When it comes to financial advice, it seems that everyone has plenty to offer.
Invest in these stocks, not those.
Sell those shares now, not later.
Use your savings to buy property, not stocks or bonds.
And the list goes on.
You’d think that once we reached the ripe old age that means we get to retire, people would quiet down a bit with the unsolicited advice. (more…)
Last year, approximately 61 million Americans received $918 billion in Social Security benefits, with retired workers taking the majority — $55 billion. 9 out of 10 people age 65 and over received Social Security checks, with the funds representing about 35-40 percent of the seniors’ income.
As for the 2017 forecast, a cost-of-living adjustment only raised the average senior Social Security check this year by $4. (more…)
If you’ve always imagined your retirement as a carefree time full of travel, golf, or spending more time with family and friends, then it’s a good idea to take action now by making realistic, concrete goals and devising a plan on how to accomplish them.
Keep in mind that it’s never too early to do so, and planning for your post-full-time work years doesn’t have to be complicated either. (more…)
When you’re serving senior clients, there are a number of considerations you must take into account.
For one thing, a senior client is usually a matter of years away from retirement, if they’re not already retired. Their financial goals are therefore very different from a client in her 30s or 40s. A retiree is likely more concerned with maintaining wealth and their standard of living, as opposed to actively building wealth.
Ever since life settlements originated, there have been “provider direct” firms that advertise directly to seniors, offering to purchase their life insurance policies outright for slightly more than the cash surrender value.
This can seem tempting to seniors who perhaps weren’t aware that their policy could be worth anything at all above the cash surrender value. However, in this case, what they don’t know can hurt them - at least financially.
Seniors who opt for these provider direct transactions stand to lose thousands of dollars in by dealing directly with a provider, rather than going through their financial advisor and a life settlement broker. Here’s why. (more…)
The end and the beginning of the year are times ripe with opportunity to reflect, repair, and improve our finances. As a financial advisor, you know this better than anyone.
Now that the end of last year has come and gone, and we’re at the start of the new one, your clients are probably coming in ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work on making this their best financial year yet.
For your senior clients, especially ones who are in retirement, helping them do that may look a bit different than it does for your younger clients. Here are a few things you can focus on.
If you’re a recent retiree, you’re probably still getting used to your new lifestyle.
There are a lot of changes to take in, and not just things like having all day to do whatever you like, or not having to get up at a certain time each morning.
Your finances will have to be managed a little bit differently, too. Now that you’re living off the distributions from your retirement accounts, you’ve got to make sure that you’re budgeting accurately, planning for major expenses, and keeping an eye out for alternative options for increasing income, should you need it. (more…)
Senior women in 2017 face a very different reality than their own mothers did 20 or 30 years ago.
For one thing, many senior women have been working for all or most of their adult lives, so they’re more financially independent. At the same time, however, they’re coming into retirement age during a period of uncertainty and transition. Programs like Social Security and Medicare, once mainstays of a secure retirement, are no longer as reliable as they once were - and in 10 years, they may be even less so. (more…)
Whether you’re thinking of getting married for the first time or the fifth, marriage in your senior years looks quite different from marriage in your 20s.
For one thing, you’re a lot more mature than younger engaged couples and newlyweds. You’ve probably got more experience in resolving conflict, compromise, and respecting boundaries - all of which can be quite helpful in a marriage.
On the other hand, however, you’ve also got a full lifetime of habits, needs, interests, and money management techniques built up. Chances are, your intended does too. How do you go about combining your lives without stepping on each other’s toes?
We all hope that when we retire, we’ll have the funds to live the kind of life we’ve dreamt of for years. Travel, relaxation, volunteering, spending time with family - these are the things that so many of us imagine doing, and not one of them earns a paycheck.
But what if something happens to derail your retirement dream? Would you be prepared to recover? Would you have a contingency plan?
