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Retirement Planning
What other planning should be done before retirement?
- Review investment portfolios to make certain nothing risky is involved. For example, I had a client who lost all of her retirement. A major stock brokerage firm had invested $250,000 of her retirement money in the tech sector while the market was falling apart. No one looked at the portfolio once the investment was made. Now she has nothing.
- Have notarized durable powers of attorney for healthcare and finance.
- Do not buy trusts. Although intended as a means to avoid probate, a trust can be disastrous when a family faces the cost of long-term nursing home care.
- Have a simple will to lay out what you want to have done. Update a will (or revisit it) every three to five years.
- Make sure all bank accounts and property are in joint tenancy. This allows for a catastrophe to be dealt with automatically, saves on taxes and none have the downsides of a trust.
What sort of change in government policy do you recommend to improve the retirement process?
The government takes enough money from people already-and we're not even talking about taxes, we're talking about Social Security. Most people work for about 45 years and put far more into the system than they ever get back. The fault is with how the system manages the money. Everyone talks about how we're going to run out of money, but it's not because there's not enough put into the system, or too much is being taken out, it's because of how it's being managed and how it's being abused.
Money is being taken out for purposes other than Social Security, medical coverage and healthcare.
There also should be rules against fraud and abuse of the elderly by sales people of all types-from living trusts to long-term care to elder law attorneys.
Everyone involved in working with the healthcare needs of the elderly, including my firm, should be under scrutiny. We self-scrutinize, but most other entities do not. This issue goes beyond a question of ethics, and not just purely what's right and what's wrong.
Dear Friends!!!
We are glad that, in the recent or distant past, we are able to assist you, a loved one or a friend, to get the nursing home care they needed and deserved, at little or no cost to the family.
Our work is extremely satisfying, and yet we know there are many other families out there that do not receive this type of guidance.
During this holiday season and throughout the next year, please take a moment to think about any other families that may benefit from our services.
Call us for assistance - (800) 773-6467.
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