How to Successfully Retire at 51

retirement (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

Retiring by age 51 will take some significant planning and if you have the inclination when you are in your twenties, it won’t be that hard. Depending on your income at your early age, if you put away $10,000 to $12,000 year, you can have the amount you want to for retirement. http://on-msn.com/xFNNDE 

With age 51 being your goal, you can enjoy your retirement and still have enough body left to boogie on with the best of them. If an illness has hit you or your household, it may take away from the retirement, but at least you have it to lean on when times get hard.

So let’s break that down

If you have the forethought to take care of saving this money, then break it down even more so that your bite sized pieces are more attainable. $12,000 divided by 12 months equals $1,000 a month. That can be a sizeable amount for a coffee barista. So, let’s break it down even more and divide that amount by the days of the month. That is $33 a day. A lot of twenty something’s don’t make that much a day, so we should make this more user friendly for anyone.

Let’s do $50 a week. That calculates to $200 a month and $2400 a year. Multiply that by 20 years for the sake of this example and you get: $48,000. Not a bad haul at all, and if you have the inclination to invest, do it wisely. Meaning, have some help to get started, not just by diving into the market unknowingly.

It won’t

Forty eight thousand dollars certainly will not be enough to retire on, but it’s better than a kick in the patooty and you have the opportunity to help it grow with some aggressive investments; so do it. Be aware in the back of your mind, that you could potentially lose all that money as well. Are you prepared to start over?

If you

If you can grow into a six figure income, the $12,000 a year goal is a lot more attainable. Between what you have and what your spouse has, the growth can be enormous. Plug in your social security; if it still exists in twenty years, then you can retire very comfortably.

Keep in mind

Life happens and along the way you are going to lose a few and win a few. You may have a divorce and lose everything. Likely only half, as most states only allow the spouse to take half. You might also have a death to contend with or even an illness. Life throws an amazing amount of things our way. No matter what the lesson is that we are supposed to learn, figure out how to continue putting money away.

If you stop and don’t have an amount put in every week, you are only sacrificing one thing: Your retirement. Remember, your goal is 51. Are you willing to go beyond that? Will you be well enough to do anything when you reach that age? Will you want to travel like you have dreamed all your life? It’s totally up to you and how you do things. 

No matter

No matter what you do with this journey we call ‘Life’. It is up to you to finish the final chapter. You don’t have any more information how long you will be on this planet, than the neighbor or the dog next door. One thing is for sure; whatever you decide make it work for you, remember to do it with a smile on your face and a whistle in your heart. Go enjoy whatever it may be.

About The Author:

Blair Thomas is the co-founder of eMerchantBroker.com the #1 high risk Credit Card processing company in the US. He has been in the electronic payments industry for over 10+ years. When he is not running his business he spends his time writing and producing music, which has been featured in a variety of films. 

How to Manage Your Money Effectively With the Right Financial Planner?

Financial planners do help their clients in saving their money, making smart investments, and ultimately growing their money tree. They help in reaching a specific goal and assist in purchasing assets like a house, stocks, and ETFs.

Few financial planners are specialized in giving smart estate or retirement planning advice, while others consult for a wide range of economic and financial matters. It is always recommended to seek advice of the expertise financial planners, if you are planning your future at a young age.

How to Make Use of Planners in Reaching Your Goals?

The initial step you need to take is to note all your realistic goals. You need to list the short term, long term, and mid-term goals. You need to map up the objectives and the duration required for accomplishing them.

Short term goals include saving for buying expensive furniture, gadgets, honeymoon, car, and things that you can buy within 1 to 3 years of time. If you have children, tuition fee would be considered as mid-term goal and travel and retirement plans fall under the long-term goals.

You need to understand how to handle all the expenses as early as possible. Make sure that you do not spend almost all your earnings. Keep in mind that it is discipline, and you should practice this daily in order to reach your goals. 

Avoiding Debts

Avoiding debts is a part of budgeting. Avoid using more credit cards, which can increase the debts steeply. It could be pretty simple to swipe the card, and shortly we lose the hard earned money in the whole process. If we do not pay them on time, the debt could increase and you may finally end up clearing more debts.

However, you wouldn’t want to spend your hard-earned money unnecessarily right? So, financial planners will help you with great ideas when it comes to things like spending money via credit cards.

Financial planners help you in making decisions, which can benefit you more when it comes to the economic status. Hiring someone who’s expert in this arena will help you in avoiding killing what you saved. In this case, you need to choose the best planner to save yourself from unnecessary expenses. 

Hiring Honest Financial Planners

The person that you hire should be honest and trustworthy; since the planner deals with your money, make sure that you can trust him well. It does cause troubles if you have any concerns or doubts about the person you hire.

Finding someone who is proficient in this particular arena is pretty important. You need to browse through their portfolio and make sure that the concerned person has extensive experience the profession. Finally, make sure that you can afford their personal finance planning services, and that you’re not overpaying and putting a big dent on your budget as such, otherwise the whole point of hiring a financial planner would be defeated!

Negotiate

Learn how to negotiate before hiring him and don’t blurt out everything before finalizing things. If the planner has a personal website, you can always read though the information posted on the website, and get a pulse of his/her experience.

You can also read user comments in blog and then come to a conclusion whether to hire him/her or not. Taking a deeper look into the background of the planner will certainly help you in understanding more about the person, and making a smart decision.

Author Bio:Steve Martin is a personal finance planner who has been working at a reputed bank for past 8 years. Follow him on Twitter, or connect with Steve by dropping him a message through the comment box here.

4 Savvy Ways to Get Customers to Buy Your Marketing Materials

Free publicity is often the best publicity – but what about publicity the customer pays to spread around for you? Many businesses have had their logo printed on “swag,” items such as pens, tote bags, T-shirts and mugs, and give them away to customers (and potential customers) at trade fairs and festivals. Free swag is a great way to remind potential clients of your business every time they use the items. However, savvy businesses can get customers to actually buy swag and use it. Start with these four simple tips and your marketing material could be as sought-after as the products and services you sell.

Target the Audience

Before you begin, consider your target audience – which should be the same as the target audience of your products or services. Focus on how to make your brand appealing to your target audience and how to best get the word out about the products you intend to offer. Social media will prove an excellent way to make your marketing campaign more interactive. The more you ask your customers to participate in the campaign, the more likely they are to pay attention when you sell swag.

Use social media not only to spread the word about your swag, but in the swag design itself. For example, come up with a hashtag related to your brand, products or services. If the hashtag takes off in popularity, incorporate it into your design. When someone new sees the hashtag on a customer’s swag, she’ll be inspired to discover the buzz behind the word or phrase.

Design Something Marketable

Once you know who you’re targeting and how you’re going to get their attention, focus on your design. You probably already have a business logo; if you can’t or don’t want to change that, that’s fine. If you are open to a redesign, getting ready to sell swag might be the ideal excuse.

In addition to your logo, come up with a fun, cute or attractive addition to your logo that appears on your swag and the marketing material for your swag. This should be something your customers will want to wear or show off for aesthetic reasons in addition to a love of your brand. For example, if your target audience is elementary school kids and their parents, a cute mascot animal could prove popular on T-shirts, pencils and notebooks.

Support a Charity

Donate a portion of the swag proceeds to a charity related to your industry or the community. For example, if you’re primarily a local business selling products for seniors, offer to support local senior centers and programs such as Meals on Wheels. If your business is aimed primarily at women, choose causes especially important to women, such as breast cancer research and support for abused women and children. Your customers and supporters of the charitable cause will spread the word about the promotion, which will lead to more sales. 

Start Small

Don’t look at the swag sales as a huge untapped revenue stream. Inc. 5000 cautions against thinking of marketing material as a substantial part of your profits, but stresses that real profit can be made with careful planning. Start with small vendors and see how sales of the items go before broadening sales.

Sell the swag exclusively out of your storefront or online store, or partner with a local store related to your industry to sell the goods. Focus entirely on the local market. If sales prove successful, branch out to more national avenues and broaden your online marketing strategy to include other regions. If you find you’ve ordered too much swag and it’s not selling, dial back on the campaign and re-strategize.

When you sell swag rather than give it away, loyal customers are getting the word out about your company by financially supporting your business. However, if you’re going to ask customers to pay to promote your business, you have to offer something that is worth paying for. Having a compelling logo and design that people want to buy gets people talking about your business.

About the Author: Gary Austin can provide your company or organization with the best promotional pens in the industry. Visit http://www.thepenguy.com/promotional/ to find out more.

3 Smart Investments

One of the major contributing factors to the economic crisis of 2008 was the lack of personal savings. Easy credit was a way of life through the early 2000's up until the crash, and consumers used that credit to fuel consumption. When the market tanked, wages dropped and jobs were cut, leading to a nasty decline in consumer purchases. Many of the newly-unemployed had no savings upon which to draw in order to maintain their level of spending. For those with adequate savings, however, the situation was much less dire. While you cannot prevent a widespread economic disaster, you can organize a plan to be prepared no matter the situation.

Traditional IRA or Roth IRA

An Individual Retirement Account (IRA) is a legal construct of the Internal Revenue Code that allows investors to shield their savings from taxes. There are two forms of the IRA. The first form is a Traditional IRA, which allows savers to fund their retirement account with pre-tax dollars. Essentially, if you put money into a Traditional IRA, you can deduct that amount from your taxes. You can continue making annual contributions to your account and you won’t pay taxes on it until you start withdrawing from the account in retirement. The second type of IRA is the Roth IRA, which takes contributions of after-tax dollars. This means that when you withdraw from your Roth IRA in retirement, you will not pay any taxes on it. Also, the Roth IRA has more flexible rules for pre-retirement withdrawals from the principal. One of the great things about both types of IRA's is that you can put whatever investments you want in the accounts: stocks, bonds, real estate, baseball cards, etc.

Index Funds

Many investors think that stocks are the best way to make money over time. While that can be true, this strategy only works if you pick the correct stocks; if you pick the wrong stocks, you can lose your entire portfolio overnight. Unfortunately, many experts believe that it is impossible to reliably pick the correct stocks over time. Even if you do pick the right stocks, you have to buy them and sell them at the right time. One commonly-used strategy is to invest in mutual funds, which are managed by professionals who charge a fee and take a cut of the earnings. The problem is that most mutual funds do not consistently beat the market. Even those funds that do outperform the market will eat away at your gains with their fees. A good alternative is to invest in an index fund. An index fund is a fund that consists of stocks from a stock index, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's 500. These funds are meant to track the economy as a whole, which consistently outperforms most mutual funds. Even better, index funds have much lower fees than a typical mutual fund, preventing the erosion of your investment.

401(k) Matching

One very common financial mistake happens when employees who are eligible for 401(k) matching by their employers do not contribute up to the full match. For example, imagine a 401(k) match of 50% of employee contribution on up to 6% of the employee’s salary. This means that your employer will put fifty cents in your 401(k) for every dollar you put in on up to 6% of your salary. If you make $100,000 per year, 6% of your salary is $6,000 and your employer will contribute up to half of that, which comes out to $3,000. If you do not contribute at least $6,000, you are literally turning down free money from your employer!

Investments can be confusing and dangerous. A few wrong moves and you can delay or even eliminate your retirement. There are no guarantees in life, and even fewer in investing. However, if you invest in IRA's, index funds and 401(k) matching, you are definitely giving yourself a major advantage.

Ken Myers is a father, husband, and entrepreneur. He has combined his passion for helping families find in-home care with his experience to build a business. Learn more about him by visiting @KenneyMyers on Twitter.

How The Affordable Care Act May Impact Medical Debt

There are many Americans that are struggling to pay down some of their medical bills. They may be wondering how they can find support to eliminate some of these burdens and get on with their life. The new Affordable Care Act penned in to law by President Obama is slated to go in to effect soon. Some people are wondering whether this will provide help with medical bills, which would be beneficial for many. There are several new changes that will be ushered in by this law, so it may be worthwhile to review some of the pros and cons that it will bring.

First, the new Affordable Care Act will simply make it more accessible for people to get healthcare coverage. While this won't directly affect existing medical bills, it may provide people with much needed support as they move forward. If they are continuing to receive medical treatment for an illness, this provision may just make it more affordable. This can reduce the overall burden that they have to pay out of pocket. If they can't afford to pay for a private health insurance package, some people might qualify for Medicaid. The limit for qualifying for this package has been raised to 133% of the federal poverty level.

The Affordable Care Act will also provide additional support to families that are hovering above this poverty level. If a family of four makes less than $94,000, then they will be able to qualify to receive support. Some people may be able to get tax credits, which can offset much of what they pay for their health insurance package. This could prove to be helpful, since many people currently pay high out of pocket costs. These types of benefits may seem small, but the cumulative effect may allow many people to get out of medical debt.

There are a few other benefits that may be available to different kinds of consumers out there. Some people may work with a large employer that does not currently offer health benefits. With the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, these large businesses will start to receive tax credits for providing health insurance. Additionally, families can claim their kids up to age 26 on their healthcare plans. This will provide them with much more flexibility in the way that they offer coverage. If they are struggling with medical debt, they could expect to get a lot of support going forward.

Some people may want to consider a few of the cons that the program may introduce in the future. There are some sources that are predicting that some insurers will be passing on the costs of the legislation to their customers. This may cause premiums to go up over time, which will be challenging for them. There are also many people who might need to get additional testing to confirm a diagnosis. It can be important for people to consider whether they want to pay for these additional diagnostic tests. They may not be able to afford some of the extra costs that this will bring to them.

In all, a vast majority of consumers can expect to get assistance with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. They likely won't be able to get direct help with a medical bill that they already have. Some people may need to think about checking out some of the insurance deals available through the exchange system being implemented. This could prove to help people find out whether they can get a little help to get back on track. This may be enough for people to eliminate some of their more extensive medical bills.

5 Ways to Manage Your Finances During Deployment

An impending deployment can lead to tremendous stress and anxiety, and financial hardship is one of the biggest obstacles facing deployed service members and their families. Many active-duty members have spouses and children to support. Others fear losing sight of their educational and career goals while serving a lengthy tour overseas. Although deployment can be fiscally challenging, it does not have to mean a financially unstable future. Mange your finances and use the resources available while on deployment by following these five tips. 

Continue Your Education Online

A major factor in achieving a financially stable future is getting a degree that will land you a high-paying job after military service. Continuing your education online is a great way to pursue your educational goals while you are deployed. Plan carefully when selecting your school and look for institutions that offer military scholarships and grant military credit through the American Counsel of Education (ACE) program. Every college performs ACE reviews to determine how much credit will be granted for the military experience you’ve already gained. Shop around to find the school that offers the most.

The military also offers active-duty soldiers tuition assistance for their online courses. This covers all tuition costs that do not exceed $250 per semester hour or $4,500 per fiscal year. You can apply for this benefit online through GoArmyEd.com and will receive notification when your request has been approved. Each academic year, you and your commander must sign a Tuition Assistance Statement of Understanding to continue receiving this benefit. 

Take Advantage of Deployment Entitlements

Knowing which deployment entitlements you are eligible for is helpful in the financial-planning process. All soldiers who are deployed for more than 30 days are eligible for per diem in the amount of $105 per month, which is provided in addition to your base salary. Family Separation Allowance is also available to soldiers with authorized dependents, which provides an additional $250 per month. Those serving in a hostile fire or imminent danger area receive an additional $7.50 per day, and soldiers who are deployed to areas with extremely low quality of life conditions may be eligible for hardship duty pay. Depending on the specific qualifying location, hardship duty pay offers payments ranging from $50 to $150 per month. Contact your unit’s administrative section to find out the additional pay you will be receiving, and calculate your entitlements ahead of time to assist you with your budgeting goals. 

Use Opportunities to Save Overseas

There are many ways you can save while you are serving on a deployment, and the process of using these opportunities begins before you leave. Simple steps such as cancelling your Netflix account, gym membership and cellphone service can save you a lot of money while you are away. Be sure to unplug appliances, such as your refrigerator, to dramatically reduce your electric bill — or consider renting out your home to earn extra money.

Once you deploy, it is also a great idea to invest in the Savings Deposit Program (SDP), which allows you to deposit up to $10,000 once you have been deployed for 30 days. This program, sponsored by the Department of Defense, offers a 10-percent return and continues to collect interest for up to 120 days after your deployment ends. Additionally, you can keep your SDP going for as long as 36 months, provided you are deployed for at least a day per month. 

Know Your Legal Deployment Rights

Before you deploy, familiarize yourself with your rights under the Service Members Civil Relief Act (SCRA). This law protects service members called to active duty from adverse civil action in areas regarding financial management. Under this law, you are protected from eviction if your rent is under $1,200 per month. You can also suspend auto leases as well as car and health-insurance payments. Additionally, you may receive reduced rates on credit card and mortgage payments, and are protected from foreclosure. Even if your debt was accrued prior to your active duty, the SCRA places a six-percent per year interest rate cap on any of your existing debt during your active duty service. To invoke your rights under this law, you may obtain proof of your Title 10 active-duty status through the SCRA website. 

Maintain Open Communication With Family Members

Discussing your bills and creating a sensible budget with your spouse before leaving will give you a better understanding of your family’s financial situation. Before you deploy, it is also a good idea to obtain military legal assistance in the event your spouse will need to make purchases on your behalf while you are away. Keeping an honest and open line of communication about your spending with your spouse will give you both a realistic idea of where you are financially and allow you to plan accordingly.

Deploying overseas can be a stressful time; however, by following these tips, you can eliminate financial hardship from your list of concerns. Those who face an upcoming deployment can have financial peace of mind as they bravely serve their country.

About the Author: Dawn Johnson is a contributing writer and has served two deployments in Afghanistan. 

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