Crackerjacks and Fixed Index Annuities: There’s a Prize Inside |
March 18, 2013 |
Income For Life, Member Posts, Retirement Planning
Written By: Mark MacDonald | Sage Financial Partners When you were a kid, what was the best part about a box of Crackerjacks? The prize inside, right? Sometimes my friends and I would dump out the candy just to acquire the prize. Many Fixed Index Annuities have a prize inside. It’s called the Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit (GLWB). It’s an optional rider – you have to proactively request it – but for the right person, it can be one of the best retirement prizes you’ll...
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Does Your Annuity Lose Money from Inflation? |
March 18, 2013 |
Income For Life, Member Posts, Retirement Planning
Written by Leonard Ohanian L.U.T.C.F All you baby-boomers or soon-to-be retirees depending upon a supplemental income to their Social Security retirement benefits are searching for financial ways to enhance their long and rewarding life. Many consider annuities as an option for this purpose. A terrific idea….but, did you know that the annuity you buy as a way to supplement your retirement income may be losing money due to inflation? As you know, annuities are insurance agreements issued by a company who promises a fixed dollar...
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Does your bank offer a ‘benefit’ account? |
March 12, 2013 |
Income For Life, Member Posts, Retirement Planning, Robert Zimmerman
Written By: Robert Zimmerman | H&R Advisory Service, LLC Regularly, we receive an offer of $100 or $150 in the mail by a bank as an incentive for us to open a ‘high yield’ savings account. The high yield could amount to an interest rate of around 1%. The offer does not mention that they will also send along a 1099 form every year at tax time. This informs the IRS of how much interest you received, so that they can participate. More and more,...
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Is the 4% Rule Dead? |
March 12, 2013 |
Income For Life, Member Posts, Retirement Planning
Written By: Mark MacDonald | Sage Financial Partners Listen carefully. Do you hear it? The doleful sound in the distance is a bugler playing taps. He’s mourning the demise of the 4% Rule. May it rest in peace. For decades, the 4% Rule was the benchmark adopted by financial planners to determine how to take retirement fund distributions in a way that would: a) Maximize your retirement income b) Protect you from running out of money for at least 30 years The 4% Rule was...
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Carl Ostenson |
February 15, 2013 |
Carl Ostenson, Income For Life, Member Posts, Retirement Planning
If you are fed up trying to figure out how much money you will be able to retire on, just sit down right now and read this critical material. Are these situations familiar to you? You keep your money in mutual funds, but you are really worried about losing money again You are faced with the issue of needing income to supplement your Social Security after you retire Are you grappling with having so many different decisions to make? MORNINGSTAR has recently completed a comprehensive...
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Carl Ostenson |
February 11, 2013 |
Income For Life, Member Posts, Robert Zimmerman, Your Retirement
Written By: Robert Zimmerman | H&R Advisory Service, LLC Were you there in 1987 when the market dropped over 20% in one day? Were you among those who watched awestruck while the stock prices streamed across the screen? Did you participate in 2007 when the market dropped over 50% over a period of months? Many people are still frightened by the idea of going back into the investment scene and are willing to accept the low interest rates offered by government bonds or bank accounts...
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Carl Ostenson |
February 5, 2013 |
Carl Ostenson, Income For Life, Member Posts, Your Retirement
This is kind of like asking “Who makes the best pizza in Chicago?”, Ask 5 people and you are bound to get 5 different opinions. So let’s look at 3 common ways that people get income from their retirement accounts. We’ll also look at the Pros and Cons of each, and then you can decide. 1) Put your money in the bank and live off the interest This is the most conservative approach. Many seniors who remember hard times seem to go with this one....
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Carl Ostenson |
February 4, 2013 |
Greg Marchand, Income For Life, Member Posts, Retirement Planning
Written by: Greg Marchand of Marchand Financial Services, Inc I don’t know if I agree with Jack Nicholson. I think you can handle the truth, I just don’t think you can handle the risk. We should all understand what the goal is. For me and my clients, the goal tends to be, having adequate income when they quit working. To sustain the type of lifestyle they desire. I find that, if we are too anxious about reaching that objective we may be willing to believe...
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Carl Ostenson |
January 4, 2013 |
Income For Life, Jeremy Smith, Member Posts
Written By: Jeremy Smith | Amerishield Last night I watched the movie “The Perfect Storm” the remake of the fishing vessel Andrea Gail that got caught in the Perfect Storm of 1991. According to actual news reports from Gloucester, MA, a northeaster’s giant tides and gale-force winds blindsided Cape Ann on Oct. 30, 1991, leaving a path of destruction that demolished homes, devoured waterfront property and sank the Andrea Gail vessel with all six hands lost at sea. When the winds started blowing on Monday,...
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Carl Ostenson |
November 26, 2012 |
Income For Life, Retirement Planning, The United States Economy, Your Retirement
As the media outlets have recently been highlighting, Congress is on the hook to work together in forming a plan to keep our country from going over the fiscal cliff… this fiscal cliff is referring to the impact of current laws which could result in sizeable tax increases and spending cuts if left unchanged. An equally important fiscal cliff that has unfortunately not been getting as much publicity is the potential personal fiscal cliff that retirees without a pension plan or any other guaranteed lifetime...
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