by Active Retirements Team on January 21, 2009
Plan your retirement now.
How do you see your retirement phase? Do you wish to retire early? Do you intend to travel a lot? You may have always wished to relocate after retirement. Are there any new hobbies you wish to take up? Is there a part-time job you would like to do for fun? Or do you plan to just relax and spend your days at a club in the country or with a fishing rod?
The answers to the above questions are important, as they will shape your retirement plan. Whatever you wish for, remember you need to provide adequately for retirement. For that, you have to start saving right away. If you plan to retire early, you need to save a lot more before the day arrives..
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by Active Retirements Team on January 21, 2009
There are a lot of variables to consider when planning for your retirement. It is one of the most important things you will ever do and it should be considered very early in life ??” as early as possible. One of the best ways to develop a good plan is to equip yourself with the right planning tools. For example, it is important to know the approximate amount of federal annuity that will be due you upon retirement. How can you determine that information? A federal retirement calculator is just what you need.
It can therefore be an incredibly resourceful tool in the overall planning of your retirement, but remember that it is only an estimate and therefore you should not use the results given to you by this calculator as an exact calculation of your retirement benefits.
You can use a federal retirement calculator to calculate the basic annuity for employees in the FERS, CSRS, or CSRS-offset retirement system including credit for sick leave if applicable, to confirm retirement eligibility, and to calculate survivor benefits.
The federal retirement calculator is not a tool that can be used to estimate all variables of retirement. For example, it would not be helpful in determining life insurance or health insurance during retirement or in calculating the annuity amounts for those who do not work full time. It is best to stay within the perimeters of what the calculator is designed to do.
Other Tools
Besides the federal retirement calculator there are other retirement planning tools that you can take advantage of as well, including the QuickAnswer retirement calculator which helps assess your progress towards retirement, the standard retirement calculator which tells you how much you should save for retirement, the RRSP accumulator which tells the power of compounded investment returns, post retirement calculator which estimates your retirement income, and the RRIP calculator which helps you to build a productive and successful withdrawal strategy.
A few others that estimate useful information that will help you develop a plan for your retirement are the life expectancy calculator and the annuity calculators.
Retirement is one of the most major and important times in anyone’s life, and it is an issue that you should be thinking about early on in your life. The earlier that you can begin to plan and prepare for your retirement the better off you are going to be and whether that means using a federal retirement calculator or other retirement planning tool, the more you can do the better.
by Active Retirements Team on January 21, 2009
Just over half of full-time workers participated in an employer’s retirement plan last year. But where you live could play an important role in the likelihood that you will be offered and participate in a retirement plan.
Employees in the upper Midwest and Northeast had the highest levels of participation in retirement plans in 2007, according to an Employee Benefit Research Institute analysis released today. Wisconsin topped the list with approximately 68 percent of full-time workers preparing for retirement. Workers in the South, West, and Southwest had the lowest participation levels. Florida bottomed out the list with 42 percent of workers partaking in an employer’s plan.
Participation was significantly lower for workers in the private sector. About 42 percent of private-sector employees between ages 21 and 64 engaged in retirement plans in 2007, versus 75 percent in the public sector. Workers from Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha, Wis., and Huntsville-Decatur, Ala., had the highest participation rates in the private sector, while Macon-Warner-Robins-Fort Valley, Ga., Fresno-Madera, Calif., and Los Angles-Long Beach-Riverside, Calif., residents had the lowest. In the public sector, Huntsville-Decatur, Ala., had the highest participation levels and Macon-Warner-Robins-Fort Valley, Ga., again bottomed the list.
Here’s a look at the top states for retirement plan participation.
Full-Time Workers Who Participated in an Employment-Based Retirement Plan in 2007
| 1. Wisconsin |
67.7 percent |
| 2. Iowa |
66.9 percent |
| 3. North Dakota |
65.8 percent |
| 4. Connecticut |
65.0 percent |
| 5. Minnesota |
64.4 percent |
| 6. Indiana |
63.9 percent |
| 7. New Hampshire |
63.7 percent |
| 8. Washington |
63.5 percent |
| 9. Maine |
63.3 percent |
| 10. West Virginia |
63.0 percent |
Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute
by Active Retirements Team on January 21, 2009
Do you know the best way to financial freedom and wealth? It may be a simpler answer than you had anticipated. The steps to good finances is targeted management of your personal finance. Getting your personal finances in order will allow you to gain total control over where your money is going.
There are a range of topics covered under personal finance. Personal finance includes focuses like budgeting, retirement, savings and debt management. Personal finance covers everything involving your money, from making it to spending it.
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by Active Retirements Team on January 21, 2009
People always get scared out of their minds when someone mentions early retirement planning. Early retirement planning is not something you do with your regular 9 to 5 job. Early retirement planning is a mindset that allows you to recognize that the only people that save their whole working lives for retirement are the ones who wind up broke and angry when they reach their mid to late 60’s.
To plan for early retirement you have to think beyond the regular full time job that you have and even beyond the 401K you are working hard to build. There are other avenues of saving for your future so that you can enjoy retirement at an early age.
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