5 Healthy Tips To Get Fit (Britt’s Breakdown) – Video
Posted: July 4, 2012 at 4:17 am
Visit link:
5 Healthy Tips To Get Fit (Britt's Breakdown) - Video
June-Marie Raw Food and Fitness Health misc videos 153 – Video
Posted: at 4:17 am
See the original post:
June-Marie Raw Food and Fitness Health misc videos 153 - Video
Tai Chi Classes at Neill’s Taekwondo and Fitness! – Video
Posted: at 4:17 am
More:
Tai Chi Classes at Neill's Taekwondo and Fitness! - Video
FREE Medically approved online health and fitness assessment – Video
Posted: at 4:17 am
Read more here:
FREE Medically approved online health and fitness assessment - Video
Retirement age may be raised to 65
Posted: at 4:17 am
The Saudi Public Retirement Fund (SPRF) is considering raising the retirement age for government employees from the current 60 to 65, business daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported yesterday. Female employees will still be put on obligatory retirement when they complete 20 years in service, said Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Ali, director of the female section in the fund. She pointed out that new changes in the regulations of the fund, which are soon expected to be approved by the concerned authorities, would include enabling inheritors to receive both the pensions of their deceased father and mother. Now, they should choose only one of the two pensions. Al-Ali said putting women on early retirement to provide job opportunities to unemployed Saudi women is not a successful policy. This solution, according to the studies and researches of the fund, provide only a limited number of vacancies, she said. She criticized the policy of early retirement and said it would lead to a disruption in productivity, especially in the sectors of health and education. The solution to the problem of unemployment among women is not by putting working women on early retirement but by creating more job opportunities particularly in the health and educational sector and also by improving the standards of university graduates through preparing them for the labor market, she said.
Read this article:
Retirement age may be raised to 65
Should You Tap Into Your Retirement Funds Early?
Posted: at 4:17 am
The past four years have seen layoffs, raise freezes, eliminated bonuses, foreclosures, upside-down mortgages, increased college tuitions, soaring gas prices, expensive groceries, wildly high credit card rates, and more. It's no wonder American household budgets have suffered.
When incomes aren't keeping up with living costs, and expenses are mounting, some savers may start to consider desperate measures, including taking money out of their retirement plans before reaching retirement age. Accessing 401(k) funds prior to retirement is tricky and sometimes confusing. Money can be removed in the form of a retirement plan loan or a hardship distribution. When considering any of these options, it's important to recognize all of the consequences, including which options are accompanied by stiff IRS penalties.
Hardship distributions from 401(k)s are subject to a 10 percent IRS penalty and regular income tax. The IRS gave you special tax benefits for contributing to your retirement plan, and they want to incentivize you to use the money for retirement, not before. To be allowed to take a hardship distribution, you must show you have an "immediate and heavy financial need" and you'll most likely have to prove you meet certain criteria. You can only withdraw enough to meet your need. In many cases, your employer may be required to stop your contributions to the plan for a specific amount of time as well.
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) cannot offer loans, but the IRS is less stringent about 401(k) retirement plan loans. The maximum amount a participant may borrow from his plan is 50 percent of the vested account balance or $50,000, whichever is less. An exception to this limit is if 50 percent of the vested account balance is less than $10,000; then, the participant may borrow up to $10,000. Take note: Plans are not required to offer this exception, so check with your plan document for specifics. It's also important to keep in mind that while you likely made pre-tax contributions to your 401(k), you'll be making after-tax payments to repay your loan, which significantly increases the cost of the loan.
Such 401(k) hardship distributions and retirement plan loans shouldn't be a first consideration when you need money. Most financial professionals would tell you that damaging your retirement savings efforts in order to procure a one-time cash injection isn't worth it.
The truth is that it's almost always a poor choice; but every financial situation is unique. If 401(k) account dollars will just provide a temporary stopgap before you ultimately run out of money, leave your 401(k) alone. However, if you need the cash to put yourself on much better financial ground and a one-time withdrawal or loan will solve your financial fix, it may be reasonable to consider the possibilities.
Before taking either a 401(k) hardship distribution or a retirement plan loan, I'd suggest considering the alternatives below:
--Budgeting and trimming: Create a monthly budget if you don't already have one. Trim the fat from your budget to get extra dollars each month.
--Ask for a better debt deal: Banks and credit card companies may be willing to reduce your interest rates and lower your monthly payments. Oftentimes, they have repayment plans available to help you work out of debt at a reasonable rate.
--Get another job: Make some extra money with a part-time job.
Retirement income scorecard: Systematic withdrawals
Posted: at 4:17 am
(MoneyWatch) Continuing our look at how to assess your future retirement income, let's turn our attention to "systematic withdrawals," which are one of three ways to generate a paycheck from what you have stashed away. Note: In previous posts, I've called this method "managed payouts," but the term "systematic withdrawals" is more descriptive and won't cause confusion between the term "managed payout fund" used by some mutual fund families. For more background on the three methods, you may want to review my recent post, "My four favorite ways to generate retirement income."
Financial planners and writers will often tell you something along these lines: If you invest in a portfolio balanced between stocks and bonds, withdraw four percent each year for retirement income, and give yourself an annual raise to account for inflation, there's a roughly 90 percent chance that your money will last for at least 30 years. Hence, the justification for the so-called four percent rule.
My four favorite ways to generate retirement income Retirement income scorecard: Interest and dividends IRAs and 401k: 3 ways to generate retirement income
Method #2: Systematic withdrawals
The four percent rule is actually a good starting point for considering an appropriate withdrawal rate. But if you fall into one of the following two categories, you might want to consider withdrawing amounts of lower than four percent:
-- If your retirement investments are actively managed and incur investment expenses of more than 50 basis points (0.50 percent), over the long run you may fall short of the net rates of return that justify the four percent rule.
-- If you're married, both you and your spouse are healthy, and you retire in your early to mid sixties, there's a good chance that one of you will live for more than 30 years.
If either of these statements applies to you, you may want to consider payout rates on your retirement income of 3 or 3.5 percent.
In addition, there's a point of view emerging from some financial analysts, such as Dr. Wade Pfau, that the analyses supporting the four percent rule are based on a period of U.S. history that may have been a remarkably good time for stock and bond returns. It may be that future returns on stocks and bonds won't be able to support a four percent withdrawal rate. If you believe this, you may want to use a lower withdrawal rate.
In spite of the above thoughts, you might consider a higher withdrawal rate if you're willing to accept some chance of running out of money before you die, or if you're willing to curb your withdrawals down the road if your investments sour. In short, setting the appropriate withdrawal rate is both art and science.
Read the original:
Retirement income scorecard: Systematic withdrawals
10 Must-Have Retirement Needs
Posted: at 4:17 am
Each day brings new challenges that threaten us, and the Internet often resembles an enormous social megaphone with the volume cranked all the way up. So it's understandably hard to square this persistent outpouring of threats and unhappiness with the reality that the inhabitants of planet earth are living longer than ever before and inflicting less physical violence on one another. What if, God forbid, these turn out to be the best of times?
[Find the Best Fund for You.]
So it is with the torrent of negative retirement news. Bad as things often look, people will continue to retire, and many of them will enjoy terrific lives in their later years. They will join millions of other Americans who have managed to do the same. What are their secrets? Here, culled from research studies and retirement experts, are 10 essentials for a successful retirement.
1. Planning. Successful retirements rarely happen by accident. They require planning, and it should begin well before retirement begins. Younger people do not need to have any detailed plan for their later years. Heck, many probably don't know what they'll be doing next year. But they should set up tax-favored retirement investments, contribute enough to trigger the top employer match, and place their money in stable and safe investments. Older people should begin in their 50s to ask questions about the adequacy of their retirement funds. They also should attack some of the big retirement issues: where they want to live, how they want to spend their time, and the like. At whatever age retirement becomes financially viable or physically necessary, they should have a more detailed plan and ways to achieve it.
2. Budgeting. Most people overestimate their retirement income and underestimate their retirement expenses. Well before the regular paychecks stop, many successful retirees will have taken a hard-nosed look at their retirement income and expense needs. Expense budgeting is crucial. Once the income and expense sides of your personal ledger have been completed, you can see if there's a gap that needs to be closed. Most likely, it will be closed by trimming expenses. Many experts say it's a good idea to look at your locked-in sources of retirement income--Social Security and traditional pensions--and match this amount to your fixed expenses: mortgage, utilities, insurance, fixed debt payments, operating expenses for your car, and basic household costs for food and other necessities. Then, look at the likely income stream from your investments and use those funds for discretionary spending on vacations, restaurants, and the like. This way, if returns on your investments don't fare as well as you thought, you won't have to eat into your investment accounts to pay expenses. When markets recover, you can resume your spending.
3. Homework. Retirement is many things, but a life of leisure usually must be preceded by a lot of homework. This is particularly true when it comes to healthcare costs. The average 65-year-old couple will spend more than $250,000 on out-of-pocket healthcare during the rest of their lives--the single largest unknown expense for most people. Medicare was complicated enough before health reform was enacted. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the law, anyone planning to retire in the next several years should spend time understanding how it will affect them. Other questions you should answer include: how healthy is the economy of the area you're thinking of choosing for your retirement home; what are the state and local tax rates in that area; what are state estate taxes like; do you have a good approach to spending down your assets in retirement, and what is the best strategy for you about when to begin claiming Social Security benefits?
[See Can You Manage Your Future?]
4. Realism. None of the planning, budgeting, and homework you do will provide the basis for a successful retirement unless you're realistic in your assessments and assumptions. Most people, for example, actually retire several years before they earlier said they would. Likewise, they say they will continue to work well past their 65th birthday. Careers do seem to be trending longer since the recession, but there is still a mismatch between plans and actions. Be honest with yourself.
5. Balance. The key to a lot of good things in life is a sense of balance. Successful retirements involve a good balance between expectations and reality. This doesn't mean sacrificing your dreams. It does mean road-testing your dreams to see what it would take to make them possible.
6. Health. No surprise here. Good health is the "knock on wood" wish of every retiree. What's different today than a generation ago is the widespread recognition that good health is no accident, but the probable result of good diet and exercise habits. These habits need to start now, not when you're 70 (although it's never too late to begin). It's been proven that strenuous exercise, with heavy weights and sweat-inducing cardiovascular workouts, can help even people in their 80s and 90s. Investing in good health is as important as socking money away in retirement accounts.
The rest is here:
10 Must-Have Retirement Needs
Retirement In Need Of Reinvention
Posted: at 4:17 am
(NAPSW)Retirement is a concept thats constantly being reinvented. A comfortable retirement wasnt even a widespread economic goal until after World War IIand its changing again, as the economy is making that goal more difficult to reach. Fortunately, seniors do have options.
According to executives at The Lifeline Program, seniors must now look well beyond traditional tools if they want some sort of retirement.
For most seniors, the notion of ending their work life at age 65 with a golf course membership and a gold watch is no longer the norm. Recent studies show that most seniors are working longer with little hope of an idyllic retirement.
Traditional sources of retirement income can no longer be relied on. Pensions have become rare and many seniors have not saved enough. The recession and housing crash have hurt retirement accounts and housing values.
Financial-planning experts suggest saving more, but thats not always possible. Other options do exist, though, and its important to do your research. For example, performing a reverse mortgage on a home, selling a life insurance policy through a life settlement and exploring alternative investments are all tactics that can add financial security and help seniors realize some of their dreams for retirement.
For Joan Clary (age 70), a substitute schoolteacher from Oakhurst, Calif., the dream was to meet actress Betty White. Fortunately, Clary won the recent Lifeline Meet Betty White Facebook contest and was flown to Los Angeles to meet the actress. Clary was thrilled to win. As I turn 70, I realize Betty is one of my last role models. Its a joy to meet her after admiring her for so many years, said Clary.
Founded in 1989, The Lifeline Program offers life settlements as a new financial planning option to baby boomers and retirees. The company partners with insurance agents, broker dealers and financial planners to establish life settlement business lines. For more information, visit http://www.thelifeline.com, follow the company on Facebook at Facebook.com/LifelineProgram, on Twitter at twitter.com/LifelineProgram or on YouTube at youtube.com/user/TheLifelineProgram. You can also call 855-GO-BETTY (855-462-3889).
Photos/MultimediaGallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50330509&lang=en
MULTIMEDIA AVAILABLE:http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50330509&lang=en
See original here:
Retirement In Need Of Reinvention
Were All-Star snubs innocent or personal?
Posted: at 4:16 am
UpdatedJul 3, 2012 11:53 AM ET
Baseball had much to celebrate Sunday: Fan voting for the All-Star Game reached a new high, with an astounding 40.2 million ballots cast. Texas Rangers hero Josh Hamilton set a new single-season record with 11 million votes. Mike Trout, the Los Angeles Angels rookie sensation, will make the first of what should be many All-Star appearances.
Yet the most-talked-about person in baseball was a 67-year-old with a .199 career batting average who is no longer an active player, coach or manager.
Really, though, who expected Tony La Russa to stay in the background?
However you interpreted his snubs of Johnny Cueto and Brandon Phillips I, for one, believe spite was part of the motivation they underscored the enduring romance of La Russas career: Tony loves the spotlight, and the spotlight loves Tony.
La Russa is at once the most successful and conspicuous manager of our lifetime. He won 2,728 games and three World Series titles because he has hard-boiled ideas about how baseball ought to be played. And he will take every opportunity to remind us of that, before and during what could be his final meaningful appearance in uniform.
Lets be clear: La Russa has every right to do so. He will manage the National League during the All-Star Game on July 10 (MLB on FOX, 7:30 p.m. ET). He earned the assignment because his St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series last year. Thats how the system works. In this context, it hardly matters that La Russa announced his retirement shortly after the parade.
La Russa may have only one game on his 2012 schedule, but already hes in midseason form. Hes been known to teach (and occasionally preach) the games finer points. This time, Cueto and Phillips were the unwitting pupils.
You may remember the history: Two years ago, in advance of an August showdown between the Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds, Phillips referred to the Cardinals as little bitches in an interview with Hall of Fame writer Hal McCoy. A benches-clearing brawl erupted during the series. Cueto kicked Cardinals catcher Jason LaRue in the head during the melee; LaRue sustained a concussion and never played in the major leagues again.
Read more:
Were All-Star snubs innocent or personal?