Archive for December, 2010

3 Strategies to Maximize Benefits from your Pension Annuity

December 21st, 2010

3 Strategies to Maximize Benefits from your Pension Annuity

If you are in the process of looking for a pension annuity that will protect both you and your spouse from financial problems in the future and provide you with income for your retirement, it goes without saying that you will want to do everything in your power to find the annuities with the most benefits for the money that you invest. This is an extremely important thing to make sure of, since a pension annuity is an investment that will protect you during a time of your life when your age and physical condition can restrict the type of work that you are capable of doing.

The first thing that most people think of when they are looking for the best pension annuity to invest in for their future is the interest rate that it provides. They are also often heavily concerned about which plans will offer the most benefits as well. But in order to get the most out of a pension annuity, it is important to carefully choose which features should be purchased in which combination in order to get the most out of the plan. There are several different ways in which this can be accomplished.

Here are 3 ways in which to combine features to get the most out of a pension annuity.

1. One option that you have is to wait a while before you decide to purchase an annuity if this is a possibility for you. In most cases, you can only buy an annuity if you are between the ages of 55 and 75. The later on in your life you are when you decide to purchase an annuity, the more money you can expect to receive in return for your investment. The reason for this is that you will receive larger monthly payments. This is because your remaining lifespan is expected to be shorter. The shorter the amount of time remaining in your life, the more money the insurance company can pay out each month, which gives you more money to live off of without having to continue working.

2. Another possibility is to think about is who to purchase an annuity under if it is a joint annuity. It is often a good idea to purchase the annuity under the husband’s name. The reason for this is the fact that men are expected, on average, to live for a shorter period of time. For this reason, when an annuity is purchased under the husband’s name instead of the wife’s, the payments are typically larger because fewer years of life are expected.

3. When looking at the plan, it is also a good idea to look at it in order to find out if impaired life benefits are included in the annuity. As an example, if you have a medical condition that reduces you life expectancy, this should also be another reason that the insurance company will offer larger payments each month. This might seem backward to people who are used to shopping for health insurance, which will charge higher premiums if you have a health condition. Even so, this is how it works. The shorter your expected lifespan, the larger the monthly payments.

Of course, these three strategies are not everything when it comes to deciding on a plan that is right for you. It is also very important to shop around in order to find the best company available. The company should not only offer good rates, it should have a long history demonstrating that it is financially stable.

Annuities are one of the few financial topics that I don’t have much experience with, so the guest post Lisa is very welcome!

I hope you enjoyed and learned something new from this post on annuities!

-MR

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How To Win Without Even Trying

December 20th, 2010

So How does one win without even trying?  2 words:

Blogger Giveaways!

Yep, that’s right!  It’s so easy winning stuff via Blogger giveaways that sometimes all you need to do is visit one of many great sites, and just leave a comment!  I’ve personally won 2 giveaway prizes this way!

You see, very often a newer growing blog site will have an occasional giveaway in celebration of a milestone accomplished!  Being a reader of many different sites, I’ll leave a comment saying ”Congratulations”.  Now with these celebrations, the bloggers may have a giveaway, and the criteria for the giveaway is just for a comment to be left on the site.  So even though I didn’t really try to win a prize, my name would be entered anyway because I left a comment, thus enabling me to win without me really trying!

When you play the lottery, your changes of winning are minuscule  let’s be generous and say .0001% (that’s pretty slim!)

But when you try for a giveaway on a blog site, you chances might be 1 in 8 for a $50 and higher gift certificate!  That’s a 12.5 percent chance of winning!!!  If you consider sometimes there are more than 1 prize your odds even go up higher!  I’ve seen some sites literally give 1 prize for all commenters!  How’s that for great odds!!

Giveaways are also great  because they are win-wins!  Often you get to check out a great site, and at the same time you get to enter a winnable contest! it’s fun to win (especially when you aren’t trying to)!

My Thoughts:

The point of this post is to get you to see the alternatives instead of just the huge wins.  Contests don’t always have to have a huge payout and the odds of winning is drastically better than of winning the state lottery.

This past year, I blogged about such a win in my blog post called “My Close Friend Won A House“!  Now granted the total value of the house and prizes equaled hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the odds were much better than winning the state lottery.  Would it surprise you to learn that she said she hasn’t ever played the state lottery?  Yep, as lucky as this friend was, she realize that the odds of her winning the state lottery was so incredible low that she didn’t think it was worth it!  I think I calculated she really had only a bit better than 1% chance of winning her house, but that was well over 1000 times better odds than trying to win the State lottery!

Plus the beauty of blogger giveaways/contests are that they don’t cost anything to enter!  You don’t have to pay for a ticket or even pay for a stamp for submission!  And even the shipping of the gift to your house the blogger typically pick up!  It’s a win-win!

The only reason that I bring this point up is that I myself didn’t realize how easy it was to get free stuff from these blogger’s giveaways… until I won a few by accident!

-MR

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MR Cache 2010, Dec 18 – Perfect Christmas Lights

December 19th, 2010

Weekly Thoughts:

The snow and the unusually high number of houses with Christmas lights, the outside aesthetics has been a thing of beauty!  The Christmas lights shining thought the snow covering bushes and trees made practically every house that had Christmas decorations out look like something out of a classic Christmas movie!

This Saturday evening as I left for dinner, I had to stop and just walk around the driveway admiring all the beautifully light houses along the street.  I usually don’t do this, but everything looks so spectacular, I couldn’t resist!  Plus the brisk chill in the air made me think how pure and crisp the air was.  I was a great experience and I’m honestly thinking about walking around the neighborhood just to enjoy the experience.

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

101 Centavos: Mainstream Financial Media vs. PF Bloggers: 401K loans – I totally agree with this observation!

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: Passive and Residual Income Defined – For those that were curious as to what the difference is!

Canadian Financial Blog: 4 Reasons Your Resolutions Fail – And How to Overcome Them – I have this problem every year, perhaps I’ll take the advice this year!

Everyday Tips and Thoughts: Sometimes Saving Money Isn’t Worth It – Items I Refuse To Buy Generic – I feel the same way!  Sometimes Generic makes sense, then other times generic is garbage!

Fabulously Broke in the City: Are people wealthier because they’re business owners (or self-employed)? Check out FB’s proposals and conclusion as to why business owners are millionaires!

First Gen American: Is Uncle Sam the New Bank of Mom and Dad? – I was honored to be mentioned in such a well wrote out article!  Sandy L. provides a great time line as to when benefits-a-plenty has come into the American public program.  I was impressed with the well throughout research Sandy put into the article!  It was like reading a post from time magazine!  Excellent read!

Len Penzo: Gee, Thanks: 4 Presumptuous Gifts That Can Strain A Budget – Some real nightmares here!  I would hate for someone to pick an automobile for me, so I totally agree that those “car as a present” commercials suck.  I can see it now Christmas day, and my wife gets me a “purple minivan”!  Oh joy!!!

Squirellers.com: Unforgettable, Funny Holiday Gifts that were Given as Real Presents – Very funny and cheap presents!  A good chuckle on most of these!

Watson Inc: Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears Round Up and Uncommon Money News Looks and the way a person acts is sometimes deceiving!  Jessica and Britney are going extremely well, even though they don’t sing as much as they use to.

My Favorite Post from MoneyReasons.com for the Week:

This week, my favorite post was Christmas Experiences During The Great Depression!  This was a post that was wrote from the heart and to date one of my best posts!  It involved a personal tragedy to my grandmother when she was a child and how she overcame the childhood experience to make Christmas a special time for her children and grandchildren.

Closing Thoughts:

Where I live it truly is beautiful!  This may be the only time that I’d rather live in my city than California or other warmer, ocean front areas.

-MR

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Funny Money Comic 9, Are You Listening?

December 18th, 2010

Are You Listening?

Are You Listening

Are You Listening?

Previous:  Funny Money Comic 8, When to Pick Up Money

Comic Strip Notes:

I have conversations with people and they just tune me out.  I use to think that people were idiots, but now I’m starting to question the way that I communicate my ideas.  Perhaps the truly great speakers, are the ones have the perfect mix of sound, way of speaking and grammar!

I started blogging as a means to aid my communicate skills, and I can tell that I do write better now, but I”m not so sure about my vocal skills though.  Perhaps next year I will expand even further into the podcast arena…

Links to 3 Funny or Interesting Sites:

How’d you get that huge bulge?

Colorblind Christmas

Peanuts Tribute: Surfing the Internet

Thanks for stopping by!

-MR

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Great Time At the School Christmas Concert

December 17th, 2010

My son is a 5th grader this year, and all the 5th graders have the option of being in either the band or choir.  Well, my son chose the band and selected to play the trombone as his instrument.

I’ve heard my son practice, and although he has definitely improved, I didn’t expect much from the concert!  Boy was I wrong!  Yeah, there were a few off sounds from the group occasionally, but overall it was great.

This may be one of the first concerts where I actually enjoyed it thoroughly!  And unlike past times, I actually enjoyed all of the kids in the group, not just mine!?!  I actually looked at both of the music teachers (a man and woman), and admired their work!

I can honestly say that I was saddened by the fact that the concert ended!  Of all my expectations, this was quite the surprise!

At first, I though that I was just being a proud dad, and listening with dad ears.  But we got my wife’s parent to come to the event too.  And both of them said it was a great concert too, especially considering how new the kids were to playing the instruments!

Unlike the grade school talent show, this event was only open to parents and family members.  The building was packed, and the show was awesome!  My one regret was that I had to leave instead of hearing the 5th grade choir sing too.  I really wonder if there were as good as the band, I have a feeling that they most likely were!

Have you ever been surprised by a free event that just blown you away?

-MR

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