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Posted
Oct 30 2008, 05:51 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Nora Dunn at partner blog Wise Bread. Retirement [ri-tahyuhr-muhnt]: The act of retiring or the state of being retired; removal or withdrawal from service, office, or business. You go to school. You get a good job/career. You work for 40 years or so. In the meantime, you find a soul mate, marry, buy a house, have kids, and live happily ever after. The kids grow up and move out. Then you retire. Your life map is so clearly laid out in front of you; yet the last piece of the puzzle -- retirement -- is a fuzzy and often incomprehensible anomaly. With people living longer and striving for earlier retirements, the very definition of retirement is evolving. No longer is it merely a way to stop working and basically wait for death to come; that would take too bloody long and be a bore. Now retirement takes many different shapes and forms:
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Posted
May 07 2009, 10:48 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Frank Curmudgeon at Bad Money Advice.
A reader named Trent pointed me to a story that "60 Minutes" did recently, "Retirement dreams disappear with 401(k)s." It's not their best work, and I'm not one who thinks much of their best work.
Helpfully, the CBS Web site gives a near transcript of it, so I can easily quote the way over-the-top copy read by the reporter, Steve Kroft.
It was a gray, chilly morning in midtown Manhattan and a line of unemployed, mostly white-collar workers stretched for blocks around the Radisson Hotel. More than 1,000 middle managers, stockbrokers, consultants, secretaries and receptionists had come hoping to find a job.
It was called a career fair, but there was no merriment -- only a whiff of desperation.
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Posted
Mar 27 2009, 06:37 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Picking your first mutual fund is kind of like a first date -- scary at first, but later you wonder what all the fuss was about. And with the recent market volatility, investing in the stock market can be downright horrifying.
A couple years ago, a close relative spent some time with my family and me. We'll call her Susie (not her real name). Susie was 31, had one daughter (cute as can be), and had no retirement savings (not so cute). Her employer not only offered a 401(k), but also matched 100% of all contributions up to 6% of Susie's pay.
We got to talking about why she'd never starting saving for retirement, and her answer was illuminating -- she was intimidated.
Sure, there were times when money was tight, but one of the biggest hurdles for her was not knowing what to invest in. We spent about 30 minutes looking over her investment options, and I'm happy to report that she enrolled in her company's Fidelity 401(k) plan and began contributing 7% of her gross pay.
If you or somebody you know is in a situation similar to Susie's, this article is for you.
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Posted
Mar 19 2008, 05:59 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So let's not waste ours today. Here are four useful financial calculations that you can perform in your head: What am I giving up in retirement savings when I spend money today? This is an easy one: Add a zero to the price tag. Assuming you have 30 years until retirement and earn 8% annually on your investments, that $3,000 watch would have been worth $30,000 in retirement if you had invested the money instead. Coming down to earth a bit, the $4 latte (it's always the latte) purchased five days a week costs about $1,040 a year, or $10,040 in your retirement account 30 years later. How much do I need to earn before taxes to buy stuff that I want? Assuming you're in the 28% federal tax bracket, multiply the cost by 1.4. That means a $20,000 car costs $28,000 before taxes. Yikes! Of course, this doesn't account for state tax and Social Security and Medicare taxes, all of which would make the multiplier even higher.
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Posted
Mar 25 2009, 08:17 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Mr. ToughMoneyLove at Tough Money Love.
What goes around, comes around. How many times have you heard that phrase used as a subtle threat or reminder of another's misbehavior?
Boomeranger. That's a word that baby boomers invented to label -- in a semi-demeaning sort of way -- adult children who return to their parents' home to escape the realities of their own financial problems. (I actually don't think that all boomerangers should be demeaned, but that's another topic for another day.)
I have a new phrase to talk about: the boomer boomeranger.
Now that the retirement nest eggs of many baby boomers have been crushed by falling markets, some of those boomers are a future threat to boomerang on their adult children. Retirement Plan A (or for some boomers, Plan Zero) has failed. Retirement Plan B may become "mooch off my kids."
Mr. ToughMoneyLove has some thoughts about how to dodge a boomeranger parent. First, a little background.
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Posted
Jul 13 2009, 07:58 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.
If you're in debt, you're not alone. AARP recently published the results of a poll (.pdf file) in which respondents were asked what proportion of their monthly income their monthly debt obligation amounted to.
Nineteen percent of adults under 50 said they owed more than their monthly income. That's almost one in five Americans. We old buzzards weren't much better off: 14% of people 50 and older were in the same boat.
Among the younger set, 24% saw about three-fourths of their monthly income go to debt service, and 25% spent about half their income on debt. An incredible 26% of us dinosaurs said we spent 75% of our pay on debt.
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Posted
Apr 25 2008, 08:04 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. My big, overarching dream is to achieve true financial independence. By that, I mean that I have enough money saved and invested that I can live off the interest and investment income -- a point that I've discussed before as the crossover point. This is a huge goal, one that I won't achieve for many years no matter what path I choose. I dream about achieving this goal about the time my final child graduates from high school -- roughly 25 years from now.
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Posted
Dec 04 2008, 06:38 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Nora Dunn at partner blog Wise Bread. My, how life changes when you close one chapter of your life and open a new one. Severing a conjoined life and combined finances as a result of divorce is painful through and through. The jump to a single-income lifestyle paves the way to feeling a cash crunch, and if children are involved it is even more pronounced. Even if the breakup is liberating, there is still some mopping up to do after the storm. Here are seven things you can do to set your new life up on the right foot.
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Posted
Mar 16 2009, 07:15 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly.
Lately I've found myself using more and more financial rules of thumb. A rule of thumb is a general guideline, an easy way to approximate a value quickly. It's not meant to be completely accurate.
On a whim, I gathered together many of the general rules I've been using, as well as several others I found online. Thanks to those who follow me on Twitter, who also contributed suggestions.
For example, "FourPillars" wrote, "I hate rules of thumb -- they are a poor substitute for proper analysis." He's right, of course. Careful analysis always yields the best results. (And there are times when you need the advice of a financial professional.) All the same, it's often convenient to get a quick estimate of financial numbers. For those situations, it's helpful to know guidelines like the ones I've listed below.
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Posted
Dec 05 2008, 08:19 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Today is my 51st birthday and it's already looking a lot better than my 50th because this year my building isn't flooded.
At 51, some people are looking forward to retirement. Personally, I expect to have to work for a long time, for several reasons. Having spent 13 years of my adult life either part time or freelance means my Social Security isn't huge. A fair amount of my retirement is based on a 401(k) from my newspapering days, and we all know what's happened to 401(k)s recently.
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