Does Retirement Matters to you ? - Odunze Reginald C

Image credited to Telegraph

The origin of pension’s dates back to ancient time, the Holy Bible in the book of Numbers 8 vs. 25, stated “but at the age of fifty, they must retire from the regular service and work no longer” and according to King James version, it states” And from the age of fifty years they shall ceased waiting upon the service thereof and shall serve no more”

Why then do people view retirement as a wreck, the reason is that they have not save enough to cater for retirement during old age. There is a strong connection between planning, enough pension pot or enough retirement savings account balance and happy retirement.

Tol stoy stated that “the most unexpected thing that happens to us is old age” why then do Stoy view old age as the most unexpected thing?  His views are similar to others but he was more vocal about it,

Under normal condition, old age should have been expected but people do not know that time flies and that is why old age becomes unexpected. And Kiyosaki stated that “ Boldness has genius , power and magic in it , people who play it safe lose out on the best education in the world and waste a lot of precious time” Time  is the most valuable assets especially as you get older.

Therefore as time is not our friend it behooves on us to plan effectively for our lives and future right from the young age and so be passionate about it.

One you should be able to have a passion and according to Kiyosaki, he noted “that without passion, the best business, the best plan and the best people will not become successful.”

Managing old age and retirement has everything to do with passion, as passion is the driving force in all aspects of life, all dies if there is no passion.

One thing is to have desire and another is to have the ability but the greatest is to have passion, passion with imagination can drive you at a rate you will definitely marvel as Albert Einstein noted that “imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Therefore, one of the key to managing old age is that of positive imagination that all be well no matter the situation, you will definitely find yourself in that situation. And as Nicholas Murray Butler noted that “optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress”

Everything is lost without imagination, imagination is the driving force, it is the key to success and all happens due to imagination.

Odunze Reginald is the Lead Consultant, Chareg Consulting, a management and marketing  consultant, a social media and social marketing consultant , you can visit our twitter anchor @regydunze, find us on Facebook@ Reginald odunze and reginaldodunze.com, at google+@ReginaldOdunze and at Linkedin@reginald odunze.

Why Social Security is more crucial than ever for your retirement- By Dan Kadlec

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Social Security, the long-embattled entitlement that lifts 15 million seniors out of poverty and is the sole source of income for nearly one in four recipients, turns 80 on Aug. 14. Its future remains tenuous as ever. Yet the program has never served a more vital and widespread need.

Social Security isn’t just a lifeline for the less advantaged; it’s an increasingly rare source of guaranteed lifetime income for just about everyone. Four decades ago, traditional private pensions played much of that role by providing lifetime monthly payments to millions of retired Americans, giving them the ability to live well even if they had little savings. Today, most workers have a 401(k) plan and will have to rely on their own ability to draw down assets at a rate that won’t bankrupt them before they die.
That’s a tall order. Most folks have little ability to properly manage their life savings. Common strategies like the 4% withdrawal rule, while helpful, are oversimplified and do not always work . Efforts are under way to help savers seamlessly and inexpensively convert their nest eggs to a guaranteed lifetime income source. But such policy change takes years, so for many seniors Social Security will stand alone as a reliable means to cover inflation-adjusted fixed living costs until the day they pass.
Social Security benefits have been in peril since even before the first check was cut to Ida May Fuller on Jan. 31, 1940. When the program was enacted in 1935, during the first presidential term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, critics charged it was redistributionist and should be ended. Those arguments failed to stop the program, but today many see the entitlement as unaffordable. Indeed, the Social Security trust fund is on track to run dry in 2034 . At that time, the program would be able to meet only 79% of scheduled benefits; over the following 55 years, payouts would decline to just 73% of benefits.
And yet somehow the program survives. Today the Social Security Administration collects payroll taxes from 210 million workers. It pays out more than $800 billion in annual benefits to 60 million retired and disabled beneficiaries. Despite the fiscal problems, the largest percentage of American workers in 15 years say that Social Security benefits will be a major source of their retirement income.
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That’s partly due to many Americans not saving enough. More than half of U.S. adults have not taken any steps to address the risk of outliving their savings, according to the Northwestern Mutual 2015 Planning and Progress study . A third believe there is at least a 50% chance they will outlive their savings, while 12% say they are certain their savings will run out.
Faith in Social Security as a backstop, however, is strongest among Americans 50 and older. More than 80% of those ages 20 to 49 are concerned the program will not be there for them, according to a study from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. Reflecting the shift away from traditional pensions, 68% in the study say their 401(k) or IRA will be a significant source of retirement income.
Only now is this shifting income source beginning to be felt on a broad scale. In 1982, 44% of retiree income came from traditional pensions and Social Security, Brookings Institution found . By 2009 that figure had barely changed, rising to 46%. This is because traditional pensions have been phased out slowly and millions of today’s retirees still receive them. But we’ve reached an inflection point —from here on, new retirees will receive increasingly less of a pension benefit. This will make Social Security an ever-larger component of the typical senior’s retirement income.

Even retirees with considerable savings depend to a surprising degree on this program. Payouts from Social Security and pensions account for 35% of income for the wealthiest seniors, according to Brookings researchers. The rest comes from savings withdrawals. If wealthier retirees do not manage their drawdowns well—and as traditional pensions fade away—Social Security will become a vital resource for them, as it is now and long has been for much of America.
Culled from Money.com:

Your Parents has little or less to ensure your happy Retirement-Odunze Reginald

Image credited to pmnewsnigeria

According to recent research, the latest life expectancy figures reveal that a 6o year old pensioners today are expected to live off their pension for an average of 15 years- this is nearly a quarter of their whole life. According to Robert Kiyosaki (1999) in his book ‘Cash flow quadrant, the Rich dad guide to financial freedom’ he noted that people invest for two basic reasons,

      

         To save for retirement

        To make lot of money

The first one underscores the importance of pension schemes, it all means that you are at the top of your game in all cases pertaining  to pensions.

Yours parents or family members have little or nothing to offer, so the earlier you start working out plan , measures, schemes to ensure your happy retirement, the better for you.

Experience has shown that nearly most businesses owned both the rich and the poor all fizzled out following the death of the bread winner or the owner of the business.

According to research also most family members are also enmeshed in family squabbles over who takes over the estates of the deceased especially if he dies interstate. So what happens if the deceased do not bequeath anything to a family member?  Will they decide not to bury the deceased, what about if the deceased willed all his or assets to charity. What will the family members do?  And even when the family member that dies has no will, there is that squabble between the relations  and the wife and children of the deceased, as there is unwritten maxim in Africa that the relations of the deceased has been before the coming of the wife and children of the deceased.

This calls for self awakening and a deliberate programme and strategies in ensuring your own successful retirement devoid of family input.

There are steps to achieving that and according to Wall Street cheat sheet “TCRS offers the following three strategic steps for achieving retirement readiness and success:

1. Save for retirement. Start saving as early as possible — and as much as possible to maximize potential compounding of investments. Save consistently over time. Avoid taking loans and early withdrawals from retirement accounts as they can severely inhibit the growth of long-term retirement savings.
2. Calculate retirement savings needs, develop a retirement strategy, and write it down. In creating a plan, consider lifestyle, living expenses, healthcare needs, government benefits, and other factors, as well as a backup plan in case retirement comes early due to an unforeseen circumstance.
3. Get educated about retirement investing. Whether relying on the expertise of professional advisers or taking a more do-it-yourself approach, gain the knowledge to ask questions and make informed decisions. Seek assistance from a professional financial adviser, if needed.” (Wall street cheat sheet)

What we are trying to say is that every human being should endeavor to put in place measures towards achieving a successful retirement during old age and not to look upon family estates as a means to survival.

Putting a hope on family estates and parents’ retirement pot portrays a lack of confidence among family members and in most extreme cases built up of hatred, murder, kidnap and other vices that the love for money can aggravate.

You can also be excluded from the will, even it exits based on family intrigues, power play, politics and insider dealings, where one unscrupulous member may have connived with the lawyer to doctor the will to his own advantage remember, money has its own issues, and tendencies that seems to play when it is a huge amount. And according to Kiyosaki “the world of money is filled with con men and charlatans”

How then do you deal con men and charlatans, there are no defined rules, the basic rule is to rely on your own.

NB : Comments and suggestions are highly welcome as no man is reservoir of knowledge.

Odunze Reginald is the Lead Consultant, Chareg Consulting, a marketing and management consultant , a social media consultant and social marketing consultant , you can visit our twitter anchor @regydunze, find us on Facebook @ Reginald odunze and reginaldodunze.com, at google+ @ Reginald Odunze and at Linkedin@reginald odunze.