Deciding When to Retire: Goal Setting

If you are a baby boomer who sets goals, retirement is probably one of those goals. If it’s not, you are probably a severe pessimist. (Or you are just plain weird!)

To me, a real goal needs a deadline or at least a target date. What good is having an objective in life if you don’t at least attempt to define when you will achieve that objective? Read more

How to Re-Enter the Market as a Conservative Investor

Many nervous investors left the equity markets at some point over the last year, either as an investment strategy or out of pure panic and fear. These feelings were magnified for baby boomers and others in the home stretch toward retirement.

Others investors were like me. We did not sell during the market decline (except perhaps financials and other sure losers) but we did not add to our equity positions either.

Now the market is in a small rally and there are glimmers of positive news about the economy. We remain nervous. So how does the conservative retirement investor get back in the market without breaking out in a cold sweat? I have a one strategy to propose. It involves three basic steps. Read more

Medical and Health Insurance Premiums: Finding Deductions

As we age and pay off our mortgages, it seems that baby boomers and retirees are less likely to itemize deductions. On the other hand, this stage in our lives can introduce new sources of deductions that we may not think of. Read more

Life Annuity Calculators: Finding the Best Online

Life annuities for retirement income, particularly fixed immediate annuities, continue to intrigue me. Every day it seems that one or members of the insurance industry comes out with a new and different annuity product for baby boomers to consider.

My preference is to learn as much about investment and income products on my own, without facing pressure applied by people trying to sell me something. I have nothing against folks who sell annuities in general. I just feel that I can make a better decision about relative costs and benefits associated with financial products if I gather many of the facts on my own. Read more

Health Insurance for the Unemployed Baby Boomer

If you are a recently unemployed baby boomer, keeping or getting access to health care is critical. At the same time, older workers must preserve and protect retirement accounts if at all possible. It helps to have access to resources that explain your rights and options for continuing or securing new health insurance coverage. Read more

Comparing Marginal and Average Income Tax Rates

There was a mini-uproar this past week in the personal finance blogosphere. It seems that one veteran blogger published a guest post from another veteran blogger about the tax consequences of paying mortgage interest. The problem was that the author fundamentally misunderstood the difference between marginal and average tax rates. Surprisingly, the comments to the subsequent apology indicated that there are a lot of folks out there who do not understand the difference. So I decided to write a brief article about. Read more

This Week’s Boomer and Retirement Reading

Here are some items I read this week in the world of retirement planning and finance that may be of interest to you:

Here is one blogger’s summary of Six Ways to Make Your Retirement Accounts Last Longer

Ing has launched an online tool for comparing your finances with others, called INGCompareMe. I haven’t tried this site yet but I probably will soon and will write a review of it.

Warnings are on the increase for those considering traveling (and perhaps retiring) in Mexico.

If you want to know what your return (loss) on investment might be for certain home remodeling projects, check out this survey at Remodeling Magazine.

Finally, check out the latest articles at the Boomers and Seniors carnival.

Enjoy your weekend.

Reduce Your Money Management Stress

Many of us struggle to adopt a money management or  investing style that minimizes the stress that we experience. This is particularly true for baby boomers after the 2008-2009 market declines.  We don’t want to discover after we have invested that our investing style and money strategy are creating undue anxiety. Read more

Understanding Investment Returns for Retirement Planning

One of the problems that many investors have (and that I used to have) is how to interpret and practically apply investment return data published by the mutual fund companies. I frequently read statements made by uninformed investors about historical annual rates of return that cause them to be over-confident in their retirement planning. So I thought I would try to bring a little clarity to the issue. Read more

Compare Net Worth with other Baby Boomers

Want to know how you measure financially against other baby boomers? I often find net worth comparisons to be either amusing or motivating, depending on my attitude. But my curiosity gets the best of me so I do it anyway. Here are some options that you can try to compare your net worth with those of others like you. Read more

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