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.

To Congress and Our Media Friends, Regarding America’s Fiscal Cliff

To Congress and Our Media Friends, Regarding America’s Fiscal Cliff

If you’ve paid attention to the news for even just a minute since the presidential election, you’ve likely heard about the so-called “fiscal cliff” which apparently is due to hit us in about a month or so.

Funny thing happened the other day with my teenage daughter, Amy. She watches the gossip – you know, “reality” – channels, about 99 percent of the time. So when it was time for me to catch up on the news (the other 1 percent of the time that I get to watch TV) and Amy heard the newscasters talking about nothing but this dangerous fiscal cliff, she perceived it as an impending storm, perhaps akin to Hurricane Sandy.

It may not be a weather-related storm, but from what we can gather so far from the media experts and our esteemed politicians, it’s going to be very serious! The American economy as we know it is scheduled to completely fall to her knees – something they tell us will be “unacceptable,” which is why there needs to be a “compromise” in Washington DC.

Okay, I comprehend the seriousness of the problem. But what I want to know is: What exactly is this fiscal cliff and what caused it? As our esteemed politicians and media gurus tell us, the culprit is too much spending and a dinosaur of a tax code with loopholes for special interests. These have resulted in a ridiculously unsustainable $16 trillion-plus in debt.

Oh, really? So this cliff didn’t just suddenly show up after the elections? If the problem goes back further than November 5, 2012 – say 10 years or more – where was the urgency over the last decade? Congress has been in charge of both our spending and our tax code, the things at the center of this storm (for Amy’s benefit), and yet we’re just now learning that we’re heading over a cliff? This wild spending and immense debt were acceptable for all that time and just suddenly became problematic?

I tend to wonder whether Washington, D.C. is doing a very good job managing our nation. If something is as bad as this so-called cliff, why wouldn’t they want to fix it while it was still somewhat manageable? Why wait till it became a crisis to decide it needs to be fixed? My leadership instincts keep leading me back to this basic question: How did we get here? And where has the media been all that time?
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If you’d like to learn more wisdom and 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. What you don’t know matters as much as what you know! Call us at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the web to schedule your complimentary consultation TODAY.

Thanksgiving Wishes for You and Yours

Thanksgiving wishes for you and yours

Boy did time fly by quickly or what? Feels to me like last Thanksgiving was just last week, but here we are again.  Anyway, despite the challenges we’ve all faced this past year – some obviously more severe than others – the one thing we can all be thankful about is that we’re still breathing today. And if you’re reading these words, you’re obviously of a sound mind.

So on my own behalf and on behalf of my top-notch team of dedicated professionals here at Laser Financial Group, we want to thank you for making us a part of your life. We are truly grateful for your readership and business. May the good Lord continue to bless you and yours and this great nation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Samuel

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Please feel free to contact us 877.656.9111 or LaserFG.com with any questions or concerns about your retirement planning.

How to Shield Your Nest Egg from Stock Market Dips but Make Money When It Rises

How to Shield Your Nest Egg from Stock Market Dips but Make Money When It Rises

It’s a gross understatement to say that the stock market has been rather chaotic recently. A staggering percentage of Americans (studies put the number above 80 percent) have seen their retirement dreams either seriously curtailed or completely squashed. Some have had to come out of retirement to reenter the workforce just to survive, while an equally frightening number will have to work well beyond their originally intended retirement ages. 

Just this past week, all the major indexes shrank sharply, causing a further fracture of many Americans’ nest eggs.

Financial advisors and media money experts routinely offer explanations as to why investors shouldn’t fret losing some money every now and then. Instead, you should focus on the so-called “long term,” when everything will somehow magically work out. I strongly beg to differ. I believe these Monday morning “quarterbacks” – ahem, alleged money “experts” – are ignoring the real fundamentals of investing, even though the fundamentals never change. January will always precede February, just as planting always precedes harvesting.

Anyone with money invested directly in the stock market must understand a few things:

1.      Whenever the market dips, you lose a portion of everything you’ve accumulated up to that point in time (seed money plus interest).

2.      You’ll need a new gain that is much larger than the loss just to break even and return to your pre-loss balance. For instance, a portfolio that loses 33 percent must gain 50 percent (not simply the same 33 percent it lost) just to break even. It’s therefore incredibly difficult to get back to where you were before a loss – something that many folks sadly discover the hard way, only after it occurs.

3.      No one can accurately predict the movements of the stock market beyond what everyone already knows: it may go up or down at any given time.

Remember, again, that these are fundamental, indisputable facts.

Now I’m going to surmise that you’d love to invest in the stock market only when it’s going up and avoid it entirely when it plummets, right? The great news is that over the past 17 years, our clients have been investing their nest eggs precisely that way. They follow a simple, proven, and in my opinion commonsense investing approach that allows them to make money when the market is up without losing a cent when it drops. Here’s how it works.

For starters, all of your seed money is guaranteed from day one, so you are sure not to lose a penny. Then your portfolio's earnings are tied to the appreciation of a stock market index (e.g., the DOW or S&P 500), up to a certain cap. The most powerful thing is that you actually lock in your gains, so you won’t lose anything when the market/index dips, but you gain – up to your cap – when it increases. Best of all, this is not an exotic deal reserved for a special group of investors – anyone can employ it.

Isn’t this how you should invest the money you can’t afford to lose?

If you’re tired of the investing rollercoaster and would like to explore some proven alternatives that other folks are already using to protect and grow their wealth in this new economy, please contact us today at 877.656.9111 or  LaserFG.com. Your consultation will be complimentary with zero obligation; we don’t expect you to buy a thing from us.

Your retirement is certain – shouldn’t your nest egg be, too?

Exercise your right to VOTE!

Exercise your right to VOTE!

If you havenʼt already done so, I strongly encourage you to vote this Tuesday! Like most average Americans, I havenʼt much enjoyed “the politics” of this campaign season. To be completely honest, I’m thrilled it’s going to be all over – at least for a while – this week. 

However, as someone who grew up in South-Saharan Africa, I can’t even begin to tell you the power we have as Americans – not just by voting, but because our votes actually count. Believe it or not, outside of this country, many political systems don’t even allow their citizens to pick their leaders. While many allow voting, there’s so much fraud that the will of the people doesn’t matter if it runs counter to the desires of those in control.

You likely know these things already, but I don’t think most Americans truly understand the power they have to vote under the Constitution of this great nation, or the system that was put in place by the Founders to ensure that those votes would matter.

If you need help finding your polling location, this link has a contact list for every state.

Let’s go do it, folks! And may God continue to bless America and make it prosperous and strong forever!

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This public service information is brought to you today by Samuel N. Asare and the professional financial strategists at Laser Financial Group. Contact us to schedule your complimentary consultation today! Call us at 877.656.9111 or visit us on the web.