Second Half Life (Retirement & Death) 03 (Mar 14 - Dec 26)

[winston]

Top Retiree Regret?

Not Doing it Sooner

By Matthew Jarrell

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pr ... er=YahooSA

[winston]

Death is an inevitable cycle

But sickness before death is a symptom of resistance.

Most people think they've got to get sick to die.

But, you could be like the cat who chooses to get run over.

Or, you could just lie down in your bed happily one night, so content and thoughtless, wanting nothing in this physical world; and just reemerge into Pure Positive Energy...

You can play it out any way you choose.

---Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop: Sedona, AZ on August 27, 2005

Source: www.abraham-hicks.com

[winston]

A Rich Metaphor for Life by Mark Ford

I’ve adopted a new metaphor for my life which I’ve found very useful.

At birth, we are given four quarters.

The first is childhood. The second is young adulthood. The third is maturity. And the last is the great hurrah.

If we are careful and lucky, we get to spend all four quarters.

What we do with those quarters—whether we waste them or spend them wisely—is up to us.

By any measure of life expectancy, I’m spending my fourth quarter now.

When I look back at how I spent my first three quarters, I can see that although I threw lots of pennies away, I also invested lots of pennies wisely.

Overall, I got a very good return on the pennies of time I was given.

But here I am, spending that last quarter, and I’m still throwing pennies away.

It’s not that I don’t know what my priorities are. I’ve imagined my funeral, and I do know what my core values are.

I can no longer put off these important but not urgent goals.

If you are in your fourth quarter, I’m writing this to tell you: Time’s a wasting. It’s now or never.

If you are younger, why not get on board now? You’ll have fewer regrets and a richer life.


Source: Creating Wealth

[winston]

A Part of Moving to My Dream Home I Had Never Considered

By Steve McDonald

Source: The Oxford Club

http://wealthyretirement.com/videos/wha ... /?sc=email

[winston]

Retirement planning: How much to save

To live well in retirement, you no longer can rely solely on a company pension plan or Social Security. Instead, you will have to depend on how skillfully you plan and invest, and whether you make good use of tax-advantaged savings plans such as 401(k)s and IRAs.

Step 1: First, estimate how much you will need. One rule of thumb is that you'll need 70% of your annual pre-retirement income to live comfortably. That might be enough if you've paid off your mortgage and are in excellent health when you retire.

But if you plan to build your dream house, travel or get that Ph.D. you've always wanted, you may need 100% of your income or more.
Remember, too, that your health care expenses are likely to go up in retirement, especially if you retired prior to being eligible for Medicare and must purchase insurance on your own.

Step 2: Second, figure out how you'll meet those expenses. There are three main sources of retirement income: Social Security, pensions and annuities, and your savings.

Start by determining your estimated Social Security benefits. (If you haven't already received a statement in the mail, you can order one online or use an online calculator to make estimates based on expected earnings.)
Related: Will you have enough to retire?

Step 3: Next, add in any annual payouts you expect from an annuity or company pension.
If it's not enough, it's time to think about where the extra money will come from. Count on needing at least $15 to $20 in investment savings to cover each dollar of that shortfall.

If your projected retirement expenses exceed Social Security and pensions by, say, $20,000 a year, that means you'll need a nest egg of $300,000 to $400,000 to bridge the gap.

Source: CNN Money

[winston]

Retirees Beware: Here’s Why Cash May Be Your Safest Investment Right Now

by DENNIS MILLER

Source: Investor's Alley

http://www.investorsalley.com/retirees- ... ltmcdenmil

[winston]

How the Big White Lie of Investing Could Cost You Your Retirement By Mark Ford

I consider myself an expert of sorts on retirement. Not because I've studied the subject, but because I've retired three times.

Yes, I'm a three-time failure at retiring. But I've learned from my mistakes.

And I can tell you the biggest mistake retirees make is giving up all their active income...

By active income, I mean money you make through your labor or through a business you own. Passive income, on the other hand, is what you get from Social Security, a pension, or a retirement account.

It's a very common mistake. Yet I've never heard retirement experts mention it. Nor have I read a word about it in retirement books.

When you give up your active income, two bad things happen:

1. You cut your connection to the source of that income. I'm not just talking about the business you had or worked for, but also about the people you knew. (These are valuable connections you might want to revisit someday. But with every passing month, it'll become more difficult.)

2. You debilitate your ability to make smart investment decisions because you're now dependent on passive income. (I'll explain this later.)
Here's how retirement is supposed to work: You save a portion of your income every month, let it grow in a tax-deferred investment vehicle, and accumulate a vault of wealth.

Then, 40 years later, you tap into that vault to fund 20 years of easy living. No work. No stress. Nobody to kowtow to.

Just traveling, golfing, going to the movies, and visiting your kids and grandkids.

Yes, it's a great idea. But it was never realistic.

Prior to the 20th century, retirement was a rarity. Most people worked until they could no longer work, then "retired" into their children's homes.

The only generation that experienced "the dream" was my parents' generation – the men and women who bought starter homes and entered the workforce after World War II. They had good timing, because the U.S. was entering a 30-year growth spurt in business and real estate.

They made and saved money, but the bulk of their retirement funds came from selling their homes in 1980 for 10 times what they'd paid for them in 1950.

For every generation since then, the promise of that kind of retirement has been a big white lie.

Consider this: A "dream" retirement lifestyle for two would cost, on average, $75,000 per year (depending on where you live).

And that's after-tax dollars.

If you were in the 32% bracket, you'd have to earn about $110,000 to end up with $75,000. So, let's use this $110,000 figure.

How big of a retirement account do you need to produce $110,000 of cash flow each year?

Let's assume you and your spouse could count on $25,000 per year from Social Security and another $25,000 from a pension plan (two big assumptions). To earn the $60,000 balance in the safest way possible (from a savings account), you'd need about $6 million. (Savings accounts pay – at best – only 1% right now.)

If you were willing to take more risk and invest in tax-free municipal bonds, you'd need $2.1 million.

But let's say you were confident you could earn 8% from the stock market. You'd still need a nest egg of $750,000 to gross the extra $60,000 per year ($750,000 multiplied by 8%).

The problem: Most middle-class Americans are trying to retire with an account in the $250,000-$300,000 range.

And that's where the trouble begins. To achieve a return of $60,000 on $300,000, you'd need to earn 20% on your money. Getting (or attempting to get) 20% consistently over, say, 20 years is next to impossible – and too risky for my taste.

I retired for the first time when I was 39. I had a net worth of about $10 million, half of which was liquid. I thought I had all the money I'd ever need.

As it turned out, my retirement lifestyle was a lot more expensive than the $75,000 "dream" lifestyle I described earlier. I liked first-class travel, five-star hotels, and fancy cars. My yearly nut was close to $500,000.

To generate $500,000 in after-tax dollars, I would've had to earn $900,000 in passive-interest income on the $5 million I'd invested. That represents a return of 18%. I understood enough about stock market performance to know it was impossible.

I should've cut my expenses drastically. But I didn't want to. I enjoyed my lifestyle. So, I had no choice. I had to go back to work.

I put the word out and got a few offers. A month later, I was back at work. I half-expected to feel miserable toiling away.

But the moment I started earning money again, I felt better.

Retirement isn't supposed to be about money worries. Yet, if you retire with too little, that's exactly what you'll have. Trying to get above-market returns is challenging under any circumstance. But when you have to get high returns to pay the bills, it can be extremely stressful.

As I write this, millions of Americans my age are quitting their jobs and selling their businesses. They're reading financial magazines and subscribing to newsletters. They're hoping to find a stock-selection system that'll give them the 20%-40% returns they need.

But they'll find out such systems don't exist. They may have a few good years, but eventually, the returns they get will drop to 10% or less... if they're lucky.

And if there's another stock market crash, things will get bad – fast.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

Let's go back to the hypothetical situation I laid out earlier. You have a $300,000 retirement fund and a retirement dream that'll cost $75,000 in after-tax dollars.

To end up with $75,000 in after-tax dollars, you need an income of $110,000. You and your spouse have a total of $50,000 per year coming from Social Security and pension payments. But you still need $60,000 per year in pretax passive income.

To earn $60,000 on $300,000, you need a return of about 20%. That's highly improbable. But if you and your spouse both got part-time jobs that gave you an extra $15,000 per year in active income ($7,500 each), you'd need a return of only about 8% on your retirement account. And that's very doable.

I'm not saying you should give up on the idea of retirement. I'm saying you should think of retirement differently. Instead of spending 80% of your time working for money and 20% having fun, you can spend 20% of your time working and 80% having fun – and be free from financial worries.

That doesn't seem so bad, does it?

And if you're smart about the kind of work you do, you can actually have fun working!

There are many ways for a retired person to earn a part-time, active income. You could do some consulting, start your own online business, or earn money doing any sort of purposeful work.

Adjusting your understanding of "retirement" to include some active income isn't a huge burden. You can end up doing a lot of the same things you envisioned before – but get paid for it instead of doing it for free.

So please, move beyond the big white lie of investing. A rewarding and enjoyable retirement – devoid of money worries – awaits.


Source: The Palm Beach Research Group

[winston]

What is the surest way to attain a sacred and holy consummation?

The net result of all this living and toiling, is whatever comes to memory at the last moment of life. Therefore, direct the entire current of life, towards acquisition of the mental tendency (samskara) that you want to have during the last moment.

The feeling that dominates the moment of death, works with great force in the coming life. This truth must guide a person for the journey of this life too, for inborn desires are the wherewithal for this journey, as well as for the journey after this.

Therefore, from tomorrow, always keep death, which is inevitable, before the eye of memory and engage yourself in the journey of life with good wishes for all, with strict adherence to truth, seeking always the company of the good, and with the mind always fixed on the Lord.

Avoid evil deeds, hateful and harmful thoughts, and don’t get attached to the world. If you live thus, your last moment will be pure, sweet, and blessed.

- Prema Vahini Ch 27.

Bend the body, mend the senses and end the mind - this should be your endeavour.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Sustainable retirement income

BY ISMITZ MATTHEW DE ALWIS

Source: The Star

http://www.thestar.com.my/business/busi ... ?style=biz

[winston]

Sustainable retirement income

BY ISMITZ MATTHEW DE ALWIS

Source: The Star

http://www.thestar.com.my/business/busi ... ?style=biz