Retirement

Retirement Planning & Maintenance

Why Retirement Planning is Important

Many of us want to enjoy our retirement, and in order to do that you need to do some planning. Without proper planning it can be easy to:

  • Not have enough retirement income
  • Spend your life's savings
  • Be unprepared financially for unforeseen medical expenses
  • Leave a tax burden to your beneficiaries upon your death
  • Leave a surviving spouse without proper income necessary for living expenses
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Safe Money Snapshots Client Guide

This consumer's guide covers topics including: avoiding scams, return arithmetic, and the different Safe Money Options such as savings bonds or fixed annuities.

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Social Security Planning

The most common question we hear about Social Security is, “I know I can’t outlive my Social Security benefit, but will Social Security provide me with enough income when I stop working?”

Here’s a fact that may surprise (and possibly scare) you: Social Security may replace up to 57% of lower income workers’ income; however, it may replace only 27% for higher income workers – less than one-third of their income! Ouch!

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Assuming you’ve paid into the Social Security program throughout your working life, here are some more helpful facts:

  • You cannot outlive your Social Security income no matter how long you live.
  • You will receive COLA (Cost of Living Adjustments) automatically as Congress authorizes such adjustments.
  • You don’t have to be knowledgeable about investments or make frequent financial decisions; everything happens pretty much automatically

Social Security has another important abbreviation – FRA – that stands for Full Retirement Age. If you were born, for example, between 1943 and 1954, your FRA is 66 years and 0 months (see the chart to the right for other birth years).

So, if you “retire” sooner than your FRA and start drawing your Social Security benefits, you will receive LESS money than if you had waited until you reached your FRA.

Conversely, if you “retire” later than your FRA, you will receive MORE money.

For more information, click here to read "Why is Social Security Planning Very Important?" on SafeMoneyNews.com

Personal Pension Plan

The old retirement model of past generations is gone. Back then, along with the gold watch, the company could expect to only pay retirement benefits for 3-4 years.

Today's retirement period can last 25, 30, 35 years or more. The new retirement model is all about longevity. That is why the Personal Pension Plan is important in assuring that today's retirees have an income guaranteed long after the gold watch has quit working.

Let's Take it Step by Step:

  • What type of LIFESTYLE do you want to maintain during retirement
  • What LIFE INCOME is available to support that life style? (Pensions, Social Security, 401(k) )
  • What amount of essential and discretionary income do you need?
  • What financial lifeboats are available to sustain your lifestyle should the unforeseen occur?
  • Finally … how much do you need and when do you need it?

To learn more about fixed annuities, please visit our "Annuities Webpage"

Visit our educational website to learn more: www.safemoneyplaces.com/annuity.htm

Wealth Transfer

Way back in December, 1993, Cornell University’s Science News calculated that over ten trillion dollars in wealth would change hands by the year 2040, with about 115 million bequests averaging more than $ 90,000 each! With the up-tick in our recent markets, who knows what those numbers really are today?

When considering wealth transfer, most Americans want to know that no matter the size of their estate, their assets will move to the people they choose at the lowest possible rate of taxation and at the highest rate of interest earned throughout the life of the products they have purchased, with little or no risk. Consumers should also understand that a Single Premium Life product could be one of the most efficient wealth transfer vehicles available.

Today, you have many types of products from which to choose that will work: Universal Life, Indexed Life, or Whole Life.

Since most of the inheritors are in the middle class, they are not candidates for and don’t need sophisticated estate planning.

However, whether or not estate taxes will be a factor in your wealth transfer planning, income taxes can have a huge effect. Single Premium Life products take advantage of current tax laws.

They provide you (the insured) with a lump sum of money to increase the size of your estate and then pass the proceeds – federal income tax-free – to your heirs while bypassing probate!