Estate Planning: The Four Vital Steps To Take With Your Assets

A well maintained portfolio is vital to any investor's success in today's marketplace. You need to know how to figure out an asset allocation. The asset allocation needs to match your personal investment strategies and goals. Your portfolio needs to meet your future needs for funds. It needs to give you peace of mind as well. These portfolios can be set to your investment strategies and goals. You should take an organized approach.

Figuring Out The Appropriate Asset Allocation For You

The first chore in building a portfolio is to work out your individual financial situation as well as investment goals. There are significant items to consider that will ultimately help you decide which direction to take and the vehiclet that will get you there. You should consider the amount of time you have to develop your investments. By defining the time sensitivity of your goals will help you calculate the amount given and how many years it will take to get there. Once that is listed you will also need to determine the amount that you will need to be satisfied. Caclulate your age, living standards and who is dependent on you. This setting of goals will help you determine what strategies to take.

Investment Strategies

An older person close to retirement has different investment strategies than a younger person that is just starting out. Investment strategies can vary from person to person. You also need to factor in your risk tolerance and personality. If your investment takes a short term drop and you begin to stress out about it, then the high returns from those types of assets are not worth the stress. Another factor you should look at is the trusts that need to be made. If you have several people that are dependent or that you want to have your money when you are gone you need to decide what type of trusts should be made.

Asset Distribution

When you take care of your current situation and your future needs for money, this will determine how your investment should be distributed among various asset classes. Sometimes when you take risks, you get big returns. You do not want to eliminate risk all together. You want to optimize it for unique style and condition. For example, a young person can afford to take greater risks in the quest for high returns if they do not have to rely on his or her investments for income. Protecting assets would be the goal of an older person. They also need to draw income from these assets. This needs to be done in a tax effective manner. Handlilng your finances through a law firm like Donnell Law Group will help you focus on estates, wills, civil litigation and administrative law.

Achieving Your Portfolio

After you have made your decision on the correct asset distribution, you can separate your money between the proper asset classes. These are equities and bonds. You can break these asset classes down into subclasses as well. There are various ways that you can select your assets and securities.

Smart Tips When Preparing for Retirement

retirement (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

Between 45 and 54, the idea of retirement often becomes more important to many individuals. But in order to make sure that this goal is attainable, there are several smart tips you will want to follow.

Catching Up After Age 50

For those just beginning to seriously save towards retirement, Investopedia.com says, “Don’t be disheartened.” “Better late than never,” is definitely applicable in this case. And there are actually special provisions for individuals people aged 50 years and up to “catch-up” on their retirement goals.

For people age 50 and older, the limit of contributions to an IRA, 401(k), 403(b) or 457 plan is raised to an excess of the usual threshold. This allows salary deferral contributions to be higher which builds up a nest egg for the future more quickly.

Rebalancing a Portfolio

As you approach retirement, your asset allocation should be reassessed every once and awhile to ensure that your investments become less risky as you grow older. This is because as you move toward the end of your working career, you will have less and less time to recover from investment losses. So rebalancing your investments will help you find places to allocate funds that are more dependable as you near a time in which you will rely on them more.

Supporting Older Children

Another consideration to take into account is any children or other family who are still dependent on you. Although it sounds harsh, you may need to consider your own best interests if you are nearing retirement age and still supporting adult children who live at home. Think about beginning to charge them rent or a portion of their living costs. In most cases, you will actually be doing them a favor by encouraging their responsibility and maturity.

Preparing for the Unexpected

Another life factor which may become more real as you age is the possibility of long-term illness and more frequent medical costs. To protect yourself and your nest egg, it might be wise to look into long-term care (LTC) insurance. These sorts of plans will help cover medical expenses so that your finances remain stored for living and other costs.

Getting Free to Plan and Save

For many individuals, all of these plans sound like great ideas but are really quite impossible because of current debt and other difficult financial situations. In order to devote more attention to savings, you will first want to work your way to financial freedom.

Begin by focusing on paying off any demanding short term loans. TitleBucks.com and similar lending companies can be helpful in a serious bind. But to use them properly requires paying them off immediately and gradually weaning yourself off reliance on quick cash. Asses your lifestyle and find ways to make cuts so that you can live within your means. This is a great beginning step towards savings and investment later.

With these keys to achieving financial stability and preparing for the future, you can look forward to a successful retirement.

Personal Capital APP Review

This post brought to you by Personal Capital. All opinions are 100% mine.


In today's world it is more important than ever to keep track of our financial life. What we save, spend, and invest in is critcal to our success with money. Keeping track of these things has become more difficult with the increasing complexity of our lives. Keeping track of income, planning with a budget, and making sure our investments are on track can take up a lot of time.

Sometimes we need to have this information at our finger tips. Luckily, we have a multitude of mobile computing devices that can make this simple. With Personal Capital's mobile app we can have all this important information close by.

The Personal Capital App, is available for the iPad, iPhone and Android; it allows you to see the overall picture of your finances. You can view all your financial accounts in one place. Your savings and checking account, mutual funds and stocks all displayed in an organized, easy to view way.

Personal Capital Benefits from Personal Capital on Vimeo.

The Personal Capital app is free to download and use. Plus has all these feature:

1. Encompasses all your finances. Personal Capital gives you access to all your finances in one location.
2. Gives you a broad overview of your investment portfolio. Many investors that have accounts with multiple brokers can view them all in one easy to view place.
3. Personal Capital offers a great way to drill down into asset allocation and tax optimization.
4. Check your investment fees by using the mutual fund fee calculator.
5. Stay on top of your 401k with the free organizer.

I always found that the major complaint from people who want to keep their finances organized is the desktop and mobile apps we have today are just to hard to use. I have found that the Personal Capital app is very simple to use and this is the one thing that will keep me using it. I think this app has made looking after your finances no longer a chore.

I recommend you give the Personal Capital app a try. You can download it to your iPhone, iPad, and like me even your Android device.

If you want track your income and spending plus finally feel sure your doing all you can to be successful with your financial life. Use the Personal Capital app.