Posted on March 23, 2007 by Jason
MSNBC, March 23rd, 2007
Until two weeks ago, Ruth Ebert never had the slightest interest in the video
games favored by her one and only granddaughter.
“I’m 82 years old, so I missed
that part of our culture. Soap operas, yes. Video games, no,” chirped Ebert, who
recently started playing a tennis game on Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s new Wii video game
console at the Virginia retirement community she calls home.
“It was funny, because normally I
would not be someone who would do that,” said Ebert, who picked up the console’s
motion-sensing Wiimote and challenged the machine to a match.
“I played tennis, if you can call
it that, as a high school student. I had such fun doing it,” she said.
Ebert swung the Wiimote just like
a tennis racquet and said playing the game reminded her of the feeling she had
all those years ago.
While she took the early on-court
lead, the Wii beat her in the end. Still, it hurt less than her real-world
losses: “I didn’t mind losing to a video game. It couldn’t rub it in.”
Read more of this article.
Posted on March 13, 2007 by Jason
CNN Money Magazine, March 13th, 2007
To step off the corporate treadmill in your fifties or early sixties
and maintain anything close to your standard of living, you must have a
seriously big retirement kitty.
How serious? You’ll likely need
assets worth 10 to 16 times your salary by the time you leave your job.
A 45-year-old making $120,000 who hopes to retire at age 60, say,
should already have nearly $700,000 set aside.
You can get by with less if you’ll have other sources of income. If
that same 45-year-old has a typical old-fashioned check-a-month
pension, for example, he might need only $432,000 in savings to be on
track. If you expect to hold down a scaled-back job for your first
decade of retirement, you can also get by with less.
Still,
your target is a big number, and to reach it you’ll have to save
diligently, invest aggressively and keep taxes and expenses from
eroding your returns.
One way to get there is through the kind
of prodigious deferred consumption that Shawn Larsen, 47, practices.
After spending nearly 16 years as a seismologist at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Larsen, who is single, has decided he wants to
call it quits when he hits 50 and becomes eligible for retiree health
benefits. That will leave him free to focus on the outdoor activities
he loves: biking, backpacking and orienteering (a sort of combination
of running, rock climbing and map reading).
Read more of this article.
Posted on March 13, 2007 by Jason
Rocky Mountain Telegram, March 12th, 2006
Today’s corporate marketplace is increasingly focused on cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
As organizational restructuring and downsizing become commonplace
employers are searching for new strategies to reduce payroll expenses.
Rather than sending “pink slips” more employers are offering early
retirement packages to try to entice employees to leave voluntarily.
The decision whether to accept an early retirement offer can be
distressing and complex. If you find yourself in this position you will
need to carefully evaluate the offer as well as your personal
retirement goals and current financial situation. No matter how
attractive the offer seems it is important to understand all the
details and explore both the potential benefits and drawbacks of
accepting your buyout offer.
Consider the emotional aspects of early retirement.
Financial concerns are only one part of evaluating an early
retirement offer. Consider the following: Are you emotionally prepared
for retirement? Does accepting a company buyout plan mesh with your
retirement goals? Are their repercussions for turning down the offer?
Would you continue to be happy at your job if you turned down the
offer? Certainly, you will need to calculate the financial aspects of
your decision; however, don’t forget to acknowledge the personal
factors involved with accepting or declining the offer.
Read more of this article.
Posted on March 13, 2007 by Jason
The Boston Herald, March 12th, 2006
American workers
shouldn’t count on making up for inadequate savings by planning to work
into their retirement years, since such plans are often doomed by
unexpected health problems, Fidelity Investments said Monday in
releasing findings of a retirement planning survey.
The
study found the typical American working household is slightly better
prepared financially for retirement than it was a year ago.
It
also revealed 63 percent of today’s workers plan to work in retirement
on at least a part-time basis to supplement their income.
However,
nearly one-fourth of current retirees questioned in the survey reported
they were left without expected income when they had to leave their
jobs early because of unexpected health problems.
“When planning for
retirement, it’s more than about just money, it’s also about health,”
said Guy Patton, executive director of the Fidelity Research Institute,
which Boston-based Fidelity created last year to study personal savings
issues. “One can certainly significantly impact the other.”
For
the first time in its three-year history, Fidelity’s annual retirement
study questioned retirees, rather than just current workers.
Read more of this article.
Posted on March 1, 2007 by Jason
The New York Times, March 1st, 2007
Dr. Diane E. Meier, a geriatrician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, is an expert on end-of-life care. So when her elderly parents needed long-term help at home with bathing,
dressing and cooking after her father’s stroke, she knew where to find
assistance.
It was not through agencies in Manhattan that provide home health aides who
are bonded, insured and certified. A year of custodial care from such an agency
would cost her family $150,000, and in short order exhaust its savings because
aides are not covered by government assistance unless patients are poor or fresh
from a hospital stay.
Instead Dr. Meier turned to “a little list” of aides from the so-called gray
market, an over-the-back-fence network of women. They are usually untrained,
unscreened and unsupervised, but more affordable without an agency’s fee, less
constrained by regulations and hired through personal recommendation.
With 4.2 million Americans currently over 85 — a number expected to grow to
5.9 million by 2014 and then accelerate with the baby boom generation — the
exploding need for long-term care is remaking the home-care industry, driving
more of it underground. Gray-market hiring, fraught with risks, is a solution
that middle-class families are turning to as they face the crushing burden of
indefinite home-care expenses. But it is hardly the only one, as businesses rush
to meet the needs of these families, the fastest-growing segment of the
marketplace, who are intent on keeping their loved ones out of nursing homes.
Read more of this Article.
Posted on March 1, 2007 by Jason
The Ft. Collins Coloradoan, February 25th, 2006
Viatical settlements gained popularity in the 1980s as a source of cash for
terminally ill life insurance policyholders.
In the 1990s, viatical settlements gave rise to life settlements. Life
settlements are for owners of life insurance policies who no longer need life
insurance.
The target group for life settlements is individuals age 70 and older with a two
to 10 year life expectancy.
Generally, life settlement companies are the purchasers of unneeded life
insurance policies.
The companies pay the premiums and hold the policies until the death of the
insured at which time they collect the death benefits. Alternatively, the buyers
may resell the policies, or package a group of policies and sell interests to
institutional and other investors.
The policyholder selling his/her policy receives a lump sum. The amount
depends on factors such as policy terms and conditions, and the policyholder’s
age and health.
The lump sum is generally more than the cash value of the policy but less
than the death benefit. There may be income tax consequences to the
policyholder. If the lump sum is more than the total premiums paid the policy
owner has taxable income.
Read more of this Article.
