Personal Finance News Tuesday 10/16

Phil's Personal Finance Tip of the Day:

Five Financial Moves Not to Make at Fifty
By Liz Davidson | Forbes

Liz Davidson is CEO of Financial Finesse, the leading provider of unbiased financial education for employers nationwide, delivered by on-staff Certified Financial Planner™ professionals. For additional financial tips and insights, follow Financial Finesse on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Turning fifty used to be a milestone for retirement—you could plan to sock away much more money. That reality has changed dramatically. It is no longer true that:

• You’ll be in your peak earning years at age 50. Baby boomers may not enjoy their fifties as their top wage earning years after all with the fiscal crisis and the recession hitting right at the same time.
• Your kids will be out of the house. With 15.8 million adult children currently living with their parents, and 59% of Baby Boomers providing financial support to adult children who are no longer in school, Baby Boomers are not experiencing an empty nest.
• Your wealth will be higher than it was a decade ago. The “lost decade” of the 2000s continues, with $19.2 trillion of household wealth lost according to the U.S. Treasury.
• You can count on your company pension. Even if you have a pension in place, it doesn’t mean it will be there forever. Ford Motor Company wants to get out of the pension business altogether. They announced earlier this year that they were giving retired workers a choice to either keep their pension or take a lump sum payout. Ford was the first major company to make an offer like this—other companies may follow suit or change payout options altogether.
• You can count on Social Security. Social Security for those under age 55 is up in the air. In order to make sure Social Security is funded for everyone, we could see means testing or pushing out the minimum Social Security ages even further.
• Your expenses will decrease in retirement. Health care expenditures have increased over tenfold since 1980 to $2.6 trillion dollars. Many companies have stopped offering retiree medical benefits, and even discontinued retiree medical benefits for workers who were already retired. This trend of cutting back on retiree medical benefits is even spreading to cash-strapped state governments like Illinois.

Times have certainly changed. In today’s economic environment, once you pass the milestone of your fiftieth birthday, you have to be very careful not to make financial mistakes that you can’t correct. There are a few seemingly benign financial and lifestyle moves that can actually derail your retirement plans – watch out for these:

To read the entire article from Liz Davidson | Forbes:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/five-financial-moves-not-fifty-101822239.html

Inspirational Quotes@Inspire_Us from Twitter:
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance. -Anonymous