Archive for March, 2009

Tips for Building a Retirement Plan that Works

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

One of the worst things that you could do for yourself is work hard for a large majority of your life and then short change yourself on your retirement plan causing you to run out of money and have to live frugally for the remaining years of your life.  Your golden years are supposed to be your time to enjoy yourself, so you may want to pay special attention to the upcoming tips so that you can protect yourself rather you have a simple retirement plan or a 401k retirement plan.  By paying attention now you can make sure that you have money later when you need it.

Before you start to read the following tips, the first thing you need to do is come up with a strategy that you want to follow when choosing your retirement plan.  Typically, you have a number of different retirement plan options that an employee will offer you from a 401k retirement plan to a simple basic savings plan.  You need to decide which way you want to save in order to see the best results from your chosen retirement plan.  For instance, you can begin by taking advantage of preset percentages that get sent from your paycheck to an IRA.

This is helpful because some people want to contribute to an IRA as part of their retirement plan, but find that once they receive their paycheck it is too easy to use it before it ever makes it into a retirement plan savings account.  By allowing your company to divide out your retirement savings for you automatically, you know that you will continually build a retirement savings account that will be there when you need it, even if it means you have to pass up a great sale at the shops.

If you are considering early retirement, you may want to make sure you include this note in your retirement plan strategy.  Some plans, such as a 401k retirement plan have penalties or missed rewards for withdrawing your funds early, so you want to make sure that you factor these in so that you really can afford to retire early if you choose to do so.  If you need help figuring out your retirement plan, a financial advisor or a banking professional is always a great place to start, because what you do now will heavily determine how you future shapes out to be.

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Tips for Creating an Amazing Retirement Gift

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Do you have an officemate who is retiring soon that you want to treat to a nice retirement gift?  If you have worked with someone for a long period of time, it is traditional to offer them a memento of their time spent in the office with you in the form of a retirement gift.  Even if you have only worked with someone for a few years, you should still consider at least offering them a retirement gift basket since you go large or small, but at least show them that you care and that their presence at the office will be missed.

For this reason, one of the most popular presents that are offered as a retirement gift is a retirement gift basket.  If you are on a tight budget, you may consider building your own retirement gift basket with some fruit, flowers, or some chocolates.  You can place pretty much anything into a retirement gift basket, so simply think of the person whom you are honoring with your retirement basket and place the items that you think they will like best inside.  Of course, if you are short on time, you can always order a retirement gift basket as well.

If a colleague that you have worked with for a long period of time is leaving, and you want to honor them in a special and unique way, you may want to consider customizing your retirement gift basket just a little more to make sure that your retirement gift is one they will treasure.  You may for instance, ask your other officemates to contribute a charm or trinket that represents their relationship with the retiree into the basket so that the retiree gets to take home a piece of everyone they worked with.  This is one retirement gift that will never fail to garnish a few tears.

Another touching retirement gift idea that you may use is to build a personalized scrapbook of the retirees work experience.  You may want to compile company newsletters, logos, slogans, song lyrics, pictures, charms, or anything else you like and place into one large scrapbook that your entire office gives the retiree as a retirement gift.  It may take you some time to compile such a large project, but when you are complete you will have a truly unique retirement gift to give to your colleague that they will never forget.

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