Are you prepared for retirement Poll

Today I'd like to  stare a retirement poll.  Everyone is welcome to participate either through a comment here on the blog
or with a telephone vote #614-264-3864 
or an email financial-services@live.com
I will compile the comments and votes and share them in a blog post

When It Comes To Being Ready For Retirement I feel that I am...
A) Right on Track
B)  I was right on track until 2008-2009
C) May fall short on my income needs
D) Have no idea where to start or who to turn to

Knowing where you are going to  finish at the end of the race requires knowing where you are at the start of the race. Today is the Start of your Retirement Race.  Some of you still have an ultra marathon left, some have a regular marathon left, some have a 5K  race and some of you  only have a 100 meter dash left. Wherever you are in the race today everyone can  use some help or at least a review.

If you were to  retire today how much lifetime income would you  be able to guarantee?

How to Maximize your Social Security Check.

Did  you know that the SS administration prohibits their employees from helping a retiring worker maximize their SS monthly income.  I would think that that would be part of their job.

Maximizing income is a complicated process . It considers  expected life expectancy , Marital status, Spouses SS income status,  spouse age, your age now, age at expected retirement, expected income following retirement excluding SS income, your health
You can  either maximize income for now or you can solve for maximum lifetime income. The difference in strategy can result in lifetime income differences of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. A number of legal strategies exist.
 visit this website to learn more, register or request additional information or register for a personal SS analysis. 
http://thefinancialhq.com/polarisfinancial

More news from Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM)

 More neat Facts for  LIAM

Over 75,000,000 families in the US rely on Life insurance for family protection
Are you inside that Circle of Protection or outside? If not inside Why not???

US Life Insurance Companies pay out $1.5 Billion every day in benefits!!
That's a close  second to  Social Security which pays out $1.9 Billion per day.

At least with Life insurance we know there are the assets to back up the full value of their future obligations.
Life Insurers have to have  over $100 in assets for each $100 in obligations
The banks FDIC Reserve have less than $5-10 in reserves for every $100 in insured Deposits!
The Federal Government has well over $17 Trillion in Deficit to guarantee or let me say back  up their obligations.

In the past 13 years almost 500 banks have gone bankrupt in the USA
In that same time only a handful of Insurance companies have needed to be taken over.

How safe are Moneymarket Funds?

The Washington Post recently published some interesting comments quoted from Mary Shapiro who just happens to be the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Many people park funds in these Moneymarket accounts believing that they are both Safe and Liquid.
Just how Safe are they?
Remember What happened in 2008 when Primary Reserve Fund share prices fell below $1.00
you could Google it or search newspaper archives. Students of history suggest that History repeats itself

Mary was quoted as saying - investors "have been given a false sense of security"
"Funds remain vulnerable to the reality that a single moneymarket fund fund breaking the buck could trigger a broad and destabilizing run"
She went on to say that in a crunch investors may face limits on withdrawals

I am not telling anyone to buy or not to buy these products.
I just found the comments by Mary to be extremely interesting and maybe even a little bit unsettling!
What do you think??

There are financial products available that have no market risk. There are other financial products that include various amounts of market risk. Understand what you are buying! Everyone needs to understand the diference between what I like to call Safe Money and Risk Money. For most people there needs to be a combination of both! What is your comfort level between the two?

I believe it was Wil Rogers the intellectual cowboy who once said "I'm more concerned with the return of my money, than the return on my money"

Seniors and SS benefits before retirement age 65

Seniors and SS benefits before retirement age 65

A recent survey of over 600 seniors shows that many people are planning on accessing their Social security benefits before age 65 to cover routine living expenses, healthcare, mortgages and utilities. This is a serious concern to me because it will reduce the SS benefits paid for the life of the senior. Tapping into SS benefits significantly reduces the amount you receive every month for life. It should only be utilized as a LAST RESORT in an Emergency situation. Several other measures should be evaluated before this drastic action is taken. Several steps we can evaluate include a HUD HECM Reverse Mortgage which improves cash flow by stopping mortgage payments as long as you and or your spouse are able to remain in your home. Another step is to review your existing life insurance policies, or increase income from your current assets.

If your assets are not currently growing by 6-7.2% per year you may be positioning your assets unwisely. If none of your assets are positioned to guarantee you a lifetime income stream you cannot outlive I Must ask Why not?? If you have lost money in the market turbulence of 2008 Let me ask why put up with that? None of the assets I manage for my clients have lost money this year! Let me repeat that NONE of my clients assets under management have suffered a market loss of value!

We can help clients with all of these things. How can we help you?
financial-services@live.com
polarisfinancialservices@gmail.com