What Every Baby Boomer Needs to Know About Retirement Today: The “New Normal”

Imagine living in a world of “what ifs.” What if I married someone different? What if I didn’t have kids? What if I did have kids? What if I was raised in a different country? What if I went to college in a different city? You can ask yourself these questions all day. But, at the end of the day, they are just “what if” questions to which you will never truly have an answer.

There is, however, one “what if” question to which you can control the answer. This is perhaps the of the most important “what if” questions anyone who is retiring will ask themselves…

What if I don’t have the income I need in retirement

to last the rest of my family’s and my life?

This is the #1 concern retirees face: running out of money in retirement, and it’s an understandable fear. When you are used to working and getting that guaranteed paycheck, it may be difficult let go of that, regardless of how much money you’ve saved.

Well, what if you could take all of that money you’ve saved and turn it into a guaranteed paycheck? What if you could live out your retirement years never having to worry about receiving a guaranteed income stream month in and month out?

Keep reading… We’ll get there…

4 Retirement Rules You Need to Stop Believing

When it comes time to retire, there are a lot of important decisions to make. These decisions can be hard to make with so many “rules” that seem to change on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, that is the world in which we live. Things are constantly evolving and changing, and the same is true when it comes to retirement. What was once true for your parents may not be true for you.

For example, it is more likely than not that you will not be retiring with a traditional pension. The days of being able to count on income from a pension are long gone, as employers today rarely provide pensions to their employees. While there are ways today to replace the loss of a pension, the fact of the matter is you can’t count on a pension from your employer like your parents could. Therefore, the rules have changed and you have to work around it.

Here are 4 more rules you need to STOP following when planning for retirement today:

Florida Can Be One of the Best States to Own an Annuity

I’m not just saying that because I live in Florida and it happens to be one of my favorite states. Florida really can be one of the best states to own an annuity! It is one of the few states where annuities can help provide protection from lawsuits and creditors. Florida has certain laws that help protect your annuities and life insurance assets. Because of this, many people in Florida place their assets inside of annuities and/or life insurance, because of the asset protection they can provide.

To take asset protection in Florida even a step further, not only is there no state income tax, but also if you pay your house off in full it is better protected under Florida law. Once your house is paid off, you can choose to put your non-qualified assets into annuities and/or life insurance, thus making it so that everything is better protected!

You see, Florida provides much more than just sunshine and waves!

Banks Vs. Insurance Companies

Whether you’ve moved to a new house, new city, new state, or even new country, odds are you’ve experienced what comes along with a major move. As you know, one of the most important factors in any move is finding the best neighborhood, right? “Best” can mean anything from the safest to the most affordable to the most convenient or all of the above.

Bottom line is, you want the best. Who doesn’t, especially when it comes to a decision that big? The comparison of different neighborhoods is much like the comparison between banks and insurance companies. Just like you want to find the best place for you to live, you need to find the best place for your money to live as well.

There are many major differences you may want to consider before trusting your life savings to one. Among these major differences, and perhaps the most important, is what happens to the investors/depositors if a bank or insurance company fails.

Let’s take a look.

Jon Had No Clue He Was Paying 4.85% in Annual Fees…

Webster.com defines the word “variable” as: “able or likely to change or be changed; not always the same; subject to variation or changes; fickle, inconstant.” That sounds like a pretty accurate description of the stock market, doesn’t it? There is a reason the variable annuity has its name, and that’s because it can be just about as unpredictable and dangerous as the stock market. This is especially true for people heading into retirement (or already in retirement).

I think variable annuities can work well for some people. However, retirees often don’t fit into that category for the simple fact that retirees need consistent and reliable income, which variable annuities cannot provide.

To give you a “real life” example of a variable annuity working against someone, I want to share with you a story of a guy I met in 2003. To protect his privacy, I am going to call him “Jon.”

When Jon came to see me, he had a $600k variable annuity that he had purchased on January 1, 2004. At the time, Jon thought he was only paying 2.4% in annual fees for his variable annuity. Jon is actually a very bright man, but he didn’t ask all of the questions he was supposed to ask before purchasing his variable annuity…

One of The Best Tools for Effectively Regulating Cash Flow

How you regulate your cash flow can make the difference between financial success and financial failure. Thanks to software developer Don Blanton, we have the Personal Economic Flow Model to give us a visual picture of how your money flows.

If you are able to visualize your money from perhaps a different perspective than you have ever seen before, it may help you to increase the overall efficiency of how you manage your cash flow.

To begin, you have a lifetime wealth and income potential. Everyone does. It’s the total amount of money that will pass through your hands during your working years. It is a large but finite amount. The primary source of capital is probably the earnings from your occupation.

You may also have other sources – an inheritance, for example. We usually receive our money from our employer on a weekly or monthly basis. For some, the amount fluctuates from pay period to pay period. For others, it is a fixed amount.

Now imagine that money in a large tank that is 

being fed by your paychecks week in and week out.

At the bottom of the tank is outflow pipe. Fortunately, for you, there is a regulator valve that you can control. You can choose to divert some of your lifetime capital into savings and investments.

New Study Reveals Insight Into Americans’ View on Retirement

Franklin Templeton Investments conducted a new 2015 survey called the “Retirement Income Strategies and Expectations (RISE) Survey,” and I recently read an interesting article on Yahoofinance.com that discusses the survey’s findings.¹

This survey included 2,002 Americans, and Franklin Templeton Investments says their “annual survey reveals significant insights about the views, expectations and income strategies people have regarding retirement.”²  The company also said this survey has taught them “more about individual behaviors and the impact working with an advisor has on helping people prepare for what’s next.”²

I found this survey very interesting, so I wanted to share my opinion on some of its findings.

One of The Last Remaining Legal Tax Shelters

One of the few remaining legal and legitimate tax shelters left is Cash Value Life Insurance. There is a minimum one can pay for a given amount of insurance coverage for a specific age. Who determines that? The insurance company, naturally.

They will tell you how much you must pay for indemnity on which they bear risk. Insurance companies and their actuaries calculate the least amount of premium they can charge and still make a profit.

But is there a maximum you can put into a cash value life insurance policy?

Yes. The government will tell you the maximum you can put into it. Why? Because of the tax advantages life insurance provides. Essentially, the government has decided the upper limit of tax-advantaged growth they will allow you to have.

That tells me that it must be a good thing, if the government regulates it. If you buy more life insurance than the limit set by the government, it becomes what is called a Modified Endowment Contract (MEC) and is no longer tax advantaged.

2 Concepts That Give us a New Way to Look at how Money Works

Albert Einstein was right to call compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. Like the atom, it can accomplish powerful things. Two things are true about compound interest: It works best:

  1. Over time, and
  2. If you leave it alone.

The concept of the interest earning interest on interest earning interest is the simple reason why the rich get richer. It’s an immutable law of finance.

If you stop and think about it, whether we know it or not, we finance everything we buy. “But wait a minute,” you say, “I pay cash for everything I own.” Really? The cash you pay could be earning interest if you had kept it, couldn’t it?

So, by forfeiting that potential interest, you essentially financed it, right? If you paid cash, you have to make payments to yourself to get back to where you were before you made the purchase.

Acting as Your own Bank

The Infinite Banking Concept ® is a concept that is rapidly growing in popularity among those whose goal is to create wealth for themselves, rather than create more wealth for the lending institutions. The concept was developed by Nelson Nash, who is also the author of Becoming Your Own Banker.

3 Huge Problems Retirees Are Facing Today

With every generation and decade comes a new problem, right? Unfortunately, that is the world in which we live. The good news is, there are solutions to these problems. Let’s first quickly address some of the biggest problems retirees may face today…

1) Lack of pension

Over the past several years, the use of traditional pensions in retirement keeps getting lower and lower. In today’s economy, fewer employers are offering pensions to their employees. If you’re retired or retiring soon, it is likely you don’t have a pension either. You might not have the luxury your parents had when they retired. Being able to comfortably retire knowing you have permanent, reliable income from a pension is not really an option today.

Because of this shift in retirement planning, people are worried about not having a predictable and reliable source of income. People retiring want to ensure that their living expenses are covered once they retire. Once upon a time, a pension offered them this comfort and reassurance. Another sad truth is that, for many people retiring, Social Security will not be nearly enough to cover everything they need it to cover.

What does this mean for you?

Well, here’s something interesting… Pensions weren’t much of a necessity back in the 80’s and 90’s. From 1982-2000, the S&P was up 1000% and the NASDAQ was up over 2000%! That’s crazy, right? People who were retiring during that time weren’t very concerned about pensions. It didn’t matter as much if they did or did not have one going into retirement. Why would it matter, when they were making stock market returns that were in the double digits?

What’s the problem with that mentality? It all boils down to the good old saying, “what goes up, must come down.” I hate to be cliché, but it’s true. Just look at what happened in the stock market after those booming years. Nobody knows what the stock market will do. It is NEVER a guaranteed thing, and do you really want to subject your livelihood to the erraticism of the stock market? Do you want the stock market to be the one determining how you live your life in retirement? No, YOU want to be the one determining that. You want to be certain that your living expenses are covered no matter what.

Well, you can do that without the use of a traditional pension. But let’s first touch on the other two problems you may be facing in retirement.

2) Running out of money

This problem ties in with the previous problem, the lack of a pension. People retired or soon to retire are very concerned that they may run out of money in retirement. They are worried that what they have saved during their working years isn’t enough to sufficiently get them through retirement, worry-free.

People want security in retirement, and rightfully so. They want an income that is guaranteed to always be there no matter what happens in the stock market. Who wouldn’t want that? Because of this fear people have, they are sometimes forced to work longer than they had originally intended, thus putting off their retirement.

For others, they are forced to monitor every last dime they spend in retirement to ensure they don’t run out. That’s no way to retire! Isn’t retirement supposd to be about relaxation and visiting your grandchildren? It may seem like a fantasy to some, but it’s a reality for many (the ones who take the right approach to retirement).

3) Inflation

This problem ties in with the first and second one we just discussed. Inflation is a huge problem people are facing in retirement. People are worried that their retirement income won’t be able to keep up with the rising costs.

Well, what if I told you there is something out there that can solve ALL three of these problems and more? Moreover, many people would argue that this product is better than the traditional pension.

It’s like a modern-day pension, designed to keep up with modern-day problems.

What is the name of this product? A fixed indexed annuity. I know you’ve read or have been told about it before. What you may not have been told is exactly how to use this in your overall retirement plan. Another thing you might not have been told is that the fixed indexed annuity isn’t for everyone! But, if it does work for you and your situation, it could quite possibly be the best thing to ever happen to you.

I’ve figured out a strategy to use the fixed indexed annuity, sometimes coupled with something else, to give you the MOST income you can possibly receive with what you’ve saved over the years.

Let’s have a quick chat to see if this is even something worth exploring for you. If not, it’s no biggie and we can move on. If it is, then I’ll be happy to show you the details of the plan. Just give me a call at 1-352-561-4571. You can also schedule yourself on my calendar, right on this page. Just look to the right, find the button that says “schedule strategy session,” and you’ll be on my schedule in no more than 30 seconds!