How To Start Saving for Retirement

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easy retirement plan

If you’ve done some research on retirement savings, you know that there are a lot of options out there and a lot of various factors to worry about and navigate correctly. But, the reality is that if you haven’t really started saving for retirement yet, then every one of those ifs, ands, buts, and maybes apply to people with a lot more retirement savings than you have. Stop reading. Get started now. When To Start Saving for Retirement There is an old saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Retirement savings works the same way. The best time to start saving for retirement is the day you started earning a paycheck. The next best time is now. If you read up on retirement planning strategies and investing for retirement, you may develop paralysis about your retirement savings plan. This delay is way more costly than any “retirement planning mistake” you might make. So, stop researching. Start Saving for Retirement Now Plan If your employer offers a 401(k) plan, then we are done talking. Walk down to human resources, or better yet, go on the company website and fill …

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Did He Really Recommend Stock Picks?

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“He recommended Amazon and Apple. What is he recommending now?” “He predicted the market crash of 2007. Here’s what he says now.” And so on. You may have seen ad headlines just like the ones above recently. The specifics change, but the idea is always the same. Here is a person who predicted a certain event, or recommended certain stocks at the perfect time, and if you would have followed that advice, you would have made a ton of money. That being the case, shouldn’t your find out what they are recommending or predicting now? Did He Really Predict Stock Market Moves? If you doubt that these people made these recommendations, or predictions, I admire your skepticism. However, these ads and their subjects can often back up these statements with records showing that they did, indeed, predict or recommend the perfect stock moves at the perfect time. So, should you run out and give them your money and subscribe to their newsletters? To answer that question, let’s backup for a second. There is a scam whereby a company claims to be able to predict the winners in certain sporting events so you can bet on them and make money fast. …

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June Jobs and Mid-Year Economy Review

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Monitoring the economy is tricky business. The monthly reports that we get from the government require gathering reams of data over hundreds of hours, and all manner of processing to get us a simple sounding number like, “The U.S. economy added 287,000 new jobs.” Even then, those numbers are routinely readjusted up or down later as more data comes in. The May employment numbers were enough to stop a Fed rate hike in its tracks. Are the new June numbers good enough to put an interest rate increase back on track? June Employment and the Fed Employment numbers are very important to the Fed. A tightening labor market often is visible before any actual signs of inflation. The theory is that lower unemployment forces businesses to offer higher wages in order to attract and retain workers, which will eventually lead them to raise prices in order to cover higher costs. So, if employment jumps too fast, too far, it might be time to take a look at a rate hike. The increasing transparency and ability to buy goods online has shaken this up a bit, however. Just because Macy’s raises prices on something doesn’t mean that you have to pay …

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What Does Brexit Mean for America?

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Gah! Brexit! Run for the hills! Wait. Wait. If you live in England, this might be kind of a big deal. I’m not 100% sure. However, if you live in America, it’s time to calm down. How Does Brexit Affect America? I’m on vacation, so I’m going to keep this brief, but I know a lot of people are worried about the vote on the Brexit, and what that might mean for the economy and the stock market, and so on. Let’s start at the beginning. The markets hate instability. They hate not knowing what is going to happen. The POTENTIAL exit of England from the European Union is both unstable, and something that no one really knows what will happen. After all, Britain, if it actually goes through with it, will be the first country to ever leave the European Union, or EU. That is why you got a super plunge in the American stock market on Friday. What happens next with the Brexit? Well, no one is actually sure. That’s what unprecedented means. However, there are some things we do know. England, while politically and strategically, very important to America, is actually very small from an economic point …

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Real Estate Investor Seeks Trainee Signs

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Lately, around here, there are a lot of those really cheap signs like you use for garage sales saying, “Real Estate Investor Seeks Trainee.” Sometimes, there is a dollar figure mentioned like $125K per year, or something like that. As you can probably imagine, this is a scam. Making Money in Real Estate Signs Let’s start with the obvious. Do you really think it is hard to find people to work in training programs that pay $125,000 per year? I mean, so hard that you would have to resort to placing out dozens, or even hundreds, of cheapo signs by busy intersections. It’s true that the economy is recovering a little bit, but it isn’t like there aren’t people willing to work for six-figures. Anytime you see signs like this advertising anything other than a yard sale, estate sale, or maybe a car for sale, you can be pretty sure it isn’t a legitimate business opportunity of any kind. There are literally hundreds of job websites, message boards, and real estate forums, not to mention Craigslist, and local electronic bulletin boards where someone who really did need some form of real estate business trainee could find one. There is never …

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Microsoft’s LinkedIn Mistake

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There is an interesting post over at Mashable about the failure of Tumblr to make any progress in righting the ship at Yahoo. The author makes the argument that Yahoo, and Marissa Meyer, somehow “derailed” Tumblr, when the reality is that Tumblr was a money burning machine about to go bankrupt without yet another infusion of financing when Yahoo rode to the “rescue” with a billion dollar buyout offer. Most analysts expect Yahoo to write off every single dollar related to the acquisition. In other words, it was a billion dollar waste of money. Microsoft’s $26 Billion Blunder This brings us to this week’s stunning blunder by Microsoft. The company announced that it would pay $26 billion to acquire LinkedIn. LinkedIn, like Tumblr, does not make a profit, though it isn’t teetering on the verge of shutdown. LinkedIn, like Tumblr, has a very specific user base that has peaked. The company reported a $66 million loss for last quarter, and a loss of $166 million for 2015. In other words, Microsoft just paid billions of dollars for a company that will cost it hundreds of millions of dollars. The truly bizarre part of this acquisition is that Microsoft’s current CEO, came on …

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Save For Retirement Not Early

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retirement on the beach

Almost every article on saving for retirement makes a huge deal out of starting early. “Look! You if you start saving when you are 20 and then quit when you are 30, you’ll have more than if you start and 40 and save util you are 65.” That’s great. But, it doesn’t much help if you aren’t 20 anymore, now does it? Saving For Retirement Now Ricky Gervais once wrote an article in which he declared, It’s never too late, but do it now. He was talking about following your dreams or working toward your life goals, but the advice applies very well to retirement savings and planning as well. The reality is that you can’t go back into the past and save more for retirement. Your only option is to start saving and investing for retirement now. Or, as another saying puts it, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Whether you are 20 or 50, saving for retirement is the same. Put as much money as you can handle within your budget into a 401k plan. That’s it. That’s all it really takes. If you are 50 and …

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June Rate Hike Is Off

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fed interest rates caution

Last week, the April inflation numbers came in a little bit high. At the time, I (and several other analysts) pointed out that the higher number was almost all due to a long coming recovery in fuel prices, and that even with that higher number, inflation was nowhere near being a real issue. However, the Fed members went running to just about any media outlet that would listen telling everyone that those shaky numbers were the reason the Fed was very likely to raise interest rates in June. I wrote at the time, that it seems like this Federal Reserve is more interested in showing that they are inflation hawks than they are interested in following the actual data. The Federal Reserve has two official mandates, to keep inflation in check, and to keep employment as close to full employment as possible. This begs the question of why, exactly, the Fed seems so keen on raising rates right away. Employment is doing better, but nowhere near full, and wage growth is stagnant, so no issues there. The twelve month inflation rate, even with April’s increase, is just 1.1 percent, well short of the Fed’s supposed 2.0 percent inflation target. A …

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There is a catch…

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More coming later today, but a quick note this morning: A MarketWatch article talks about “the most accurate” market timing system but notes that while it is accurate over the long-term, it has “trailed the market for the last decade.” So, long does it take to become inaccurate?