First, the good news is that you can expect to enjoy two decades of retirement if you start retirement when you’re 65. Life expectancy of men at the age of 65 is about 20 years and woman of the same age can look forward to an average life expectancy of about 22 years. Life expectancy is really just a table that shows odds. So what it actually means is that the odds of a 65 year-old man living to the age of 90 are about 1 in 3, while a woman has about a 1 in 2.5 chance of reaching 90. About 60 percent of the time, at least one spouse will live to 90. There may be a number of reasons why you might not live to 90, of course, but when it comes to planning for your financial future, it makes sense to assume that you will reach that age. If you are enjoying life in your 90s, having to worry ab...

Mutual fund giant and financial services provider Fidelity Investments recently surveyed 3,000 investors to determine how prepared the average person is for retirement. The results show that those with 30 years until retirement should be fine if they increase their savings and invest a little more aggressively. But those over 55 are facing a significant gap between what they need to retire and what they have. Fidelity assumes that the average retiree will need to replace about 80 percent of their income in retirement. Their average survey participant reported an annual income of about $74,000 a year, which means they will need to generate income of about $4,800 a month, on average. The average income from Social Security benefits, pension payments and withdrawals from investment accounts i...

Financial Advisor magazine is a popular publication read by financial professionals, and the latest in a slate of journals to point out many of the advantages of reverse mortgages. This magazine is read by 90,000 financial planners, registered investment advisors and independent broker-dealers each month. These professionals have long ignored the value of home equity in retirement planning, but that is rapidly changing. In recent months, financial advisors seem to have become aware of how useful reverse mortgages can be. In an article called “New Choice May Preserve Portfolios, Lower Cash Reserve Needs,” the author explains that reverse mortgages can be used to help preserve wealth and lower the amount of cash reserves that are needed in a sound financial plan. The writer’s crede...

Builders pared back on starting new projects in March and the number of new homes started fell by 5.8 percent according to the latest data from the Census Bureau. The number of new homes should increase by about 654,000 this year if builders maintain the current pace of construction. To put that number in perspective, more than two million homes a year were being built in 2006 and 2007 as prices soared. Excessive building a catalyst for real estate collapse Excessive building was a sign of a market top. The builders were responding to demand and buyers were bidding prices higher and higher until they suddenly stopped buying. Financing dried up as reality set into the market and builders again responded to demand by building less. That led to layoffs in the good-paying construction industr...

Financial circumstances vary and the right answer for your retirement income may vary greatly from the right answer for anyone else’s retirement. Unfortunately you wouldn’t learn that if you were seeking financial advice solely over the internet. Searching of the term “retirement income” offers a variety of ways to purchase an annuity. Annuities are a financial product that should only be bought after extensive research. The problem is that anyone can buy one with only a few clicks of the mouse these days, and the wrong clicks could lead to large losses in income. Annuities can be the right choice for some people. They offer guaranteed income for life and can help many retirees plan their budgets. The amount of income will be based on the amount of the investment, how old you are, ...

A $9 airline ticket seems like an unbeatable way to travel. But when you buy the ticket, you find that there is a passenger usage fee you are required to pay for the privilege of buying the ticket that adds almost $40 to the price. When you check in, there’s a $5 fee to print your boarding pass, and of course you have to factor in the the now standard fees to check your baggage. You decide to splurge on an aisle seat for an additional fee. At the gate you get charged another fee, a rather steep $40, for your carry-on bag. That $9 ticket has now cost you almost $200, and a bottle of water to sip on the flight will be another $3. The fees are all disclosed, but the print is small and you had to look in a number of places to find it all. It was impossible to know what to ask the company rep...

In the most of March Madness, a smaller crowd gathered in Manhattan to watch the USA Memory Championship. The winner set a world record by memorizing 303 random numbers in five minutes. The old record was a mere 248 numbers in five minutes, which the Memory Champ himself set. The Memory Championship competition required competitors to recall random information about 99 people they were introduced to, including their names and faces. The contestants also memorized 50 lines of an unpublished poem and a list of 200 random words. The winner told CNN, “It’s all tricks. I don’t have a good memory naturally. It’s something I learned and taught myself.” Many seniors believe that memory loss is a natural part of aging. To some degree it it, but the Mayo Clinic offers s...

Traditionally speaking, retirement has included leisure and a slow, relaxed pace of living.  Fishing or golfing every day after sleeping in is a common image of what life in retirement will be like for many. Yet after working 50 years to be able to reach that dream, many senior citizens discover that they are bored. It turns out that the human brain is not really suited to a life of leisure in many cases. A recent article in The Fiscal Times explained that modern workers are knowledge workers. In the early 1900s, the typical job was physically demanding, with twelve hour days and six-day work weeks being fairly common. That has changed since the early 2000s and now many jobs require more mental exertion than physical activity. In the old days, retirement was a necessity because a worker�...

Many retirees are enjoying the benefits of getting involved with education during retirement. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that almost half of the adult population in the United States is enrolled in some form of lifelong learning. They found that 49 percent of adult women and 43 percent of men are actively pursuing some form of educational enrichment in their lives. Why are retirees committed to learning? The advantages of pursuing educational opportunities are well known. These activities help you to keep your mind sharp and have been shown to help improve your memory. Less obvious benefits include the fact that mastering new material increases your self-confidence and gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Lifelong learning can include non-credit academic cours...

A reverse mortgage allows you to stay in your home for as long as you live. After that, there could be some benefits for your heirs as well. Retirement brings the reality of estate planning into sharp focus. Many people put off decisions about how to handle their estates while they are working because it can be difficult to consider these questions. As we age, it is important to ensure that we plan to address some of the financial concerns our survivors will face. A reverse mortgage could be a valuable financial planning too for senior citizens while they are living. Your home could be your largest asset and a reverse mortgage can convert that asset to an income stream. With a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM), you can access the equity in that asset now and repay the loan later. No p...