One-Minute 2013 Message

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Making 2013 resolutions about your investments or retirement planning? Call us today at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the Web to schedule your complimentary, confidential consultation with experienced financial professionals who can help you make the most of your investments and plan for a secure retirement that takes all the pieces into account.

Season's Greetings

Wishing you, your family, and loved ones all the peace, blessings, and lasting memories of the holiday season.

To continued peace and prosperity in 2013!

— Samuel and the staff at Laser Financial Group
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Making 2013 resolutions about your investments or retirement planning? Call us today at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the Web to schedule your complimentary, confidential consultation with experienced financial professionals who can help you make the most of your investments and plan for a secure retirement that takes all the pieces into account.

3 Simple Tips for Staying Within Your Budget This Holiday Season

3 Simple tips for staying within your budget this holiday season

Around this time of year I get a lot of requests from folks interested in knowing how to make sure that they don’t end up spending “too much money” during the holidays.

Obviously, the definition of “too much money” varies widely, but I think the common thing here is that the majority of the people asking this question have, in the past, ended up spending way beyond what they’d expected. I was in that group many years ago. The good news is that, it can be corrected rather easily.

Set a Specific Limit

Most of the issue with spending beyond our expectations stem from the fact that we don’t have a specific benchmark or target to begin with. Simply not wanting to spend “too much” is not enough to get you there. So set a specific target!

See the Details on Paper (NOT in Your Imagination)

Most of us make some kind of a list. But our lists have only names on them, or names and the gifts we intend we buy. While both are good starts, if you intend to really stay within your expectation, you must take it a bit further by including a dollar amount on your list, because that’s the only way you’ll know how much you’re actually going to be spending. It also happens to be the only credible way to spot any potential red flags so that you can make any necessary tweaks beforehand.

Understand that Gifts are Exactly That – Gifts

One of the things most of us can agree on is that the literal price tag on a gift doesn’t (and indeed shouldn’t) indicate the value of the recipient to us – because people are invaluable. So gifts are meant to be a token of our appreciation, not a total representation of someone’s value to us. The other thing we can agree on is that price, per se, doesn’t make a gift good or bad, does it? That’s why it is not a bright idea to let any third parties determine – either directly or indirectly – what you should be gifting. I learned that when it comes to gifts, it’s not so much about the price tag as it is the thought. Wouldn’t you agree that’s true?

I must admit, though, that one doesn’t have to be a personal finance expert to know these things. Anyway, happy and safe gifting!

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Making 2013 resolutions about your investments or retirement planning? Call us today at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the Web to schedule your complimentary, confidential consultation with experienced financial professionals who can help you make the most of your investments and plan for a secure retirement that takes all the pieces into account.

The Greatest Medicare MythConception

The Greatest Medicare MythConception

A recent inquiry we received via the “Submit Your Question” tool on our website highlighted what I believe is the greatest misconception around Medicare coverage. It reads:

My mom is retirement age and will be eligible for Medicare in just a few months. Is it necessary for her to get separate/private long-term care coverage?

This individual thinks that Medicare will help pay for long-term healthcare costs. In fact, according to the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, 54 percent of Americans think the same thing.

However, that’s not the case at all. Medicare was never intended to cover – and never has covered – extended nursing home care or chronic conditions. It will pay for up to a maximum of 100 days of care for qualifying conditions. But beginning Day 21, you’ll be required to pay a significant co-pay. Now here’s the caveat and key point:

Medicare covers only skilled care – not chronic – conditions.

The moment that your condition is diagnosed as chronic (i.e., defined as cognitive impairment or the inability to perform any two of the six activities of daily living, which include bathing, continence, dressing, eating, toileting, and transferring), Medicare will stop – even if it’s been fewer than 100 days. So what most of us consider long-term care is not covered by Medicare.

Medicaid, a welfare program that reimburses for chronic care, may be an option, but only after you’ve proven that you’re seriously impoverished with nearly nothing in countable assets (around $2,000, depending on the laws of your state).

Be sure you have appropriate coverage for yourself – and your parents or loved ones.
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Retirement planning means planning for ALL aspects of your life after retirement. Call us today at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the Web to schedule your complimentary, confidential consultation with experienced financial professionals who can help you plan for a secure retirement that takes all the pieces into account.

Your Advisor’s Good Intentions Could RUIN Your Life

Your Advisor’s Good Intentions Could Ruin Your Life

Let me begin by saying that I believe the vast majority of professionals in all fields – including finance – are great folks who desire to help their clients achieve the best results. Sure, you have the occasional Bernie Madoff, but that’s not the norm.

However, if your advisor lacks expertise in a specific subject area, good intentions alone won’t make much difference. By expertise, I mean a thorough understanding of the subject, successful real-life outcomes in the specific area, as well as the ability and foresight to address all relevant aspects to prevent a situation where, in the process of fixing your front door, they end up weakening the entire foundation of your house and potentially setting you up for a major disaster. That’s a broad definition, but it’s how I define expertise.

I was recently consulting with a couple on one aspect of the husband’s retirement. In our very first meeting, they told me that upon the advice from several advisors, they’d decided to go the pension maximization route, as opposed to his employer’s survivor annuity.

Under most pensions, you have two basic choices. The first option is income for life, for yourself only. Option two is that when you died, your spouse would continue to receive payments for life; however, it would be a lower income, usually half of what you had been receiving. Income for yourself only would be much higher than the joint-lives scenario. For example, let’s say payment to yourself only is $1,000/month. Or under joint-lives, you'd receive $800/month, and when you died, your surviving spouse would then receive $400/month.

Pension maximization basically proposes – if it makes financial sense – that you take the $1,000 under the yourself only option and purchase enough life insurance to replace the payments your spouse would otherwise be receiving, at a much lower cost than $200/month (the difference between $1,000 and $800). Say you were able to do that for $100/month. You would end up with $900/month (the $1,000 yourself only payment, less the $100 life insurance payment) instead of the $800/month joint-lives payment, and when you died, your spouse would turn the insurance death benefit into an annuity of equal or even higher income.

Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? Let the record show that I’m not against pension maximization. In fact, I have recommended it to some of my clients over the years. BUT, like many other strategies, it can sometimes be a terrible idea – and this was one of those occasions.

You see, in this particular situation, the employer in question was the state government, whose healthcare would also cease for the surviving spouse on the death of the husband. Spouses continue to receive healthcare ONLY if they’re receiving a survivor’s annuity, however little it may be. So we must factor the cost of private healthcare into the equation, since the wife is still 10 years from Medicare eligibility. Might the husband die before then? We hope not, but since we don’t have a crystal ball, we can’t rule it out, can we?

Here’s the thing: I don’t believe for a second that the other advisors this couple consulted with were being dishonest. So what else might explain such a huge oversight that could potentially set the couple up for a major disaster? I’m only guessing, but could it be lack of expertise?

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If you have questions you’d like to run by truly experienced financial professionals, or if you'd like common-sense information that will help you ensure that you don't lose a penny in the next market downturn, please contact us for straight, clear answers. Call us at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the web to schedule your complimentary consultation TODAY.