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No matter where you are in your career, retirement is likely to be on your mind. Since this generation of workers can no longer expect employers to provide a generous pension and health insurance coverage, it can feel like all retirement decisions are up to us as individuals.
Add in the fact that there are a number of ways that retirement planning can go off the rails – and not all of those ways are within an investor’s control – and it’s clear that we have good reasons to be worried about retirement.
Fortunately, several of the most common retirement mistakes and pitfalls are avoidable. Here are three ways many people have undermined their own retirement, and what you can learn from their mistakes: [ continue reading… ]
Retirement. After spending 50 years in the workforce, you’re supposed to walk away, sit in your rocking chair, and live on earnings that are enough to fund your habits.
It’s supposed to be easy: flip the switch and go from being a productive member of society to, well, not.
Fortunately, many people are living their golden years another way. Seniors today are living longer, healthier lives, and loving their retirement via “alternative retirement” lifestyles.
Alternative retirement means telling the Man to take his rocking chair and use it for firewood. It means living life on your own terms and taking no one’s flack about what you should be doing with the rest of your life. [ continue reading… ]
You would certainly think so with the way that people fight over it every day. Money is one of the leading contributors to divorce in this country, and has been for a while. While divorces strictly because of money are around 5%, 70% of couples attribute money issues to their lists of other causes.
It doesn’t have to be this way though. Unlike taxes, arguments about money aren’t inevitable. [ continue reading… ]
My finances are largely automated. Most of my regular bills are paid automatically with a credit card or through direct withdrawal from my checking account. This setup is convenient, and it means that I don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to remember when to pay my bills. Even my retirement account and emergency fund contributions are automatically transferred each month.
However, it doesn’t mean that I should just leave my finances alone going forward just because I automate my finances. In fact, I make it a point to sit down and review my accounts at least once a month.
We’ve considered buying a home a major milestone of financial and lifestyle achievement for years. It’s one of those steps that we all feel we need to take in order to be successful. However, I’ve been a homeowner, and I like renting better – even if I am “throwing money away.” (And I don’t think I’m throwing money away either. My investment returns beat the average appreciation on most homes in most areas of the country.)
While buying a home can be a great move for some people, it’s not the answer for everyone. Here are three reasons to consider renting: [ continue reading… ]
Death isn’t a subject that many of us like to think about. But the fact of the matter is that we all must plan for that eventuality, including how we want our final days to play out.
According to Amanda Bennet, author of “The Cost of Hope,” “From the 1970s to the 1990s, one study suggests, the cost of adding a single year of life for an individual over age 65 more than tripled, to $145,000 from $46,800 — and health-care costs have been rising ever since. In 2008, researchers from Stanford and Wharton business schools studied dialysis patients and concluded that the average cost of one ‘quality’ extra year of life was about $129,000.”
These huge costs are often incurred in attempting to prolong a life when death is imminent, inevitable, and in some cases, even desired. After all, the terminally ill are often still suffering from the emotional and physical pain that comes with the underlying disease. And as modern medicine becomes better at sustaining the terminally ill, it may be unnecessarily prolonging the inevitable.
Plus, the majority of Americans state that they’d prefer to die at home, yet about 75% pass away in a hospital or a nursing home. So for those who want to have a comfortable time living the tail end of his/her life in relatively peace, it means that end-of-life care should not be put off.
Here’s what you need to know about end-of-life care, so that you can be prepared to make decisions for yourself and your family members when the time comes. [ continue reading… ]
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