Retirement Planning By Age

Yahoo! Finance had an excellent article by Bankrate.com titled Life Stages Interactive , which shares retirement planning and considerations for different age groups. I like this article, because retirement planning and saving does different by age group and also depends how much has been done at earlier ages.

The age groups covered are: 20-40, 40-55, 55-65, and 65+. Here are some of the key points.

Early Career: 20-40

Start saving young and let compounding work.

Use tax advantaged (401Ks and IRAs) and taxable saving options.

Diversify investments

Mid Career: 40-55

Evaluate one's life, career and saving situation. Make adjustments

Eliminating debt is a priority.

Hire a financial planner.

Save for retirement over college if a choice needs to be made.

Late Career: 55-65

Decide when to retire.

Estimate retirement income and possible sources

Review health care coverage and insurance needs.

Post Career: 65+

Manage income sources and investments.

Whatever one's age, the article, Life Stages Interactive, will have a few good tips to consider. Also, if one plans to retire earlier than 65, simply shift the age range earlier by an appropriate amount.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Emily Roesly

This is not financial or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Free Trial Music Class for Kids

I found the information on free trial music classes at Real Simple website in their article 23 Surprising Things You Can Get for Free.

"Music Together, Music for Aardvarks, Gymboree. These three companies all offer a complimentary peek at exactly what baby music classes entail (hint: plenty of drumbeating, rattle shaking, and scarf throwing). It’s a great way to introduce your little one to the experience before shelling out $135 to $255 for a full term (generally 10 to 12 weeks).

What’s the Catch? Many parents have been taking classes together for a while, so they can be quite chummy. As an observer, you might feel left out and too shy to participate fully.

Find Out More: Music Together, Music for Aardvarks, Gymboree Play & Music - Preview Class."

Music Together and Gymboree have many locations across the country. Music for Aardvarks only has 15 locations.


For more on Crossing Generations , check back every Thursday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Malinde Welte

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Stock Buy List Update - CBG, CTSH

One of the stocks that I have purchased, C. B. Richard Ellis (CBG), has dropped off my buy list. This stock has been down since my purchase on April 20, 2007 at $36.39. My plan, per my stock selling strategy, is to sell into a rally.

However, today CBG rose $4.74 or 14.09% to $38.39. CBG reported excellent earnings after the close yesterday. Excluding one time charges, CBG earned $0.27 per share, an increase of 58.8%versus $0.17 a share for the quarter last year. Given this great news, I will continue let CBG run until it appears to have peaked, which is also part of my selling strategy. At that time, I will sell CBG since it is no longer on my buy list.

In addition, Cognizant Technology (CTSH), which I have not yet purchased, dropped off my buy list. Today, it dropped $4.11 , or 4.65%, to $84.36 on concerns of slowing growth. It was fortunate that I had not purchased it yet:-)

At this time, the only stocks that remain on my buy list are: Coach (COH), Avnet (AVT), which I own, and Albemarle (ALB).

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance , check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Making Bonds Part Of My Portfolio

Gentlemen prefer bonds. - Andrew Mellon

In the past year, I began to include municipal bonds in my investment portfolio. I started doing this for three reasons:

Triple Tax Free

Owning my state's municipal bonds enables me to earn income triple tax free - federal tax free, state tax free and local tax free. As a result, my Adjusted Gross Income is minimized, sometimes enabling me to take advantage of some tax deductions or tax credits.

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) FreeTax free funds often are partly subject to AMT. Buying individual municipal bonds ensures I can choose ones where the income won't be counted toward triggering the AMT.

Guaranteed Income and Guaranteed ReturnsEach bond makes an annual or semi-annual interest payments. Also, I plan to hold each bond to maturity. Therefore, the face value principal will be paid back to me and my yield to maturity is fixed. I won't need to worry about fluctuations in net asset value that happens with municipal bond mutual funds.

Buying municipal bonds is easy to do. I purchase bonds through a discount broker, either TD Ameritrade or Charles Schwab. The transactions can be done via the Internet, but I recommend using a live broker for the first few purchases. (There is no extra charge at this time for using a live broker to trade bonds or CDs.)

When making a bond or CD trade, provide the broker the following information: interest rate, maturity date and face value. The commission charge is built into the interest rate, and thus, one will be quoted the net interest rate. I like to buy insured bonds, which means the bond is guaranteed against default. In addition, I like to keep maturities between 3 to 7 years.

So far I am pleased with my bond portfolio, which I created in the summer of 2006. I was able to lock in 3.4% to 4.6% triple tax free interest rates for 3 to 4 years, and interest rates have dropped since then.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

I Won't Follow This Advice #1

Occasionally, I read commercially published articles which provide advice very different to what I have found successful in my own experience. I will be highlighting these articles periodically in a "I Won't Follow This Advice" segment. These segments represent my opinion and one should consult a professional before making any decisions. Here's segment #1.

The Art of Showing Pure Incompetence at an Unwanted Task from The Wall Street Journal describes how Steve Crawley avoids doing unwanted tasks assigned to him by feigning lack of knowledge in the field. This has kept him from taking on unwanted tasks, such as organizing the company picnic.

While this made for a humorous read, this is advice I will definitely not follow. In my career, I have come across several employees with the skill of feigning incompetence. Here's why it doesn't (shouldn't) work long term:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. While feigning incompetence may work once, do it often enough and people figure out what one is doing. As the article points out, eventually, "everyone sees through the false incompetencies," including one's boss.

The less one can do, the higher the chance of becoming obsolete. In today's world of downsizing and higher productivity, jobs requiring limited capability or limited capacity are being eliminated. Thus, people with the most capacity and capability are being retained. It's important that one's organization recognize the breadth and depth of one's capability and understand the amount of one's capacity.

Being flexible and adaptive is a useful skill in today's fast changing world. The only constant in today's world is change. And change happens at a faster pace every year. Being able to take on more new challenges and tasks is a competitive advantage.

Here are some different approaches one can consider to address the issue of additional and sometimes unwanted tasks.

Be the first the volunteer. In my company, there is always additional work to be done. Since one will need to do one of the projects, it's a good idea to be first and choose the project that is the best match.

Recommend an alternate project. It's OK to stop or not do something. However, be ready with an alternative that is better to do for everyone. Doing so will keep the company, boss and oneself happy.

Recommend an alternate leader. If there is someone more qualified, recommend them as a possibility. However, be sure to be genuine when making such a recommendation :-)

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Clara Natoli

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Update #2 on Promotion Rewards

Previously I wrote about getting freebies for activities I was already planning to do - i.e. double dipping. Here is an update on the status of the rewards for participating.

	Update on Freebies
Promotion Sponsor	Reward	Submitted	Status
TD Ameritrade	IPod Nano for opening and funding a new account with $10,000	February 14, 2007	Received a silver 2GB IPod Nano on April 13, 2007.
Mazda	$25 Visa Gift Card for test driving any Mazda.	March 9, 2007	No information. No test drive was done since a Mazda RX-8 wasn't available.
Chevy	$25 Best Buy Gift Card for for test driving a Chevy HHR.	March 31, 2007	Received Best Buy Gift Card on April 28, 2007. I enjoyed driving a loaded HHR, which is a new SUV crossover design. MSRP was about $23,000.
Bausch & Lomb	Free Bausch & Lomb Wear&Care Program Kit.	April 7, 2007	Received April 28,2007. The kit included 12 contact lens cases and a bottle for rewetting eye drops. Estimated value - $35 to $45.
Ford	$50 Target Gift Card for for test driving a Ford Edge.	April 16, 2007	Received April 30, 2007. I enjoyed driving a loaded Edge, which is a new SUV crossover design. MSRP as about $32,000.

Since these were activities I was already planning to do, the promotion is a nice additional bonus. However, now that I qualified for each promotion, I am tracking them until the bonuses are received :-)

Overall, I am impressed with the timeliness of most of the bonuses. The Mazda promotion is the only one that is still outstanding, but it is still within the 6-8 week time frame.

For more on Ideas You Can Use , check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Back In The Stock Market

On Friday, April 20, 2007, the 153 point rise in the stock market convinced me that the short term market decline was over. A few readers are probably asking, "Duh, what took you so long to figure it out?" In the past, I would have decided much sooner. However, nowadays, I wait a bit longer for a firmer confirmation, since I believe this is a very choppy market. I still believe that a correction will occur this year, and will be watching out for any indication of a downturn.

Using a modified Unemotional Investor Growth stock picking system, the following stocks are on my buy list.

	My Wealth Builder Buy List
Stock	Purchase Date	Number of Shares	Price
Cognizant Technology (CTSH)
Coach (COH)
Avnet (AVT)	4/20/07	200	$38.11
C. B. Richard Ellis (CBG)	4/20/07	200	$36.39
Albemarle (ALB)

My purchases of Avnet (AVT) and C. B. Richard Ellis (CBG) have had mixed results. AVT is higher at $40.90 and CBG is lower at $33.85 at the market close today. The other three stocks are slightly down since April 20, which is causing some concern that the market is not yet on a confirmed uptrend. However, at this time, I will still be looking to add positions in the other three stocks this week.

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Tagged by The Binary Dollar - My Personal Finance Obsessions.

I was tagged by Henry from The Binary Dollar to write about obsessions I might have.

Wiktionary defines obsession as a

1. A compulsive or irrational preoccupation
2. An unhealthy fixation

Based on this definition, I don't think I have any obsessions:-) However, in the spirit of the tag, I will share three personal finance topics on which I spend more time than most people thinking about and trying to understand.

Beating market returns with a simple system. While I understand the rationale of investing in market indices, I want to believe I can find a sustainable system that will beat the market returns long term. I've tried fundamental analysis, technical analysis, Value Line, newsletters, and some elements of CANSLIM.

Currently, I am using a modified version of the Unemotional Investor Growth stock picking system. I have had reasonable success with it over the past 18 months. However, I have only invested a small portion of my savings in the system.

Finding "sure" winners in real estate. Throughout my adult life, I have periodically investigated and invested in rental real estate properties. This is one of those investigation times again. Being a bit of a contrarian, I like the idea of buying when everyone is selling and selling when everybody is buying:-) Real estate is currently shifting from everyone buying, but not everyone is selling yet. I think some good opportunities are to be found over the next 18 months. Since I like to be conservative with real estate, my plan is to only invest if I find a great opportunity.

Intimately knowing tax return details to minimize my tax liabilities. Regular readers know that I still do my taxes by hand so that I intimately understand how I can minimize the tax I owe. I now have three additional reasons for diving into the tax return details. First, I am near the border of dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Doing my taxes by hand has helped me better know what can trigger the AMT. By managing my investment income and itemized deductions better, I will be able to avoid triggering the AMT in the future. Second, with the arrival of our daughter, I have been learning about the many tax deductions, exemptions and credits associated with a child. Finally, 2008 to 2010 has many special elements that will sunset in 2011, unless extended by Congress. Knowing the tax code details will help me take advantage of these elements.

I will now tag Golbguru at Money, Matter, and More Musings, Sun at The Sun's Financial Diary, and Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life.

For more on Strategies and Plans , check back every Monday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Matthew Hull

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - IBN Network Update

As part of the Investors Blog Network (IBN) Festival #4, a portfolio was submitted to the CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Here is the status of the IBN Network Portfolio at the market close on Friday, April 27, 2007:

	Status
Portfolio Opened	March 21, 2007
Stocks Purchased	Avnet (AVT) Bruker BioSciences (BRKR) Intuit (INTU) Apple (AAPL) Millicom International (MICC) Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes (GOL)
Cash Position	16%
Portfolio Value	$1,133,000 (top 9% in ranking)
Gain to Date	13.3% (7.5 % from bonus bucks)

Since there are only two weeks left in the contest, it does not look like this portfolio will be in the top 10 finishers at the contest completion. However, the portfolio does show the IBN Network has made some good stock picks.

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: CNBC.com

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Long Term Stragtegies Doing Well

Here is the latest status for the portfolio I entered in the CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Overall, my long term picks have done surprisingly well in this short term contest.

I entered a portfolio based on the modified Unemotional Investor portfolio which I described in My Stock Picks for Q1 2007. (Disclosure: I closed out this portfolio on March 2, 2007 as described in Q1 Stock Purchases Update - Closed All Positions and I repurchased Avnet (AVT) and C. B. Richard Ellis (CBG) on April 20, 2007.) In addition, I purchased Google (GOOG) and Golden Star Resources (GSS) which are stocks I like but were not identified by the system. Here are the status details as of the market close on Friday, April 27, 2007.

	Status
Portfolio Opened	March 14, 2007
Stocks Purchased	Avnet (AVT) Coach (COH) C. B. Richard Ellis (CBG) Google (GOOG) Golden Star Resources (GSS)
Cash Position	14.4%
Portfolio Value	$1,172,000 (top 6% in ranking)
Gain to Date	17.2% (9 % from bonus bucks)

I wish I was doing this well in my actual investment portfolio:-) The contest provides a "test" of the real world stock picks I have made, which makes me feel pretty good about the Unemotional Investor stock picking system.

Since there are only two weeks left in the contest, I will invest the remaining cash position in Avnet (AVT). At this point, it does not look like this portfolio will be in the top 10 finishers at the contest completion.

For more on Strategies and Plans , check back every Monday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: CNBC.com

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC