My Personal Finance Blog

Here are just three of the many “tips” for retirement planning in 2011. Of course, there are many more, but they all pretty much center around these three in one way or another. After you go through the tips, we’ll get to the truth.

Save Regularly. Make saving for retirement a habit. The best way is to set up automatic deductions from your payroll or your checking account into deposits in mutual funds, IRAs, or other forms of investment. “Pay your-self first” is an adage observed by many financially successful people. An automatic savings plan is the best way to accomplish this, and it is very easy to set up.

Diversify Your Investments. Not only should you diversify within each category of your investment portfolio, such as mutual funds, index funds, and various other investment products, but you can also reduce risk by investing among different categories of investments. Put some of your money in cash, some in bonds, some in stocks, and some in other forms of investment. The factors that can cause one category of investment to do poorly may cause another to do well.

Live Within Your Means. Outline a retirement budget so that you will have a realistic idea of how much income you will need to live out your retirement years. Learn to live on a pay-as-you-go basis and avoid misuse of credit cards. High debt will make it tough to save for retirement. All the money that goes to pay interest, late fees, and old bills is money that could be going into your savings or investment accounts. Learn to handle your credit cards wisely – pay off the card each month, or at least pay more than the minimum. Most importantly, NEVER dip into retirement savings. When you look back at that brand new “whatever” that you thought you just couldn’t live without, you will be glad that you didn’t sacrifice your retirement income by spending irrationally on something that most likely would have turned out to be a disappointment anyway.

The TRUTH: the truth is that according to the majority of polls and statistics, most Americans, literally cannot afford to follow any of these three tips. Life’s “overhead” alone – rent or mortgage payments and property taxes; income taxes, local, state, and federal “fees”; automobile registration fees, insurance premiums, tuition, home and auto repair bills; student loans, alimony and child support (50% divorce rate), and all the other mandatory expenditures – eats up most of every American’s paycheck.

If that were not true, credit card debt, credit card delinquencies, and personal bankruptcies would not be at the highest rate in history, while savings is at an all time low. According to the Federal Reserve’s G.19 report, March 2010, average credit card debt per household with credit card debt is $16,007, and about 56 percent of consumers carried an unpaid balance in the past 12 months. Average total debt in 2009 (including credit cards, mortgage, home equity, student loans and more) for U.S. households with credit card debt is $54,000.

Obviously, the real truth is that the average American is obligated to first pay the overhead, and then pay back the borrowed money, and then save and invest. A feat that, without some new, additional source of income, is impractical, if not impossible.

The best “tip” for most Americans is to find a way to earn more money. Necessity has always been the mother of invention, and the solution to that problem has come about with the ever-expanding global internet market. Because the Internet offers opportunities that never existed before, starting and growing a business has never been as accessible to as many people as it is today. Internet entrepreneurs are finding that they can not only increase their income, they can actually produce enough extra income to pay off their debts, and begin to save and invest.

The first rule when applying for banking and credit services is to always read the fine print and to understand all of it. Read up, take it home, and analyze it, ask the banking manager questions. The fine print is there for a reason. The charges and requirements contained in there, will affect the savings or added expenses you incur, whenever you bank or use credit.

Checking Account

You can generate savings of more than $100.00 a year, when you select a checking account with a low or no minimum required balance. Request a list of the fees that are applicable to your account and compare with other checking account offers. Read the fine print. See if you qualify for the conditions and stipulations, the bank requires.

Savings account

Prior to opening a savings or investment account with the bank of your choice, ask the bank and check to see that the account is insured by the federal government (FDIC or NCUA). Otherwise, you will assume 100% of the risk; you may end up risking more rather than saving.

Certificates of deposit or treasury bills or notes. These certificates and notes are accurately called forced savings. They earn above average but only after, they’ve reached a maturity period. If you withdraw before the due date, you’ll incur penalties. This is a competent way to generate savings from funds you have no immediate need for.

Once you’ve selected the type of savings or investment products, compare the rates and fees offered by different institutions. These rates can vary a lot and, over time, can significantly affect interest earnings.

Credit Cards

You’ll generate more savings by researching on credit cards. Or you can call a research credit firm that will for a modest fee; send you a list of low-rate credit cards. Use the list to compare the features of each of these credit card companies, according to their interest rates and billing cycles. Is it a 28 day billing cycle, or a monthly one? What are the freebies? Such as Cash back or airline miles offers. Will you use these? You could be paying for these in the form of higher interest rates.

If you have a credit card, practice the habit of paying off your entire bill at months’ end. You generate savings by not paying late payment or over-the-credit-limit fees, which will add up to bigger charges.

If you have a lot of credit cards, consider using only one or two credit cards.

In the long run, your research on banking and credit services, will pay you back well in terms of consistent savings.

You see, many financial experts say that this is a very good time to start investing, but when you start shopping investment products, you find that there is great variance between the supply of products. Understanding the term given to various types of funds and products will help you choose the best for your needs. Two terms are often interchangeable, and in one case, whether the investment in afer assurance vie and trade in bourse en ligne. Although this may seem like similar actions, they have some distinct differences.
In general, investment is putting money into something with the hope to make more money after a long period of time. Investments are typically held for years before they cashed in for profit. The longer the investment is held, the more potential to get going. Life insurance is one of the examples. To get more advantages, one should do the comparatif assurance.
Traders will buy assets when they suddenly took the sauce, and then sell them quickly for a profit when they increase the value again. Traders do not concern themselves with long-term success of the company’s history where they put the money, but in the short term trends.