TROY, N.Y.>> Every summer lots of locals start their Sundays with a stretch on the Troy riverfront for Fitness in the Park.

This popular program, now in its fourth year, is put on by the Downtown Troy Business Improvement District and sponsored by CDPHP.

Depending on weather, the free weekly outdoor event typically draws about 250 people at 9 a.m. each Sunday to Riverfront Park.

This year the program is exclusively offering yoga sessions, which proved to be a favorite with attendees previous summers. Classes are taught by instructors from three downtown yoga studios: Heartspace Yoga & Healing Arts, The Balance Loft and Lotus Wellness Studio.

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Regulars like Nina T. Stark and Shirley Buel, both Troy residents, aim to make it out every weekend.

I think this is such a wonderful opportunity for people, said Buel, noting that likes trying out different styles of yoga with different instructors. It reallys gives you a good opportunity to see all different kinds of yoga, she said.

I think that yoga is one of the best things that people of any age can do, just in terms of good health, Buel continued.

Especially as people age, the women said, yoga is a good way to maintain flexibility, core strength, balance and mindfulness.

There are so many health reasons, medical reasons, that yoga is really good, said Stark, who didnt start practicing yoga until she was older. Now, she regularly attends the downtown Heartspace Yoga studio. I think its helping, she said.

Buel also noted that there were children in the crowd at Sundays class. For those youngsters, Its kind of a nice introduction to yoga, she said.

These Troy yogis and many others are happy to have the classes offered for free in their community.

Likewise, residents from around the region flock to Riverfront Park on Sunday mornings to participate as well.

I love that it brings people into the city, said Erica Rock of Troy.

Rock also loves being part of it, herself. I think its a great way to start your day, she said after class on Sunday. I love that were outdoors. You can feel the sun on you. I think that its very relaxing and its just a nice, quiet time.

Katie Hammon, executive director of the Downtown Troy Business Improvement District, said Fitness in the Park shows off a different side of Troy. As part of our mission, were working to improve the lifestyle of downtown. So this is kind of a come down, enjoy your surroundings and experience what Troy has to offer - in a different way, she said. We obviously run lots of larger events, but this is a different style event.

Fitness in the Park will continue from 9 to 10 a.m. on Sundays in Riverfront Park through the end of August. The next three sessions are scheduled to be taught by instructors from new downtown business Lotus Wellness Studio.

More information about Fitness in the Park and other Downtown Troy Business Improvement District events is available online at DowntownTroy.org.

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Fitness in the Park brings yoga to Riverfront - Troy Record

VANCOUVER, Wash. Molly McAllister took a deep breath and prepared to go into the downward dog pose. She spread her hands apart, tucked her toes and lifted her knees off the ground. She lowered her head and eased into the yoga pose, stretching her hamstrings.

Then she noticed Jacks diaper needed changing.

The Ridgefield mom quickly broke from the pose and pulled 5-month-old Jack onto a portable changing pad spread out over her yoga mat. She talked to Jack as she quickly swapped out the wet diaper for a dry one.

Meanwhile, the five other women in the yoga class moved on. They shifted into the sitting position and began pelvic floor exercises.

Thats when 9-month-old Izebella decided she was ready to eat. Mom Garri Hiles cradled the infant and began nursing her daughter while continuing with pelvic muscle exercises.

Changing dirty diapers. Breastfeeding hungry babies. Soothing fussy babies. Its all OK encouraged, even in Daniele Strawmyres Mommy and Me Yoga class.

There are no rules in Mommy and Me Yoga, Strawmyre tells the moms before the class begins.

Strawmyre, a 43-year-old mother of two young children, began offering the postpartum yoga classes this spring. The class is open to women who are at least four to six weeks postpartum and their babies.

During the hourlong class, moms perform yoga moves and take breaks to tend to their babies as needed. Sometimes babies are incorporated into the class, such as walking on their rear ends and lifting baby while singing The Grand Old Duke of York or stretching down to blow raspberries on babys tummy.

For McAllister, the class offered an opportunity for the new mom to get back into yoga after the birth of her son.

I like doing yoga, and I dont normally have anyone to watch him while I do yoga, she said.

For Hiles, the class was a chance to try something new.

I really enjoyed it, she said. It was my first time doing yoga, even.

Izebella stayed entertained during the class by playing with cellphone cases and chewing on the top of a water bottle. But once shes mobile, Izebella and Hiles will have outgrown the Mommy and Me class.

Once babies are crawling, Strawmyre moves the moms to a different class: Multitasking Mama Yoga, which is for moms with kids younger than 4. That class, Strawmyre says, is a little more chaotic.

The multitasking class really is a free for all, she said.

Some of the kids want to do the yoga poses, others just want to play. All of it is OK, Strawmyre said. While the class may get interrupted, the goal is still the same as the Mommy and Me class: to let moms do something for themselves.

Self-care is really important to being a good mom, Strawmyre said.

Strawmyre was a professional dancer in Philadelphia and taught dance and yoga. After teaching yoga for 10 years, she decided to get her instructor certification.

At the time she began the intensive coursework, she was 6 months pregnant with her son. As part of her training, Strawmyre had an apprenticeship with an instructor who taught mommy and me yoga classes.

I just got so inspired by teaching pregnant women and new moms because the environment is just magical, Strawmyre said.

Strawmyre took courses in prenatal and postpartum yoga, as well as postpartum doula, childbirth and breastfeeding trainings. She offered some yoga classes to new and expecting moms while in Philadelphia and formed a bond with the women in her class. She leaned on them when her son experienced health issues and when her mother died from cancer.

I had created this tribe of other moms and other women, she said. When we moved out here, I was inspired and wanted to do something similar here.

I havent been this inspired. I feel like I can be of service and help others.

More Northwest articles

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Yoga class helps new moms get their move on - The Register-Guard

NEW DELHI: The capital will witness the maiden edition of Enter the Cube, an annual calendar of films organised under the aegis of the Delhi-based Lightcube Film Society, a collective of film programmers, designers, writers, critics and curators. Commencing from August 13, the festival will hold nearly 50 theme-based film screenings in Delhi-NCR. On Day 1, Iranian film Offside (2006) and Senegalese film City of Contrasts (1968) will be staged at Essel Tower club in Gurgaon.

Its founders Anuj Malhotra and Suraj Prasad explore the idea of psycho-geography in cinema by taking films out of conventional auditoria. For many, it might be okay to hold on to the romantic idea of the big screen, but with the proliferation of the digital space, image consumption goes beyond a dark theatre. We explore how the experience of a film changes according to the space you are in, says 28-year-old Malhotra.

Films will be screened in locations outside theatres. Italian horror film Suspiria will be shown in the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication hostel. In the coming months, screenings are expected at an abandoned factory, a dilapidated house, a courtroom, Sanjay Van, a girls hostel and in the ruins of a Mughal monument in Delhi.

Under the Degrees of Separation theme, the idea is to manifest how Gurgaon has now become a mechanism that perpetuates class divide and segregation. The Notes from Purgatory theme will contemplate on Delhis colonialist legacy and how it manifests as a trauma that lingers on in the city. Under the Modern Forest theme, a series of films will explore how Noida teeters on the boundary between a modern future and a primitive past.

For Prasad, his village Dhenuki in Bihar existed as a mysterious object in the noon of his memory. I witnessed startling revelations on my return to village. The villagers had never watched films. Besides recreation, I felt that the language of cinema could help them in introspecting their lives, says the 29-year-old.

A cinema-based outreach and education project, The Dhenuki Cinema Project enables the inhabitants to run a local mobile film club and institute an archive of local narratives chronicling their day-to-day lives. The screenings include commercial potboilers and films of Satyajit Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Bimal Roy, among others. Over the past five years, pilot projects have been conducted in Bihar, Assam and Chhattisgarh. With the first phase ending in three months in Dhenuki and Nagalands Kiphire, the founders plan to take the project to 10 villages in coming months.

The village is a black canvas with no electricity, just shining stars and glittering fireflies. But my passion for films and the hinterland has made me come here, says Sagar Chaudhary, a cine-activist in Bihar who is mapping Dhenuki and setting up a DIY antenna network broadcasts from Dhenuki. For member ship of the annual calendar, visit http://lightcube.in/.

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Coming to a park near you - The New Indian Express

They tapped on Rajeshs shoulder as he was picking up a packet of milk from a local shop, as he always did on his way home from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs evening shakha or gathering.

By the time he was taken to the hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, his body had 89 cuts, and one of his hands was chopped off. He was not alive for long, but long enough to identify his killers, allegedly Left workers.

Earlier in July, RSS volunteer Kartik Ghosh was repeatedly stabbed to death by a mob after riots broke out in Basirhat over a teenagers Facebook post on Islam. Thiruvananthapuram is 2,500km from Basirhat, but torrents of history have converged to create a uniquely bloody conflict in two states which have a lot in common.

Historys twins

Bengal and Kerala take pride in their intellectual achievements, love football, and have a long and successful history of Leftist politics. Kerala is still ruled by the Left Front. While Mamata Banerjees TMC has decimated the Left in Bengal, her politics in many ways mirrors the enemy she fought for decades to overthrow.

Both regimes use cadres to establish a complete stranglehold on society. Both states have seen the most brutal, gratuitous violence as a widely used political tool. In these seemingly impregnable forts enters the BJP.

After storming to power at the Centre and winning in state after state, Kerala and Bengal remain the last frontiers of Modis BJP and its ideological mentor, the RSS. The entry in both states is hardly going to be easy or bloodless, as we are already witnessing.

Modi and Amit Shahs BJP is a different animal. It doesnt give up.

But Modi and Amit Shahs BJP is a different animal. It doesnt give up.

Bengal spread

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in Bengal started an online membership drive 10 days ago on http://www.vhpbengal.org and on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. To its utter surprise, it has already got more than 3,200 membership requests.

Of those, 1,200 of them have specifically asked to join the more aggressive Bajrang Dal, while 400 women have sought membership of the Durga Vahini. Interestingly, a large number of the new memberships are coming from border districts like South and North 24 Paraganas, Nadia and Murshidabad.

These are places where there has been mass-scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh, the demography has changed and Muslims are in majority or could surpass Hindu populations in the future.

The VHP and Bajrang Dal are planning massive Janmasthami celebrations in each block. They will also launch their campaign to ban cow slaughter in Bengal on the occasion and culminate it during Durga Puja in October.

Sangh plans to rekindle the great Hindu spiritual traditions in Bengal and Kerala, pushed underground by decades of Communist onslaught. While Bengal is the land of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Bama Khepa, Ramkrishna Paramhans, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, Kerala has been enriched by some of our greatest saints like Adi Shankaracharya, Sri Narayana Guru, Sri Chattambi Swamikal and Swami Chinmayananda.

Kerala surge

There have been 14 murders of RSS workers in the last 13 months. The Lefts nervousness and desperation is not unfounded. Saffron forces have been gaining mainly at the cost of the Left, especially in the south Kerala belt stretching from Kochi to Ernakulam to Trivandrum.

Although Guru Golwalkars programme was attacked in 1948 and the first political murder of a Sangh worker dates back to 1969, the migration from the Left to the RSS started in rural Kerala 1977 onwards. Many in the CPI(M) cadre, disappointed with the partys stand on Emergency, started changing camps.

This also triggered one of the most violent phases, with the Left deciding to stop these desertions at any cost. Kerala, interestingly, has the highest number of RSS shakhas in India: 5,500. But this didnt translate into votes so far.

Since the Congress is seen as a Christian-Muslim party, the Sangh cadre tactically voted for the Left in the elections. However, that is changing.

In the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the state, the BJPs vote share has gone up from 7-9 per cent traditionally to 16 per cent. Left, which was also the voice of the Hindus in the state, has decided to strengthen its Muslim base. Today, the SFI secretary to the Kannur district president is Muslim.

Out of 74 youths arrested nationwide by NIA for ISIS links, the highest, 24, is from Kerala. They have been arrested from the Lefts "party villages", Stalinist townships where every resident is a cadre, and even the police fear to venture inside to arrest criminals.

Ironically, this has created tremendous unrest among the Lefts traditional votebank and the saffron camp is gaining. While the BJP-RSS is showing a fair bit of deftness in making inroads, the battles for Bengal and Kerala are going to be long, violent ones.

In both places, blood begins where political finesse ends.

(Courtesy: Mail Today.)

Also read: How the Right-biased media is trying to paint Kerala as a communal warzone

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Why BJP's final frontiers Bengal and Kerala will be a long, bloody battle - DailyO

The immense diversity and complexity of the 5,000-year-old Indian tradition and culture make it almost impossible to identify one single and unilateral Indian philosophy. Moreover, the concepts developed in the different schools of Indian philosophical systems and the paths outlined thereof often appear conflicting and contending with one another. Here, I have chosen a few relevant sources of classical Indian literature which may be useful to modern management worldwide, struggling at a time of turbulence, uncertainty and crisis. The texts chosen here are primarily some of the Upanishads, a treasure house of precious wisdom transmitted in the form of conversations between the teacher/master and the learner/disciple.

A Message from an Ancient Indian Allegory

The Upanishads, 108 in number, as recorded and available to us even today, extol the glory of the perennial flow of human consciousness and its all-pervading nature and scope. Our consciousness has the infinite capacity to traverse the entire cosmic space and time eternal. However, more often than not, it finds limited expression in our engagement with the affairs of our mundane existence.

Even in the micro domain of our life-world, while the consciousness is more directly involved in the endless flurry of our activities, it also has the inherent capacity to withdraw into a reflective mode and become an observer of our own triumphs and tragedies. Suffice it to say, both the witnessing consciousness and the involved consciousness are but two different expressions of the pure and unqualified Self-Consciousness that constitutes the essence of the I, the core of our being.

The seer of the Shwetashwatara Upanishad had portrayed this dual nature of human consciousness pictorially, displaying rare mastery of poetic imagination. This is the simple yet beautiful imagery of two birds perched on the branch of the same tree depicted by the modern Indian seer-poet Sri Aurobindo as follows:

Two winged birds cling about a common tree, comrades, yoke-fellows; and one eats the sweet fruit of the tree, the other eats not, but watches.

Like the branch of the tree, our pure Self-Consciousness provides the backdrop for and the connecting link between these two apparently conflicting manifestations of our consciousness. But the two birds are in fact comrades, deeply connected to each other and represent two complementary aspects of our nature that can actually coexist.

This comes as a powerful message for organisational leaders to cultivate their reflective and witnessing consciousness prior to engagement in meaningful action, which demands continuous outflow of our energy or consciousness.

Towards Shaping a Comprehensive

Life-World View

What is spirit or spirituality? The Latin root spiritus connotes breath or the vital life force, the elan vital. Spirit essentially refers to the vital flow of awakened human consciousness that infuses life into any endeavour that may otherwise appear mundane or mechanical. Spirit breathes the fire of meaning and purpose into our actions and enlivens our experience of the world. It also stimulates our faculties, pushes us to the edge so that we are compelled to challenge our assumptions and frameworks of understanding through critical self-enquiry and introspection.

At this point, it may be worthwhile to gain some clarity on the whole notion of spirituality and its practical implications for business. Often, spirituality gets associated with certain misplaced apprehensions that relegate it to an otherworldly pursuit divorced from reality.

The quintessential spiritual wisdom of India as preserved in the Upanishads and many other original Sanskrit texts has never advocated such an illusory view of spirituality that fosters a world-negating attitude and lures us to delve into a mysterious domain of trance and magic. This also portends the danger and fallacy of shunning material progress as irrelevant to and incompatible with real spiritual aspirations.

On the contrary, Upanishadic wisdom boldly presents to the world an all-embracing view of spirituality and advocates a harmonious pursuit of both the material and spiritual dimensions of our existence for a richer experience of work and life. Ishopanishad, the oldest available Upanishad, deals with this problem upfront, dispels the myth of a non-material notion of spirituality and offers a comprehensive practical resolution in two of its verses in close succession.

The ninth verse clearly pronounces that if we pursue material knowledge to the exclusion of spirit, our life will enter into darkness. The next line of this verse is even more sharply articulate and challenging. It spells out with no trace of ambiguity that if we pursue spiritual wisdom to the exclusion of matter, our life will enter into deeper darkness. This may come as a shocking revelation to the uninformed proponents of an otherworldly spiritual pursuit.

In verse number 11, the seer states that if we pursue material knowledge and spiritual wisdom simultaneously in a balanced manner, then their harmonious blend will offer us fulfillment in lifeindividual as well as collective, personal and organisational.

Limitations of Linear Thinking and

Binary Logic

But the modern mind often fails to grasp this all-encompassing approach to spirituality as it gets caught in the trap of linear thinking and misses out certain colours and flavours that also matter quite significantly in life. Another serious limitation in our thinking today is the domineering influence of binary logic. We tend to see and understand the world in a bipolar mode one or zero, good or bad, black or white.

Because of this tendency to adopt a compartmentalised view of the life-world, we remain comfortable with the fallacious habit of labelling people and phenomena in terms of opposites from our self-created boxes. We fail to comprehend or appreciate that the fabric of life comes intertwined with a dynamic play of opposites. We miss out the kernel of truth which often prevails in the twilight zone and is grey in colour.

Thus, in the workspace of modern organisations, effectiveness eludes us at a time when outcomes are unpredictable, human behaviour and relationships are increasingly complex and dynamic, and change is the name of the game. Management of differences in human relationships and a celebration of diversity in a multicultural context often remain a far cry. Recent emphasis on developing competencies like lateral thinking and thinking out of the box among corporate executives are welcome trends but all this will need a radical transformation, a quantum leap in our worldview.

It may be mentioned here that the Advaita (or Unitary) nature of our consciousness as propounded in the Upanishads absorbs all dualities in the overarching canvas of a grand continuum of cosmic experience across space and time. Polarities or opposites exist in this scheme not as disparate fragments of reality but deeply interconnected in time, space and essence.

A Holistic Framework of Learning

The Upanishads, as mentioned earlier, constitute a vast body of literature where knowledge is transmitted in the mode of conversations. It can be compared with our modern classroom situation where presence and engagement of the teacher and the student create the context for knowledge dissemination and learning. Let us try to explore some leadership lessons embedded in Taittiriya Upanishad, especially in the context of the content and methodology of imparting knowledge in organisations.

From the Taittiriya Upanishad, the leader can learn how to unfold a systems view of life and the world to oneself and then others. From the micro to the macro, from the self to the universe, there are five layers of our existence that have been progressively unveiled in this Upanishad. These layers have been depicted in the form of spherical sheaths or kosha-s through which the consciousness of the learner must evolve to reach the all-encompassing experience of fullness of the self and the world.

The five layers or sheaths (pancha kosha), and their relevance to modern organisations, are:

1. Annamaya kosha (sheath of matter) constitutes the gross body of the individual and the material universe. The physical layout of the organisation comprising land, buildings, plants and physical structures comes within the ambit of this layer.

2. Pranamaya kosha (vital sheath) constitutes the basic life-giving vital force of the individual, so important for survival and movement, and also the field of energy that flows in the natural universe for its sustenance. In the context of the organisation, this refers to the buoyancy and dynamism, flows of information, spirit of aggressive competition for survival and so on.

3. Manomaya kosha (mental sheath) constitutes the mental world of the individual choices and preferences, vibrations of desires, thoughts and ideas which also expand to include the universe. Healthy and receptive employee mindset, emotional competence and amicable corporate culture are its organisational manifestations.

4. Vijnanamaya kosha (sheath of wisdom) marks the entry from the vast field of worldly knowledge to the pristine knowledge of the Self and its natural, organic connection with the universe and its subtle forces. Questions of purpose of life and sustenance of the planet at large become critically important at this level. Engagement with vision, mission, values, self-actualisation and sustainability issues become organisational priorities at this layer of existence.

5. Anandamaya kosha (sheath of bliss) is the subtlest layer of existence, finding expression in pure bliss amidst the dualities of joy and sorrow, happiness and misery, success and failure.

American psychologist Abraham Maslows inclusion of a final stage of self-transcendence beyond self-actualisation comes close to this experience. Quest for joy and freedom in action, spontaneous connectivity with others and effortless flow of action comprise the organisational reflections of this experience.

Lessons on the Learning Process

The following pertinent lessons on the process of learning can be crystallised for leaders in organisations from this ancient text:

1. A graded, stepwise and integral approach is essential for proper assimilation of knowledge. The sage in the Upanishad takes the student along all the five stages so that the consciousness and knowledge of the recipient can evolve.

2. There has to be an intrinsic respect for the acquired knowledge at all the five levels from the grossest to the subtlest. To achieve this, the sage opens his deliberation on each stage by identifying every sheath (anna, prana etc) with the highest principle in the universe or Brahman, the ultimate reality. This also safeguards against any feeling of arrogance or disdain towards learners among those who have progressed ahead of the others.

3. For a leader, there has to be not only an awareness of the entire spectrum of knowledge but sensitivity to the specific stage of learning of a particular recipient. Otherwise, knowledge absorption will not be effective. One often finds that inspirational messages on vision or values do not have an impact on executives as most members of the target audience may be just in the initial stages of the learning path.

4. Each layer has its significant role to play in our learning path. We often find a misplaced notion at work in our minds that the stages and experiences we have left behind are no more important for us. As if material knowledge loses its priority amidst our concern for values or sustainability. Wisely enough, the sage, after completing his inputs on all the layers, warns the learner: Dont despise matter (Annam na nindat).

5. The process of exploration at every stage has been called tapas or intense striving for perfection to reach the ultimate goal. What is more profound is that at every stage, this striving has been identified with Brahman, the highest Principle or consciousness in the universe. The path is as important as the destination.

To conclude, the following lines from a poem by Tagore make it clear and succinct:

My pilgrimage is not at the end of the road;

My temples are all there on both sides of my pathway.

(Translation by this author)

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Management 108: Why We Need A Quantum Leap In Our Worldview - Swarajya

Determining a Target Retirement Saving Rate

A secure retirement is one of your goals, right? The worksheet in this video can help you get there.

When setting up your budget, it is important to include retirement savings. You can save through a retirement plan at work, on your own, or both. The target retirement savings rate tool will help you determine how much you need to save each year. The sooner you start saving, the longer your savings have to grow.

The worksheet will help you estimate what percentage of your current annual salary you should be saving. While it does not take into account your unique circumstances, it will help you plan for your retirement goals.

The worksheet asks for four pieces of information:

The worksheet assumes that youll need to replace about 80 percent of your pre-retirement income. Social Security retirement benefits should replace about 40 percent of an average wage earners income after retiring. This leaves approximately 40 percent to be replaced by retirement savings. Keep in mind, this is an estimate and you may need more or less depending on your individual circumstances.

The more years you have until retirement, the less you will have to save each month to reach your goal. No matter your age, for every 10 years you delay starting to save for retirement, you need to save 3 times as much each month to catch up.

Based on current estimates, a 65 year old man can expect to live approximately 18 years in retirement, and a 65 year old woman can expect to live about 20 years, but many people live longer. Planning to live well into your 90s can help you avoid outliving your income.

The worksheet takes into account some factors that impact your retirement savings. First, investing - because it involves risk. Second, inflation - because todays dollars will usually buy less each year as the cost of living rises. Your target savings rate includes any contributions your employer makes to a retirement savings plan for you, such as an employer matching contribution. If, for example, you are in a 401(k) plan in which you contribute 4 percent of your salary and your employer also contributes 4 percent, your saving rate would be 8 percent of your salary.

By using the worksheet, youve figured out your target savings rate. It gives you a rough idea a savings goal. Some may face higher expenses in retirement because of personal circumstances. For example, if you or your spouse have a chronic medical condition, you may want to save more. Some may have other sources of income in retirement such as a traditional pension or money from selling a home that would lower their target savings rate.

If you are not currently saving this amount, dont be discouraged. The important thing is to start saving even a small amount and increase that amount when you can. Come back and update this worksheet from time to time to reflect changes and track your progress.

Here are a few tips on how to save smart for retirement:

To track other resources you may have in retirement, start by getting your Social Security statement and an estimate of your retirement benefits on the Social Security Administrations website, http://www.socialsecurity.gov/mystatement.

The online interactive target retirement savings rate worksheet and other financial planning worksheets are available on EBSAs website: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa. You can save your worksheet data there so that you can come back to update it to track progress or adjust for changes.

You can order a free copy of the Savings Fitness publication or contact a Benefits Advisor with questions electronically at askebsa.dol.gov or by calling toll-free 1-866-444-3272.

Get started today for a secure financial future!

Excerpt from:
Retirement | USAGov

I've written many articles before designed to help readers identify their ideal retirement age. And it's not uncommon for folks to attempt to nail down a specific retirement age to work toward.

But here's the problem with that approach: While there are certain key ages for workers to know about (which we'll review in a minute), trying to determine the right age to retire when you're younger is a bit like narrowing down exactly what you want to have for dinner three weeks from today. Maybe you'll be in the mood for Italian; or perhaps you'll end up craving sushi. Though it's a good idea to have a general sense of when you want to retire, focusing on the age itself isn't necessarily the best approach -- because you never know how your finances are going to look, and how you're going to feel, once that age arrives.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

When we talk about retirement, there are certain key ages that tend to come up as part of that discussion:

Now that you know the significance of the above ages, let's talk about why it may very well be that none of them are the right time for you to retire. As you probably know, many of the expenses you incur during your working years don't go away in retirement. Once you stop working, you'll still need a roof over your head, a means of transportation, food, clothing, and the like. And while some of these costs might drop later in life, you may come to find that other expenses of yours go up.

Take healthcare, for example, which, according to recent projections, will cost the average healthy 65-year-old couple today $400,000 or more throughout retirement. Then there's leisure. Though it's certainly not a necessity, once you're retired and have oodles of free time on your hands, you'll need a means of occupying it. It therefore stands to reason that you may spend more on entertainment as a senior than you did during your working years.

The point here is that retirement costs money, and while Social Security can help cover some of your expenses, your benefits will only suffice in replacing roughly 40% of your pre-retirement income. Most seniors, however, need a minimum of 80% of their former earnings to pay the bills, especially when you factor long-term care into the mix.

It's easy enough to say that you'd like to retire at 65, or 67, or whatever age you feel works for you. But the fact of that matter is this: If you haven't saved enough by that age to cover your senior living costs, it's not the right time.

While a big part of being ready for retirement boils down to money, there's a mental component as well. Going from working full-time to being completely obligation-free is a huge adjustment, and it's not one to take likely. You might think you'll be ready to leave the workforce behind at, say, 66, but what happens if at that point in your career, you're still enjoying what you do and managing your routine just fine? Does it really pay to retire, in that case, even if you can technically afford to do so?

While it's a good idea to map out a plan for retirement, and think about when you might pull the trigger, rather than get hung up on a specific age, it pays to focus on your financial and emotional readiness. In other words, think about how much savings you'll need to retire comfortably, how you'll spend your time, and at what point you think you'll be ready to leave your career behind you. And then, once you're in the right position to check all these items off your list, go ahead and retire, whether you're 63, 73, or 83.

Of course, you'll want to keep the above milestones in mind, because they could have financial implications that help or hurt you in retirement. For example, retiring and then filing for Social Security at age 62 will slash your benefits, and it'll also mean no Medicare coverage for three years. But as long as you understand the consequences of retiring at various ages, you don't necessarily need to set one in stone.

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Here's Why You Shouldn't Bother Narrowing Down a Retirement Age - Motley Fool

Parenting was once described to me as "the most wonderful, financially devastating thing that you'll ever do to yourself." Raising kids is an expensive endeavor, and then there's college to think about, usually just as you're nearing a crucial stage in your own retirement planning. Should you save with your kids in mind or focus on your own needs? With some careful planning, you won't have to choose.

The days of affordable education are gone. Since 1978, the cost of attending college has increased by an astounding 1,225%. According to the College Board, tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 school year for a public, four-year university averaged $9,650 for in-state students and $24,930 for out-of-state, and private university students paid $33,480.These numbers aren't slowing down: By 2037, analysts estimate that a four-year degree will cost nearly $500,000, assuming a conservative 5% annual increase in education expenses.

image source: getty images.

The outlook on retirement living isn't much brighter. A couple who retired in 2016 will need almost $750,000 to cover expenses and healthcare costs, and even then, this number breaks down to just $2,000 in income per month. Assuming you'd like to maintain a higher standard of living, you'll need to save much more. A 35-year-old earning $75,000 per year now would need at least $3.3 million by retirement to produce the same income on an inflation-adjusted basis.

Image source: Getty Images.

The hefty costs of education and retirement may have you feeling defeated, but when it comes to long-term savings, time is on your side. Compounding returns on your investments can significantly increase your savings, but it's important to get started sooner rather than later.

For college savings, the average 18-year timeline begins the moment your little one arrives, but that doesn't mean you should redirect your income immediately. Before stashing money away for Junior's education, it's important to pay down debts that affect your immediate finances and credit health. These might include credit card balances, medical bills, and your own student loans. It's also wise to have extra cash in your savings account for emergencies.

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As tough as it is for parents to hear, college is an optional expense, and retirement savings are more important. The rising cost of living and the uncertain future of Social Security are just a couple reasons why retirement income is imperative, and you can't afford to waste time. For instance, $10,000 invested today with a 7% return will yield $76,123 in 30 years, while the same amount would only grow to $38,697 if you wait 10 years before getting started.

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For most families, investing in one goal usually means making sacrifices elsewhere. That said, prioritizing retirement doesn't mean de-prioritizing college savings by taking it off the table. With your timelines in place, now is the moment to strike a balance between your investments.

Financial aid, scholarships, and grants are great ways to deal with college costs. In addition, consider these basics:

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Although it's wise to save for retirement before college, it's not always that simple for Mom and Dad.If you're still set on contributing as much as possible for your kids' education, there are ways to make up for lost time in retirement savings, including:

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Some families have gone to extra lengths to find creative ways to earn and invest. Your options include:

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Saving for life's big changes isn't easy, but it's possible with the right tools. Find your motivation and consider your options with a fresh perspective.

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Should You Save for College or Retirement? - Motley Fool

It's not a good sign if you don't have any colleagues over age 65, and the company doesn't have any age-friendly policies or initiatives in place. A company or industry that is consolidating or struggling can also be a red flag, he said.

Nearly half of retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned, according to the 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and, of those, 26 percent cite changes at their company such as a downsizing or closure. In the TransAmerica survey, 12 percent of companies said they had employees who recently retired as a result of a layoff or termination, and 15 percent, due to organizational changes.

(Don't forget about personal risk factors, either. In the EBRI pool of workers who retired earlier than planned, 41 percent did so due to health problems or disability, and another 14 percent, to provide care for a spouse or other family member.)

Expand your plan to consider options such as creating a consulting business, or making a career pivot, Beck said. That can pay off: A recent paper from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that workers who voluntarily change jobs in their 50s tend to stay in the workforce longer than those who stay put.

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How to gauge your chances of a phased retirement - CNBC

The majority of Americans are facing a significant financial shortfall when it comes to retirement savings. Even when you factor in Social Security as an income source, the average American family's retirement savings don't come close to enough of a nest egg to support a comfortable lifestyle in retirement. Here's what the average American has saved, and why starting an IRA as soon as possible could save your retirement.

If you read the financial news at all, it shouldn't come as a surprise that as a whole, Americans aren't doing a great job of saving for retirement.

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According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the average retirement savings of an American working-age (32-61 years old) family is $95,776. By age group, here are the averages:

Age Group

Average (mean) Retirement Savings

32-37

$31,644

38-43

$67,270

44-49

$81,347

50-55

$124,831

56-61

$163,577

Data Source: Economic Policy Institute. Retirement savings include 401(k)s and similar plans, IRAs, and Keogh plans.

Here's the point. Experts suggest that retirees can safely withdraw 4% of their retirement savings per year, and increase the withdrawal rate in future years to keep up with inflation. This implies that the average 56-61 year old pre-retiree household's savings can only be expected to produce about $6,340 in sustainable income.

Worse yet, the median retirement savings of all working-age families is just $5,000. This means that half of all families have less than $5,000 in total retirement savings, indicating that the averages are skewed upward by a few super-savers, while most Americans have little or no retirement savings.

The amount of savings you should have depends on a few factors, such as your pre-retirement income, amount of Social Security and pensions you should expect, as well as your specific goals for retirement. Here's a quick guide that could help you determine your retirement "number."

To be clear, in all likelihood, Social Security will still be around after you retire. If you hear someone tell you that Social Security is going to go bankrupt and will disappear, you owe it to yourself to learn the truth about the financial condition of the program.

However, this doesn't mean that it's a good idea to rely on Social Security as your primary source of income. Generally speaking, the average retiree needs somewhere between 60% and 90% of their pre-retirement income to sustain the same quality of life.

Social Security is designed to replace about 40% of the average retiree's income, so it's fair to assume that you'll need to make some serious lifestyle sacrifices if you don't have any other savings, or even if you have just the average American's retirement savings.

An IRA, which stands for individual retirement account (or individual retirement arrangement), is a tax-advantaged account designed to help Americans save and invest for retirement.

As of 2017, the annual IRA contribution limit is $5,500, with a $1,000 catch-up contribution allowed for people age 50 or older. It's important to note that this limit is per person, not per account. In other words, if you have more than one IRA, your total contributions can't exceed the limit.

Contributions can be invested in virtually any stock, bond, mutual fund, or ETF you want. In exchange for the tax benefits, which I'll discuss in the next section, you typically need to leave your money in the account until you're at least 59 years old, unless you qualify for an exception.

There are two main types of IRA that most Americans can choose from. A traditional IRA is a tax-deferred retirement account, which means that you may qualify for a tax deduction for your contributions (subject to income limits and your employment situation). The funds can then be invested, and are allowed to compound without annual capital gains or dividend taxes. You don't pay taxes on traditional IRA investments until you withdraw the money.

On the other hand, a Roth IRA is an after-tax retirement account. You won't get a tax break for Roth IRA contributions, but your qualified withdrawals will be completely tax-free. In other words, you'll pay tax on that portion of your income now, but not on any investment gains it generates.

Because of its after-tax structure, there are several other benefits of Roth IRAs. For example, since you've already paid tax on your contributions, you are free to withdraw them (but not any investment gains) at any time, and for any reason. This makes a Roth a smart choice for people who don't necessarily want their money tied up until retirement. Roth IRAs also have no minimum distribution requirement as you get older.

Roth IRAs are income-restricted, but there is a "backdoor" method that higher-income individuals can use to invest through a Roth.

Here's why I'm placing so much emphasis on making contributions to an IRA. Let's say that you're 35 and that you make $5,500 annual contributions to an IRA until you're 65 and ready to retire. This adds up to $165,000 in IRA contributions altogether, which at first, may not sound much different than the average retiree's nest egg.

However, if your contributions generate 7% average yearly returns, which is actually quite conservative based on the stock and bond markets' historical performance, your IRA could be worth more than $560,000, which could make a big difference in your quality of life after retirement.

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How an IRA Could Help the Average American Save For Retirement - Motley Fool