Tag: IRA

There are many ways to go about creating prosperity. However, one thing all the different techniques have in common is that you must come to the table with a prosperity consciousness.

You must have the proper thinking process in place as you go about creating prosperity. This way of thinking is one where you go out of your way to avoid paying interest charges. You will save first and buy the big screen TV second. When you do buy that big screen TV, it will be with cash you’ve saved so as to avoid financing it. The cash you use for your big screen TV will be in excess of your emergency fund and retirement savings.

Do you see how this financial prosperity mindset is quite different from the mindset of most people you know you are constantly struggling to get out of debt? Do you see how different it is than the mindset they try to sell you on TV or in other various forms of advertising?

Is this harder to do than to just go crazy charging up credit cards and department store accounts like most people? Yes, it is. But, if you really desire to attain financial prosperity in order to live a life of financial success, it’s necessary to live by this prosperity consciousness.

At this point, you might be trying to figure out what strategies you can use so that financial prosperity will be yours. You could do one or more of the following: invest in rental real estate properties, invest into retirement accounts such as IRA’s, Roth IRA’s, 401(k)’s, Self Employed IRA’s, etc, invest in stocks and bonds, invest in option trading, invest in businesses, invest into an emergency account until you have 3 to 6 to 12 months income saved, start a home business (website, network marketing, etc).

These methods certainly aren’t correct for every person. It takes focus and the correct training to do well in some of these ways. However, if you’re not willing to invest some time and energy into learning the specifics of some of these activities that help create prosperity for you, as well as helping when it comes to getting out of debt, financial abundance will elude you.

What if you possess the prosperity consciousness already discussed but just lack the financial resources to build that emergency fund or contribute toward that Roth IRA?

Increasing your income should be on your radar screen if you truly want to achieve financial freedom and prosperity. You’ve got to fight and claw to find a way to do this. Maybe you need to take a second job to find the seed money for your home business.

Finding prosperity and happiness may just be closer then you’ve ever thought possible. One very inexpensive way to start a home business is to create a website around a passion of yours. Rather than thousands or millions, the money needed to get a website started is only a few hundred dollars.

Creating financial prosperity just takes the right mindset, a prosperity consciousness, and the patience to watch your wealth slowly grow. You’ll realize financial abundance once you’ve worked toward your plan for a number of years.

If financial prosperity is a true goal of yours, then getting out of debt must become your number one focus. Discover all you can about how to get out of debt and become amazed at how quickly your life turns around for the better.

Article by Nancy C.L. Stein, Esq., Staff Writer, PR4Lawyers

If you think that your spouse intends to divorce you, take steps to protect yourself. Make copies of all important financial documents including savings, stock and insurance account statements and any information relating to your married lifestyle including checking account, mortgage and home equity statements, charge card statements and your federal and state tax returns. If you fear your spouse may try to liquidate or change title to marital assets, provide written notification to the asset holder and seek a restraining order. Cash in joint checking and brokerage accounts and cash value of life insurance policies are also vulnerable. Protect assets in advance. Legal and forensic accounting costs to uncover and get back these assets can be prohibitively expensive.

Avoiding Contentious Litigation

Engaging in a winner-takes-all battle is a big mistake, leaving far less to live on post-divorce. Except in the most egregious cases, equitable distribution laws apply in divorce and courts wont punish a spouse financially for being a bad person.

If there are few valuable assets, both parties want to avoid a contentious divorce and are willing to workout joint custody and a fair settlement, mediation is a cost-effective alternative to litigation. You save thousands of dollars in legal fees, avoid emotional stress and benefit from the flexibility mediation affords.

Consulting Financial Professionals

Work together with a financial planner or accountant to minimize the total taxes you and your ex-spouse will pay during the separation and post-divorce. Such professionals can also help you create an accurate, complete budget, which will avoid the need to have a court reconsider maintenance later on.

Evaluating Settlement Proposals

When considering the fairness of a divorce settlement and whether it is workable, conduct a comprehensive and realistic analysis of your post-divorce lifestyle. Consider its future sufficiency and viability, remembering that inflation can hit hard.

Include assets, incomes, budgets, maintenance, child support, educational expenses, taxes, retirement goals, and investments in your analysis. Focus on the after-tax value of assets.

Avoid emotional attachments to assets. Concentrate on your true needs instead of on unrealistic desires. Failing to give a payor spouse sufficient money to live on will likely result in payment default. Be fair, but verify everything. Get payments up front whenever possible and secure them with assets and insurance.

Using the Right Professionals

Visitation and custody issues are best resolved working with a therapist. Accountants and financial planners are particularly skilled in addressing financial arrangements. Consult qualified professionals for emotional support and financial analysis instead of simply calling your attorney.

Updating Estate Documents Post-Divorce

Failing to change your life insurance policy, IRA and will beneficiaries post-divorce means that your ex-spouse will inherit a marital share.

Insuring the Divorce Settlement

Life and disability insurance can protect your divorce settlement payments and your family’s security should your ex-spouse die prematurely or become disabled.

The Post-Divorce Financial Plan

Develop a post-divorce financial plan to help transition to a singles lifestyle. Recognize financial limitations, prioritize financial goals, and create realistic expectations and a plan for allocating financial resources.

A 2×2 forced matrix program has many positive attributes which make success a lot easier than other programs:

1. Getting people to join is easier – as they perceive less effort to achieve success than other larger matrix programs.

2. The New Guidelines of How one can Retire in these Uncertain Times, Retireing in 2011

Consider these statistics:

The largest growing population segment in our country is people 100 years or older.

Within the next decade, most of the boomers will reach traditional retirement age. About 25% of the U.S. population–one in four people–will be retired.

Many of us will spend more years in retirement than we did working.

Yet when you search on the internet for retirement help, you’ll find page after page almost exclusively focused on making money and building wealth for retirement rather than managing wealth in retirement. No one seems to be educating retirees about managing their income and developing the right distribution strategies. Estate planning is well covered–probably because it’s a “goal” to provide money to heirs. But helping retirees to manage the money they have today, while they are still in retirement, is conspicuously absent in most financial education efforts.

From our experience in educating our clients for retirement, there are seven key areas where retirees need both financial education and financial planning in order to protect and preserve wealth:

Money management. Managing your monthly expenses to ensure they are not forced to take large distributions from their retirement nest eggs to meet current obligations.

Cleaning up the nest. Out of site, out of mind is far too often the mantra for retirees. However, a failure to organize can be disastrous later on. Pull together all those retirement accounts: IRA’s (yes, some folks do forget about older IRA’s they have), old 401k’s from previous employers, annuities etc. review and consolidates. Roll-over that 401k to your IRA, which is almost always in your best interest. Make sure the right information, such as beneficiaries are on the accounts and they are set up directly. Once you or your spouse dies, it’s too late.

Distribution planning. Planning distributions to ensure that you are not taking too much or too little from their retirement accounts, minimizing tax liability, and meeting Required Minimum Distribution amounts.

Managing your money and continuing to accumulate assets. Now that retirees are living longer, their nest eggs must last longer. The old paradigm of becoming more conservative in retirement can sometimes backfire if retirees become too conservative and stop growing their assets. It is important to make sure that they are continuing to grow their nest egg to at least keep pace with their distribution needs and to outpace inflation and taxes.

Protecting wealth. Your financial security can not be left to chance, especially in your golden years. Just because you’ve achieved financial security, does not mean your financial planning is over. You can spend a lifetime updating yourself on the subject, so you have two choices: be the expert or hire one. It does no good to spend your life saving and investing wisely only to give it all back to Uncle Sam! After all, it’s what you and your loved ones keep, that counts.