time of your life.
The song that got most associated with that movie was called “Born to be Wild”. This is an image of unrestrained freedom that seems to stay in our spirits even as we move through life and into our retirement years. Small wonder you may have as your retirement dream the idea of selling the house, moving into an RV and hitting the road to discover America yourself, maybe not as young hippies but with that same sprit of adventure and fun.
This is an “alternative lifestyle” that many people enjoy in their senior years. And to be fair, RV technology is so advanced that you really can enjoy virtually all of the luxuries of home but be able to rove the countryside bedding down anywhere you can find an RV hookup and some water.
But even though this exciting prospect for your retirement years scratches that itch for you to be “born to be wild”, you are not so wild that you are not going to do some careful planning so you and your spouse can pull off this big change of lifestyle comfortably and safely. And because it is a big change for both of you, careful planning is in order.
Probably the biggest investment of this retirement dream is that RV itself. Fully loaded, these magnificent living centers on wheels can often cost as much as a house itself. Now one way to really get your preparations underway would be to buy the RV well in advance of retirement. You can make payments on it and plan to pay it off when you sell the house and use the proceeds to make that traveling home your own.
By buying in advance, you can take some trial run trips for a few weeks at a time and begin to get used to the lifestyle on the road. These are important trial runs because there are going to be a lot of new issues that go with staying gone virtually forever that you will need to cover so you are not being irresponsible in your wild wanderings across the landscape.
Your kids will worry about this big adventure. But if you listen closely, buried in those worried lectures they are giving you is a sense of envy and admiration that mom and dad had the courage to get out there and live their dream with their retirement years. And you can help them feel less anxious by keeping communications active on any trip. With modern cell phone technology, not only can you always stay in touch, you can text them, email them and even send them pictures from your travels for them to live the traveling lifestyle with you vicariously.
You will need to make arrangements for mail to do your banking from the road. Your retirement program and Social Security can auto-deposit in your bank back home but you will be using those funds all over the country so it will take some smart planning to stay fiscally responsible while living the free and easy lifestyle of a road warier.
One approach to organizing your finances is to do all of your financial activities through the internet. You can keep wireless communications going in the RV and be able to log into your bank accounts to make sure everything is as it should be. You can pay for most things by credit card and pay the credit card off via automated bill pay from your bank account. And by making arrangements that all of your bills be sent to you via email, you can do your budget and pay your bills all at the comfort of your laptop computer screen.
By living smart and using the best of modern technology, you can hit the road and enjoy the wide open spaces and the freedom that will make you and your spouse the “easy riders” of your time. And by living out your dream, you are doing what millions of people say they will do with their retirement years but never do. You are living life to its fullest and letting retirement be the best time of your life.
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.
It’s appropriate to use the term “retirement community” because when you are considering selling your home and moving to an assisted care facility or a senior apartment, community is just as important to you as the food and the layout of your space. So when you start that search process, it’s good to know what questions to ask and how to evaluate different retirement communities against each other.
Anytime you go to “interview” the administration of a retirement community, they are going to put their best foot forward. But that’s ok because you want to know what their bragging rights are all about. So in addition to discussing price and amenities, make sure you include community activities as part of the things you ask about and use to evaluate the community. One of the big advantages of moving to a senior center is that you can have a more social lifestyle then living in your home by yourself. So the retirement center must be the kind of place that facilitate a lot of social interaction so you can make friends and get out and have fun.
The layout and how the residents are interacted with by staff make a big difference for how well people get out of their apartments and enjoy their living arrangements. Take the tour of the place but don’t just look the carpet and the views out of the display apartment windows. Look at how many people are out and about, how much informal communication is going on and if public spaces are available and in use on a daily basis. That is something that cannot be “staged” and you will be able to tell if the people are having fun and enjoying each other at the retirement community.
Of course there are the “brass tacks” questions you will need to go through when interviewing a possible new place to live. The facility has to be within your price range so they should be forthright about costs. But even if you can afford what they charge, there has to be value for the money. Look at the facility both for what is being offered and how well they seem to be able to fulfill their promises. Look at the physical arrangements. How old is the facility and does it seem to be in good repair?
Make it a point to talk to various staff members during your stay. If the person assigned to host you lets you talk to residents and staff but they must be present, that might indicate that they are putting on a show for you and not letting you know the real story of the facility. Make arrangements to be “cut loose” to wander the halls, talk to residents and visit staff on a surprise basis. If the staff is irritated by your attempts to communicate, always busy or cold and hostile, that is a culture issue that you don’t want to be part of your new lifestyle.
A real test of a retirement community might come in giving them a test drive. If the facility owners have a guest apartment and they offer to let you stay for a few days to just sample life in the community, that is a strong statement of faith that you will find everything to your liking. By living amongst the people, you have lots of chances to eat with the residents, begin making friends and find out the real scoop on whether this is a good place to live or not.
By coming up with a strategy for looking at different retirement centers to find out what they are really all about, you will do a much better job of evaluating retirement communities. And it’s worth the effort to dig a bit beneath the surface because if this place wants to be your new home, they must be able to make you retirement life happy, social and fun. Because that’s the way it should be.
It’s appropriate to use the term “retirement community” because when you are considering selling your home and moving to an assisted care facility or a senior apartment, community is just as important to you as the food and the layout of your space. So when you start that search process, it’s good to know what questions to ask and how to evaluate different retirement communities against each other.
Anytime you go to “interview” the administration of a retirement community, they are going to put their best foot forward. But that’s ok because you want to know what their bragging rights are all about. So in addition to discussing price and amenities, make sure you include community activities as part of the things you ask about and use to evaluate the community. One of the big advantages of moving to a senior center is that you can have a more social lifestyle then living in your home by yourself. So the retirement center must be the kind of place that facilitate a lot of social interaction so you can make friends and get out and have fun.
The layout and how the residents are interacted with by staff make a big difference for how well people get out of their apartments and enjoy their living arrangements. Take the tour of the place but don’t just look the carpet and the views out of the display apartment windows. Look at how many people are out and about, how much informal communication is going on and if public spaces are available and in use on a daily basis. That is something that cannot be “staged” and you will be able to tell if the people are having fun and enjoying each other at the retirement community.
Of course there are the “brass tacks” questions you will need to go through when interviewing a possible new place to live. The facility has to be within your price range so they should be forthright about costs. But even if you can afford what they charge, there has to be value for the money. Look at the facility both for what is being offered and how well they seem to be able to fulfill their promises. Look at the physical arrangements. How old is the facility and does it seem to be in good repair?
Make it a point to talk to various staff members during your stay. If the person assigned to host you lets you talk to residents and staff but they must be present, that might indicate that they are putting on a show for you and not letting you know the real story of the facility. Make arrangements to be “cut loose” to wander the halls, talk to residents and visit staff on a surprise basis. If the staff is irritated by your attempts to communicate, always busy or cold and hostile, that is a culture issue that you don’t want to be part of your new lifestyle.
A real test of a retirement community might come in giving them a test drive. If the facility owners have a guest apartment and they offer to let you stay for a few days to just sample life in the community, that is a strong statement of faith that you will find everything to your liking. By living amongst the people, you have lots of chances to eat with the residents, begin making friends and find out the real scoop on whether this is a good place to live or not.
By coming up with a strategy for looking at different retirement centers to find out what they are really all about, you will do a much better job of evaluating retirement communities. And it’s worth the effort to dig a bit beneath the surface because if this place wants to be your new home, they must be able to make you retirement life happy, social and fun. Because that’s the way it should be.
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.
It isn’t fair for us to impose the same standards of retirement on everyone. To say that to enjoy your golden years, you must take up fishing, start sleeping until noon, sit in a rocker and watch the day go by and gradually turn into a senior citizen would to many be the same as sentencing them to life in prison without parole. So for many it’s very possible that working would be the thing that would make your retirement meaningful.
Still others must continue to work into their retirement years because they did not or could not prepare for retirement. Whatever the situation, there are some adjustments that should be made to shift to a retirement career that you can continue to do well into your senior years.
You can get a running start on your retirement planning if you find that a career change is appropriate later in life. Many times we do find that the career we are in may either be changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, it’s too physically demanding when you are older or in some other way that job has become a “young man’s game”. If that has happened to you, you can get a jump start on finding a career that you can stick with well into your retirement years, that career can be an income generator that might never go away.
It is not at all uncommon for men in their later years to start a new career. Perhaps you just want a career where you can use the creative side of you and one that can be a natural transition into retirement. Perhaps you reached the maximum vesting of your retirement account with a job you held for decades so you can “retire” from that job with full benefits and funding and still start another career that you can take on into retirement and keep doing as you enjoy the fruits of retirement as well.
Many times the skills and knowledge you learned in the business world during your first career can transition you into a lucrative consulting career late in life. One way to explore this option is to think of the venders who sold goods and services to you when you were in your previous career and contact them to see if you might now represent their services as a former satisfied customer. If you had specialized knowledge and training in how to use their software or a technical product, that training which your former employer paid for can now transition into an exciting career as a sales representative or sale support for the very companies who once had you as a customer.
The internet can also open up worlds of money making opportunities that you can use to land work or sell something you may have made by setting up your own web site and learning how to promote yourself online. Many cottage industries have taken off and been hugely successful just getting what you do out into cyberspace. For example, if you are talented at making beautiful artistic pottery, you can create a line of pots that is perfect for sale over the internet. You can work with a skilled internet web developer and marketer to get your product out on the internet and before long, you might have more orders than you know what to do with all flying out through your web site which is collecting the money and filling your back account up with all the profits.
The ways you can create a new business in your retirement years are only limited by your imagination. And once you have a good new career going that you can continue well into your retirement years, you won’t have many of the worries other retired people have. You can enjoy the freedoms of a retirement lifestyle and made plenty of money at the same time. And that’s a great combination.
It isn’t fair for us to impose the same standards of retirement on everyone. To say that to enjoy your golden years, you must take up fishing, start sleeping until noon, sit in a rocker and watch the day go by and gradually turn into a senior citizen would to many be the same as sentencing them to life in prison without parole. So for many it’s very possible that working would be the thing that would make your retirement meaningful.
Still others must continue to work into their retirement years because they did not or could not prepare for retirement. Whatever the situation, there are some adjustments that should be made to shift to a retirement career that you can continue to do well into your senior years.
You can get a running start on your retirement planning if you find that a career change is appropriate later in life. Many times we do find that the career we are in may either be changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, it’s too physically demanding when you are older or in some other way that job has become a “young man’s game”. If that has happened to you, you can get a jump start on finding a career that you can stick with well into your retirement years, that career can be an income generator that might never go away.
It is not at all uncommon for men in their later years to start a new career. Perhaps you just want a career where you can use the creative side of you and one that can be a natural transition into retirement. Perhaps you reached the maximum vesting of your retirement account with a job you held for decades so you can “retire” from that job with full benefits and funding and still start another career that you can take on into retirement and keep doing as you enjoy the fruits of retirement as well.
Many times the skills and knowledge you learned in the business world during your first career can transition you into a lucrative consulting career late in life. One way to explore this option is to think of the venders who sold goods and services to you when you were in your previous career and contact them to see if you might now represent their services as a former satisfied customer. If you had specialized knowledge and training in how to use their software or a technical product, that training which your former employer paid for can now transition into an exciting career as a sales representative or sale support for the very companies who once had you as a customer.
The internet can also open up worlds of money making opportunities that you can use to land work or sell something you may have made by setting up your own web site and learning how to promote yourself online. Many cottage industries have taken off and been hugely successful just getting what you do out into cyberspace. For example, if you are talented at making beautiful artistic pottery, you can create a line of pots that is perfect for sale over the internet. You can work with a skilled internet web developer and marketer to get your product out on the internet and before long, you might have more orders than you know what to do with all flying out through your web site which is collecting the money and filling your back account up with all the profits.
The ways you can create a new business in your retirement years are only limited by your imagination. And once you have a good new career going that you can continue well into your retirement years, you won’t have many of the worries other retired people have. You can enjoy the freedoms of a retirement lifestyle and made plenty of money at the same time. And that’s a great combination.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
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.
But just as life is not just about making money, retirement is about so much more than having the money not to work. Preparation for retirement also means preparing to live a simpler life, preparing to become a “senior citizen” and a grandparent and preparing to look at life differently.
Your health care is going to be an important issue in your retirement years. As you enter retirement, you may be strong as an ox and active and full of health and life. But any of us can fall prey to poor health or accidents. And if your employer from whom you retired does not extend your health care insurance for you to continue your coverage past your employment, you should make other plans. You can continue the same coverage that you had under the Cobra system but that can get pretty costly and dip into your finite retirement savings pretty significantly. Medicare can be helpful too. But to be perfectly comfortable that you have coverage, look to Medicare supplement insurance so you maintain the same quality of care in retirement that you have now in the working world.
Don’t just limit your retirement planning to your money. Your retirement will be a time of a big change of lifestyle and a change to your values and how you spend your time as well. You will have more time on your hands and studies show that those who enter retirement without “an agenda” can become adrift in all that time and that isn’t healthy. Human beings are doers so even though you may no longer be working for a living, find ways to be productive and make a difference in your community. You can start finding those opportunities long before retirement so when you finally step out of the work world, expanding those hobbies and volunteer efforts is as natural as can be.
In addition to the change of where you spend your time each day, you may have even a bigger change in where you live ahead for you in retirement. Many times people who step into their retirement years find that maintaining the house where you raised the kids is just not necessary and more work than it worth. Selling the home and using the equity to finance a leisurely retirement life is a great way to go. But you should start early both preparing the home for sale and preparing the family that “grandma and grandpa’s house” is going away.
In addition, where you go to live is something that can be great fun to dream about and doing some research on just the right place. You may choose to rent a small place in an older part of town and enjoy a whole new lifestyle in that setting. Or you might go for a high-rise condo with a view of the river or a nice quiet apartment in a retirement oriented apartment complex where you and other retirees can explore this new world together.
Above all it’s important to embrace the retired lifestyle with the enthusiasm and excitement that you might greet any new opportunity. Don’t let being retired mean just not working. In fact, go through the mental and emotional exercises of putting the working world behind you and redefining yourself in this new role. You are retired now and you are a senior citizen and maybe even a grandparent.
These are not negative things. There is a strong role for grandma and grandpa in society and in your family. And the world takes great joy in a senior citizen who embraces that time of their life and sets out to be the best senior citizen they can be. If you predetermine that this is the kind of retired person you are going to be, that attitude will propel you past that sudden change of life shock and get your retired life off in running in an exciting way that will lead to many happy and fun times in your life of leisure as a retired person.
But just as life is not just about making money, retirement is about so much more than having the money not to work. Preparation for retirement also means preparing to live a simpler life, preparing to become a “senior citizen” and a grandparent and preparing to look at life differently.
Your health care is going to be an important issue in your retirement years. As you enter retirement, you may be strong as an ox and active and full of health and life. But any of us can fall prey to poor health or accidents. And if your employer from whom you retired does not extend your health care insurance for you to continue your coverage past your employment, you should make other plans. You can continue the same coverage that you had under the Cobra system but that can get pretty costly and dip into your finite retirement savings pretty significantly. Medicare can be helpful too. But to be perfectly comfortable that you have coverage, look to Medicare supplement insurance so you maintain the same quality of care in retirement that you have now in the working world.
Don’t just limit your retirement planning to your money. Your retirement will be a time of a big change of lifestyle and a change to your values and how you spend your time as well. You will have more time on your hands and studies show that those who enter retirement without “an agenda” can become adrift in all that time and that isn’t healthy. Human beings are doers so even though you may no longer be working for a living, find ways to be productive and make a difference in your community. You can start finding those opportunities long before retirement so when you finally step out of the work world, expanding those hobbies and volunteer efforts is as natural as can be.
In addition to the change of where you spend your time each day, you may have even a bigger change in where you live ahead for you in retirement. Many times people who step into their retirement years find that maintaining the house where you raised the kids is just not necessary and more work than it worth. Selling the home and using the equity to finance a leisurely retirement life is a great way to go. But you should start early both preparing the home for sale and preparing the family that “grandma and grandpa’s house” is going away.
In addition, where you go to live is something that can be great fun to dream about and doing some research on just the right place. You may choose to rent a small place in an older part of town and enjoy a whole new lifestyle in that setting. Or you might go for a high-rise condo with a view of the river or a nice quiet apartment in a retirement oriented apartment complex where you and other retirees can explore this new world together.
Above all it’s important to embrace the retired lifestyle with the enthusiasm and excitement that you might greet any new opportunity. Don’t let being retired mean just not working. In fact, go through the mental and emotional exercises of putting the working world behind you and redefining yourself in this new role. You are retired now and you are a senior citizen and maybe even a grandparent.
These are not negative things. There is a strong role for grandma and grandpa in society and in your family. And the world takes great joy in a senior citizen who embraces that time of their life and sets out to be the best senior citizen they can be. If you predetermine that this is the kind of retired person you are going to be, that attitude will propel you past that sudden change of life shock and get your retired life off in running in an exciting way that will lead to many happy and fun times in your life of leisure as a retired person.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
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The privacy of our visitors to Retirement Planning FAQ for retirement-planning-faq.blogspot.com
At retirement-planning-faq.blogspot.com, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use visit retirement-planning-faq.blogspot.com, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.
Log Files
As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.
Cookies and Web Beacons
We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.
We also use third party advertisements on retirement-planning-faq.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).
You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.
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