Blogging and Retirees

In my recent article on Blogging For Retirees, I've discussed about why blogging is one that retirees can become involved in during their retirements. In the article I cited several compelling reasons as to why blogging is recommended for retirees. One of the most common problems faced by retirees is having too much free time, bored and having nothing worthwhile to do to fill up the time. And rather than becoming a couch potato after you retire and endangering your health, why not take up blogging as it can be one way you can spend your time by being productive. Here are several advantages of blogging that I can think of and I'm sure you can find your own reasons too:

• Make better use of your idle time. This is important as numerous studies done in the past revealed that most retirees become bored after the initial excitement of retiring wears off. What better way of making good use of your free time other than blogging.
  


• You should be active in your retirement life. Your body still needs you to be active as you age, otherwise, you'll grow old faster. Reading and writing are two simple activities that you can do in order to exercise the brain and keep you mentally active and sharp during retirement. Blogging can serve this purpose quite well.
  


• Properly done and with enough commitment, blogging can be a source of additional income for you.

Now if you've thinking about doing blogging and find yourself not quite sure how to start, here's a good free course on blogging that you can participate. I found out about this free course brought by CNET recently. Go and register for the course at Build Your First Blog HERE!

The lessons are easy enough to follow and comprise of the following:

• Articles or lessons broken down into 6 segments / installments.


• Lesson assignments - after each lesson you are given an assignment to test your understanding of the lesson covered.


• Classrooms and post comment sections - a platform for participants to post comments, ask questions or just to share experiences. This section is moderated by a CNET leader.

You can get the following benefits by participating in the class:

• The lessons are free, easy to understand and you can participate at your own pace. You only have to register in order to participate.


• Each lesson comes with a classroom session. You are encouraged to participate and post comments, ideas and query relevant to the lesson. You gain by not only getting your query answered, you can also see what issues, others are having. In short everyone benefits from the course. It speeds up the learning process as any one can contribute their own ideas/resources for the mutual benefits of all class members.
  


• You'll meet a diverse range of people here, from all ages and occupational background as well as retirees looking for something to do in their golden years - either to fill up their free time or for additional income streams.
  

At the end of the lessons you will most probably have your questions on blogging answered. You'll be able to gain the necessary knowledge and will be able to build you own blog, know how to choose a hosting service and be on your way to write your own blog and can start taking steps to make your blog noticed. Not only will you be enriched with new knowledge, you also have an added bonus of making new friends as well. I myself have participated in the course and find it a very enriching experience. So for you retirees or would be retirees out there if you haven't participated in the class already, here's the link again to Build Your First Blog.

So my dear readers, I hope you find this article useful. For further resources on retirement please go to my website Retirement Resources Site HERE!

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Huge impact of Baby Boom retirements

Here's a good food for your thought - for you retirees and would be retirees out there. Enjoy...!

Planning For Retirement - Who Are These Financial People?

In the course of planning your retirement you'll probably meet a number of people in the financial industry field - each with their own expertise and role to play in your planning. These professionals who trade their skills and expertise for a living derive their income from fees they charge or commissions they receive. They must have acquired the expertise and/or trained in the field they specialized and passed the required examination in order to practice. Their activities are regulated by a supervising and regulating body in the country they operate to protect the interest of consumers.

Let's now take a look at the four financial Industry professionals that you'll most likely meet.

Financial Planner For Retirement or Retirement planner.

The first and most likely financial industry professional you'll want to consult for your retirement planning is a Financial Planner. A Financial Planner is a practicing professional who helps people to deal with various personal financial issues through proper planning in order to achieve his/her client's financial and lifestyle goals. Quite often this entails delving into such diverse areas as education planning, planning for retirement, investments, insurance requirements, tax planning, risk management, estate planning and business succession planning for business owners.

In carrying out the planning function, the Financial Planner is guided by the financial planning process to create a detailed strategy tailored to his/her client's specific situation and meeting his/her specific goals. For you as his/her client, this process involves gathering relevant financial information, determining your goals in life, examining your current financial status and coming up with a strategy or plan as to how you may achieve your goals given your current situation and future plans. One of your more obvious and specific goals of course is planning for a retirement life-style that you desire.

Quite often, for your specific retirement purposes you should consult a Financial Planner who specializes in retirement planning. He/She might also designate himself/herself as Retirement Planner or Retirement Advisor.

Stock Broker

The second professional you'll likely want to meet especially if you decide to include stocks in your investment portfolio for your retirement is your Stock Broker/Stock Broker Representative or Remisier/Dealers Representative as they are sometimes known in some other places. A Stock Broker is a qualified and regulated professional who buys and sells shares and other securities on behalf of investors. Most Stock Brokers are actually registered representatives who work for a stock broking company. Stock Brokers earn their incomes from commissions on the securities that they buy and sell.

In addition, a Stock Broker may also offer advice to their clients on which stocks, mutual funds(unit trusts), etc. to buy.

Mutual Fund(Unit Trust) Sales Person(Agent)

A Mutual Fund Sales Person is another likely financial industry people that you'll want to see if you decide to diversify your investment for retirement and build a portfolio. A Mutual Fund Sales Person is someone who is licensed to sell mutual funds(unit trusts) only. They cannot sell stocks or bonds.

He/she works for a mutual fund company or a mutual fund dealer. A Mutual Fund Sales Person receives a salary or a fee for selling funds from mutual fund companies.

Insurance Sales Person/Agent

This is another person that is in your best interest that you should meet. An Insurance Sales Person/Agent is a licensed professional who helps individuals, families, and businesses select insurance policies that provide the best protection for their lives, healths, and properties.

Insurance Sales Agents are representatives of insurance companies. They are commonly referred to as "producers" in the insurance industry and they sell one or more types of insurance. The more common types of policies they sell are property and casualty, life, health, disability, and long-term care. Property And Casualty Insurance Agents sell policies that protect individuals and businesses from financial loss, while Life Insurance Agents specialize in selling policies that pay beneficiaries when a policyholder dies. Depending on the policyholder's circumstances, a cash-value policy can be designed to provide retirement income, funds for the education of children, or other benefits.

Life Insurance Agents also sell annuities that promise a retirement income. Health Insurance Agents sell health insurance policies that cover the costs of medical care and loss of income due to illness or injury - which obviously is an important factor to consider for your retirement planning.

An increasing number of Insurance Sales Agents are offering comprehensive financial planning services such as retirement planning and estate planning. They also may involve in "cross selling" of several financial products to their clients. Thus, besides offering insurance, many of them may become licensed to sell mutual funds.

In closing those are the four most likely persons that can help you with you retirement planning. In planning your retirement you may need the services of only one or two of them at the most, as some of their functions may overlap. It is however advisable to seek recommendation from others as to who is the best person that can help you with your retirement planning.

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Emotional Side of Retirement Planning

Preparing for retirement should include more than financial planning. You have to be emotionally prepared for it as well. Money is no doubt an important issue in retirement - in fact I think the most important one. However, equally important is your psychological preparation - a non-financial plan that suits your personality.

And psychological preparation means knowing about yourself and what fulfills you among other things. It addresses the emotional aspects of retirement - the inevitable psychological adjustment process that must be made. Other things include closely examining your individual personality traits, wants and aspirations. For example: Keeping busy attending to your garden is not enough. Feeling appreciated, important, valued, needed, challenged, connected as well as knowing what is fulfilling for you is important to success in retirement.

Many people became bored, restless or plain frustrated with little or nothing to do while in retirement. Some even went into depression even though they were financially prepared for it. For some, having a fulfilling retirement is about selecting new activities that continue to physically and emotionally fulfill them. They need to think and plan what they are going to do with all those hours that used to be taken up by work.

In my previous posting You Are Not Yet Ready To Retire - So What are Your Options, I wrote "….for some people a sudden transition from a working environment to a non-working life during retirement may pose an emotional burden, which can do more harm than good. This is usually associated with attachment to holding a job for all of one's working life so much so that when one is released from a job, feelings of doubts about one's self worth and capability creep in". This is all due to the loss of identity when one disengages from a career in which one has spent many years and which defined one's identity to a life void of work. For many working people, a job fills the largest percentage of their lifetime, and work colleagues become an important part of their community. When one retires, one loses all of the sources of fulfillment one enjoyed from work. It's normal for a retired person to feel a sense of loss and displacement when a significant portion of his/her identity goes away.

Work gives a sense of purpose that everybody needs. That includes a place to go, peer contacts, responsibilities to discharge and a sense of camaraderie. Once retired, those needs don't go away - we just have to learn to fulfill them through a different set of activities. One way to address this problem is to find new "work", whether paid or unpaid.

So in closing readers, ask yourself what is your life purpose and what excite you and use the answers to guide you to find your preferred activities for your retirement. You may find the answers if you look hard enough within yourself. Planning for retirement means more than just knowing about your financial picture. It's also about knowing yourself and what fulfills you. In short, it is a holistic approach to retirement planning, which if you're fully prepared, will spare you the headache and frustration later in life.

You can access to more retirement resources by visiting my website:-http://www.retirementresourcessite.com

Stages of Retirement

Retirement is the next stage of your life, which needs proper planning and adjustment to your previous life routines. When planning for retirement, it is important for you to start planning on how you are going to cope with your new role as a retiree for the next 30 years or so of your life.

Experts are divided on how many stages of retirement retirees go through. Some say 6 stages while others say 5, 4 or 3. To be safe, I'd say that retirees would go through at least 3 main stages of retirement as follows:

Phase 1: First Stage of Retirement.

This is the active retirement phase and first stage that every retiree goes through. This First Retirement Stage involves a transition to a new way of living and requires a period of adjustment. For most people, this is the most liberating period of their lives, as they would no longer have to put up with the daily commute to work and work commitments and have all the time in the world to do whatever they have wanted to do. As this period starts from the time they began retiring and until perhaps they reach 69 years of age, most retirees are physically and mentally capable of leading a fairly active life, not much different their pre retirement years. While in this phase, some retirees will be very busy doing many of the leisure activities they never had time for previously, like traveling, visiting with their children and grand children or just meeting up with their "lost" long time friends. Some will also indulge in their favorite past-time activities like playing golf, gardening, or learn new skills. For some, active retirement may include working. It may be part time job or consulting related to their previous job or even going into business for themselves.

With this active life-style, it is not surprising that retirees would use a big portion of their retirement nest egg for the purpose.

Phase 2: Middle Stage of Retirement

In this passive phase or the Middle Stage of Retirement, life more or less settles into a more predictable pattern. Now with already advancing age (70 - 84 years as some experts say) the body may no longer able to cope with the brisk and active life-style of the first stage and has to slow down. Typically in this stage retirees' expenses for basic necessities will decline. However, expenses for medical and health care will increase due to deteriorating health.

Phase 3: Final Stage of Retirement

In this final phase, things stop working well, both physically and most likely financially. In this phase retirees will most probably be dependent on others for their day-to-day living due to disability or illness. As their health fails, some have to move to assisted-living facilities or in with relatives. This Final Stage of Retirement can be crushingly expensive if long-term care in a nursing home or at home is needed.

So my dear readers those are the 3 Stages of Retirement that retirees go through. Knowing the retirement stages that you're likely to go through will make you better equipped to plan on how to deal with them later on in your own life. For more info on retirement resources, please visit my Retirement Resources Site here!

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