Posts tagged: retirement

Applying for an appropriate loan during retirement – Know the ins and outs

retirement loansRetirees can own cars and houses but does that mean that they can never use a loan? From offering tax benefits to paying for urgent expenses, loans can often be of immense benefit for the elder Americans for more than one reason. It is pretty common for the retirees to realize that they usually require getting their hands on lots of money. Seniors can have costly expenses like medical emergencies, they can suddenly realize that a part of their home requires a big renovation or even decide to help their grandchildren with bearing some kind of expenses.

Irrespective of the reason that a retiree can have in obtaining a loan, the application process is similar to working adults and retirees. However, the older applicants can require going through few other steps like showing an added income stream to display their ability to repay the loan on time. While there are several types of installment loans and online loans to take resort to, you should know the ins and outs of borrowing funds.

The process of choosing the appropriate loan

The senior Americans can be eligible for several loan types, personal loans backed by collateral, home loan, auto loan to name a few. Among these options, refinancing a home loan can be appealing due to the fact that you can deduct the interest from your tax returns. While there are several forms of income in retirement like IRAs, traditional 401(k)s which are not taxable, but they should never borrow from these as they can have an adverse impact on retirement income.

There are seniors also who may watch out for personal loans or payday loans from online sources like PaydayMe. These loans can also be enough for them to meet their immediate personal financial needs. The best way to make sure you are on the right track is by speaking to a loan expert who totally understands your financial situation. Watch out for all the options that are there in the market.

Have realistic thoughts about your repayment ability

Just because a senior can qualify for any loan type, this doesn’t mean that he should take out any loan that he wants. Those retirees who are living on a tight budget should understand their needs and wants before considering a loan. Due to the fact that seniors have restrained money to stretch over, the present life spans are making it tough for people to reach 80s, 90s and even more than that. Spending your entire retirement life on repaying debt could make it tougher for you to sustain the savings for a certain time period.

No matter whichever option you choose for borrowing money, you have to be sure that you’re able to pay back the money on time. If you’re not able to do that, you will start incurring high interest debt which will push you towards a vicious cycle of debt. Debt can spoil your golden years and hence it is best when you take steps to keep debts at bay.

How to Secure Your Life after Retirement

money for retirementRetirement is often considered to be the icing on the cake when it comes to enjoying different phases of life. While planning your life after retirement, you must set aside all of your current responsibilities and worries. Retirement leaves you with rare opportunities for participating in recreational activities, traveling, and nurturing certain hobbies. However, you mustn’t forget that you won’t have any regular source of income for the rest of your life. You must remember that you need funds to sustain all health issues and financial challenges after retirement. By making a few crucial investment decisions, you’ll be able to spend the rest of your life in leisure and comfort. Financial planning should be initiated now when you’re working and in good health.

It’s a truly daunting task for you to compare various pension plans and achieve an uninterrupted flow of income after you get retired. It’s certainly going to be a taxing issue for you to narrow down your choice of a pension pay-out although even after you select a beneficial pension plan. Apart from seeking professional assistance, you must also do extensive research on the factors that count for retirement planning.

Tips to acquire funds for your post-retirement years are mentioned below:

Calculate your basic living cost

You must choose a pension plan that yields a good return for covering all of your basic monthly expenses. You must assess your regular expenses just to determine your mandatory expenses in the future. In order to arrive at an accurate figure, you must include your sundry expenses, transportation cost, expenses pertaining to clothing and food, utility bills (including gas and water), and housing costs in your list of expenses.

Consider the effects of inflation

Inflation is bound to take a toll on all goods and services making the living cost dearer with each passing year. Indians are witnessing an inflation rate worth 4% of late and this is likely to rise during the coming years. This way, you’re bound to experience a rise in pension pay-out based on the rate of inflation. On the contrary, the amount that you receive won’t prove to be adequate for meeting your basic expenses. This way, you may even be compelled to seek financial assistance while you aren’t working anymore.

Avail some health coverage

You must learn to cope with the increase in health care costs. Opting for a health insurance plan can actually save you from the adverse impact of unforeseen medical expenses on the monthly budget. You must plan things up in advance and work things out in an efficient manner. Try applying for a health plan that can protect you and your loved ones from all untoward incidents.

Include the cost of recreation

Retirees are often known to enjoy their pastime by pursuing their hobbies, visiting their favorite destinations, reading their favorite books, and doing a host of other things. You’ll need to pay a cost for the perks that you enjoy; you must pay things out of your pension. You must save a portion of your pension to cover your costs more effectively.

You must consider the tips mentioned above if you really wish to enjoy your golden age with ease and comfort. It will help you achieve a firmer grip over your entire financial situation. All you need to do is to pick the right pension plan and utilize the money in an efficient manner just to secure your old age.

Things to Consider When Planning a Tree Change after Retirement

retirement advicesBy now, you might be confused what a “tree change” means. Experts are advising that people need to start thinking about their retirement early because the current economic trends have brought about a hike in property prices. There are very few living options for retirees and even then, they have to rely on someone, after their savings run out.

When it comes to retirement, people have three options – tree change, sea change and inner city living. As you can understand from the terms, a tree change is where you move to a rural setting, a sea change is where you move to a beach side and inner city living is when you move into an apartment in an urban locale.

Tree Change

A country retreat is mostly preferred by people who have or aim to purchase a few acres of land, some space from the hustle bustle of the city, scenery, fresh air and a sense of peace. With retirees, the most pressing concern is their health. Living confined in a house and being dependent on others for making small trips to the market can get rather depressing. When they feel like a burden, they retreat into themselves and destroy their chances of living a quality life. Having freedom insurance can make them feel secure and independent in such times.

Living in a rural area offers many perks, which include:

• Growing your own vegetables and fruit (this can become a source of income)
• Owning animals
• Less security problems
• Less pollution
• Healthy environment
• Greater sense of belonging and community
• Peaceful living

How to Make the Decision

Savings run out easily and as a retiree, it’s hard to find a source of income. This means that you have to carefully plan and count your potential expenses before making the move. Make a checklist of all your “wants” and “essentials” and then crosscheck it with your partner’s list, if you have one.

Most people remain at a 200 km distance from where they used to live because this allows them to remain in contact with their service providers such as a mechanic, hairdresser, medical professionals, etc. This also gives you the benefit to visit your neighbors or friends in times of crisis or celebrations. A lot of money is spent on repairs and by hiring someone who has been working for you for quite some time can be a plus. You will be able to save more and can spend that money on other important things.

Before moving, the most important thing you need to make sure is whether or not medical aid will be available to you in the vicinity where you are moving. It can be quite difficult to get medical help for medical emergencies in rural areas. Before moving, visit the location and check the medical facilities on site. Find out how well equipped they are to handle your problems and then make your decision.

Building a Nest Egg for a Happy Retirement

happy financial retirementWhen you are young and care-free, planning for a silver-haired future might feel weird. It’s difficult to image how next week is going to go, never mind figuring out how you are going to support yourself when you no longer want to work.

However odd it might be, planning for the future while you are young will give you the best chance of a happy retirement. It may be unpleasant to imagine a day when you will need full time care or perhaps can’t make decisions for yourself, but thinking about it now will certainly help.

Start Young

As soon as you start earning, you should be thinking about how you are going to save up and build your retirement nest egg. By starting young, you are giving yourself plenty of time to build up your financial portfolio and save without really feeling the loss. The older you are when you start, the more aggressive your saving plan will have to be.

Set out your financial goals early on and work steadily toward achieving them over a long period of time. This method will help you to budget properly without sacrificing all the good things you enjoy like meals out with friends or holidays.

Invest Smart

In order to accumulate, you must speculate. This means making smart investments in things such as stocks and shares or alternative opportunities like antiques or gold. In fact, a gold-backed IRA is an excellent supplement to your portfolio as it reacts slightly differently to the rest of the market. This is an advantage because it will help to smooth out any risks as the market naturally fluctuates.

If you aren’t too confident about what you should and shouldn’t be investing in, or how to balance risks, you must see an independent financial advisor before you part with any cash. They will be able to create a personalized financial plan for you and offer good advice to ensure you can save enough for your future.

Save, Save, Save!

If you have a budget, and stick to it as best you can, then saving a portion of your income each month should be fairly easy. In fact, if you get the balance right, you probably won’t even notice it’s happening.

Some of the best advice for building your nest egg is to put any windfalls into savings rather than splurge on things you don’t need. Find other ways to treat yourself without completely blowing your budget out of the water. This isn’t to say that you can’t treat yourself every now and again, but just to make sure that you adjust your budget accordingly.

With a sensible portfolio, your retirement plan should be easy to manage and your nest egg will gradually build up over the years. Try to keep this fund separate from your other savings to prevent you from being tempted to dip in for some extra cash. Keep a rainy day fund as well as a contingency fund and your nest egg will be safe for the future.

Finances: Avoid Sorrow And Plan For Tomorrow

money planningFinances are a tough thing to manage. Even if you’re earning a high-figure salary, poor money-management can lead to a very sparse bank account. It’s not so much about the level of your income but what you do with that income. Even on a minimum wage salary, you can make those earnings go a very long way if you screw on your financial head and start to spend or save your money in sensible ways. It’s all about taking a look at all the necessary costs you face in life and then making smart decisions as to what you do with the rest of your money.

Of course, whilst you might be sailing on by smoothly at the moment, you have to think about the future. Earning a lot of money and spending it all is fine today because you’ll get another paycheck in a week. However, you need to start planning ahead for the day on which you retire because very few people want to work for the entirety of their lives. We’ll get onto that in more detail later, as we will with all the other points touched upon briefly in this introduction. If you want to avoid sorrow and start to plan for tomorrow then these sound nuggets of financial wisdom should help you on your way.

Organize your finances.

First of all, you need to get your house in order. “That’s why I clicked on this article,” you say. Fair enough. If you need a little guidance then you should start by making a budget for the month; you can do one weekly but planning for the month is always a nice place to start ( bills such as rent are often faced on a month-by-month basis). Write down how much you earn in a month. If you’re self-employed then write down an average and alter the budget on a monthly basis depending on whether your situation changes. Either way, you’ll end up returning to your budget frequently to make changes when things change in your life; whether you change energy providers, move house, reduce your petrol costs, and so on.

The most important thing is that you estimate how much your necessities cost; rent, food, utilities, everything else we’ve mentioned and anything else you can think of. Once you’ve added up the sum of these things, you’ll know how much money you have to set aside for necessities and how much disposable income you have left over. Don’t exceed this figure and you’ll never end up in debt. It’s that simple. Just don’t spend beyond your means. Cut down on expenses by using less energy around the house or cycling to work instead of wasting money on petrol.

Avoid debt.

Of course, continuing from the point above, if you’ve overspent in the past and had to borrow money to make ends meet then you should dedicate all available earnings to debt repayments; it’s important to pay off your debts in life as soon as possible in order to improve your credit score. Even if you don’t overspend, we all have to borrow money at some point (perhaps it’ll be for a car or a house). The point is that you shouldn’t borrow money to fund bad habits such as poor money-management, excessive shopping, or gambling. Track your expenditures so that you live within your means and your bank account will grow each month, even if only marginally. In terms of the future, you’ll thank yourself tomorrow for doing more to manage your money today. We’ll get onto smart ways to use your “excess income” throughout this article.

Think about your retirement.

It’s so important to plan ahead for your retirement. If you ended up on this article then this was probably already on your mind. You might be worried that you’re not earning enough from your job to provide for you and your family once you stop working. Perhaps your pension plan isn’t looking very good. It’s good to think about these things today because there’s always time to improve your situation before you retire. You might want to look into power of attorney solicitors who can act on your behalf if you’re thinking about a future in which you might not have the mental or physical capacity to manage your personal, business, or financial affairs.

Your retired years shouldn’t be filled with doom and gloom by any means but it’s smart to start thinking about tomorrow. You can make rational decisions regarding your finances today but you have to think about your later years. Will your family be well looked after? Do you want to authorize those close to you to make decisions for you if you no longer can for yourself? Sort out these things today and you won’t have to spend your retirement worrying about money or other things when you should be relaxing and enjoying life.

Get an advisor or an accountant.

Of course, you could go one step further than the suggestion in the point above. Even if you’re nowhere near retirement age yet, why wait until you’re older to start getting good financial advice? As explained throughout this article, you need to start taking action today to protect your finances for tomorrow, so it makes sense to get somebody to start helping you today as well. A financial advisor could help you out if you’re struggling to get your head around proper financial management, even with the advice given so far in this article.

It’s all very well to understand the concept of managing your money but life can get hectic and overwhelming very quickly. An advisor could take a load off your shoulders by teaching you how to better look after your money (and an accountant could help you file tax returns if you need other forms of financial aid). Better yet, there’s great return on your investment here; pay an advisor to help you and they’ll show you smart ways to invest your savings to make more money. Remember, this is in their interests because they’re getting paid to help you; they want you to do well financially. You’ll end up more than making back the money you’ve spent.