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Social Security Rules You Should Know

December 14, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Are you finally able to collect Social Security this year? Welcome to reirement!

There’s lots to learn with every new step in life and this one will be no different. Social Security benefits can be taxed. Did you know that? They can – and even more depending on where you live. Some states require them to be included in state taxes. Sheesh!

The Motley Fool posted an article that will explain 2 rules you should know:

1. When your benefits become taxable

2. What happens if you work when receiving benefits.

Check out their article for all the details.

Filed Under: Advanced Retirement Planning, Basic Retirement Planning, Retirement News, Social Security, Torrid Tech Talk, Uncategorized

Taking Advantage of 401(k) Catch-up Contributions

December 11, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Did you know that you can contribute more money to your 401(k) plan once you reach the age of 50? These catch-up contributions also come with tax savings!

US News posted an article this week that will give you all the details, but to hit the highlights:

For 2021, you can make catch-up contributions to your 401(k) for up to $6500. You can also defer paying income tax on as much as $19, 500. That gives you as much as $26,000 that gets a temporary pass on taxation.

If you’re currently contributing to your 401(k) using a percentage of your income, be sure you adjust the percentage to meet the new minimum once you turn 50.

Want to know more about the tax benefits of this or how to make these catch-up payments, check out the article on USNews.com

Filed Under: Advanced Retirement Planning, Basic Retirement Planning, Retirement News, Torrid Tech Talk

New Bill for “SECURE Act 2.0” Could Change Retirement System

November 19, 2020 by

A new effort is gaining support by some lawmakers in Washington. The House Ways and Means committee is unveiling a new bill that hopes to secure retirement for many with a new bipartisan bill.

Some of its notable features include automatic enrollment in company retirement plans if one is offered. It’s also rumored to raise the mandatory age for distributions again. This age would move (again) from 72 to 75.

Secure Act 2 hopes to also provide tax breaks if certain people start saving for retirement and would likely explore the possibility of a national retirement plan.

Read more about it here.

Filed Under: Basic Retirement Planning, Financial Advisors, Retirement News, Torrid Tech Talk, Uncategorized Tagged With:

Go (Which Way), Young Man?

October 12, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Horace Greeley has long been quoted as saying, “Go west young man…”. American pioneering spirit led adventurers and down-trodden alike to seek out a place that was best for their families or a place that gave them opportunities they desired.

Today, it looks like Go South, young man might be the trend.

According to Audrey Conklin of FoxBusiness.com, Florida is seeing record growth as nearly 1000 people move there each day during our current pandemic state.

Home sales are doubling while sales of single family homes and condos in northern states are lower than in years prior.

Why? It seems to be an issue of lower taxes and being able to get more for your money.

Read more about it at https://www.foxbusiness.com/.

Filed Under: Basic Retirement Planning, Business Advice, Retirement News, Torrid Tech Talk, Uncategorized

7 Things That Can SAVE Your Retirement from “Brokeness”

July 23, 2020 by Leave a Comment

OK so maybe “Brokeness” is not a word but when you read it you know what it means. You don’t want to be “broke” in retirement barely having ends meet.

What do you want to be doing in your retirement? Traveling? Playing with grandkids? Enjoying your home without having to move to a trailer park?

Here are 7 epic things that can help you with your retirement…

Double down on saving more money as you get closer to retirement. The kids are gone. You have paid off your mortgage or are close to it. Save more now while you are still working.

Money money money

And stop making excuses about it. Just bite the bullet. Would you rather save more now or be a greeter at Walmart during retirement? (and no I’m not knocking Walmart greeters… just the idea of working when you are supposed to be “retired”)

Get serious about calculating how much money you will need in retirement. Most online free retirement calculators are junk. They don’t cover everything. They leave out a lot of important items. Can you inject the sale of a business? What about life insurance? Can it cover multiple rental properties? Does it even cover your spouse? Most of them don’t handle tax calculations very well and often leave out RMD calculations.

Also many online retirement calculators are just fronts to market to you. Find something that installs on your computer locally (hint hint). It will be more private, more secure, more accurate, and more comprehensive. If you’ve saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, does it really make sense that you can use a “free tool” to do some real planning that is useful?

RetirementView Screenshot

OK yes that’s a shameless plug for the best retirement calculator on the planet – RetirementView… but after all this is our website 🙂

Consider downsizing your home and your lifestyle. Do you really need that 4 bedroom house for 30 years in retirement along with all the extra utility bills and taxes? I personally would prefer to stay in the house that I raised my kids in, but if the finances don’t support it we will have to rethink it. (go back to item 2 to run the numbers)

Family in Front of House

If you downsize from a $450,000 house to a $225,000 condo, you can pull out $225,000 from your equity. Then invest that in a longer term market allocation. Yes as your long term money that you tap later in retirement.

If you get 5% on that for 10 years that little equity egg will be worth $342,218. If you average a 6% return for 10 years that will grow to $374,330. That’s not chump change!

Convert some of your IRA or 401(k) to the Roth IRA. Why? Because withdrawals from a Roth IRA are TAX FREE! But withdrawals from your regular IRA are taxed at the full ordinary tax rate.

High Taxes

You will pay taxes NOW to make the conversion, but taxes are at historic lows. Based on the crazy spending of our federal government, it is very likely taxes will be going up. Pay that lower tax bill now and then reap the rewards in retirement.

Mom and Two Kids Life Insurance

If you are healthy AND married, get life insurance. Life insurance can help with the longevity problem of retirement (i.e. outliving your money). If you have say $500,000 in life insurance that is not cancelleable, then the benefit left to your spouse can nearly ensure that they won’t go homeless AND help them with any nursing or long term care needs.

I have seen people in my own family without enough savings and they struggled in retirement. And on top of it they had no life insurance! If they would have had a few hundred thousand in life insurance, they would have not struggled at all.

Save big on some retirement travel by working with ministries and non-profits who want and need your help typically overseas. This lets you increase your travel without busting your budget, while at the same time “doing good” and helping others.

We know one couple that serves for 6 months at a time for a ministry… in HAWAII! All of their housing is included. Yes they do work for the ministry. It’s not all 100% vacation, but it’s like living there enjoying Hawaii without a huge bill.

Trip to Hawaii Beach

If you are reading this and you know of other such opportunities, email me and I might start a listing on the site of available options.

One last resort if you are having trouble with your retirement finances, look into a “reverse mortgage”. You get to still live in your house but borrow against the value for living expenses.

Reverse Mortgage

If you have no heirs at all or at least none you care about, then this is definitely something you should look into. Being able to tap another $100k or $200k might make the difference between eating catfood and just living your normal retired life.

There you have it… 7 strategies to ponder so that you don’t reach a state of “brokeness” in retirement… ok so we just mean “don’t go broke”!

Thanks and Happy Planning!

NOTE: As always these are general suggestions and not meant to be actual financial advice. Use RetirementView to run calculations and also consider consultation a financial professional.

Filed Under: Basic Retirement Planning, Personal Travel and Holidays, Torrid Tech Talk Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

RetirementView Support for Cloud Storage and Shared Network Folders

June 2, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Starting with release 2020.2 we have added new support to make it easier to use cloud storage systems like:

Google Drive

Dropbox

iCloud Drive

OneDrive

Box

IDrive

Basically when you create New files, you can move the files to use your cloud storage. When you do that, RetirementView will now ask you if you want to use that location as the “default” for creating, opening, and saving your data files.

If you say “Yes” then every time you create or open a file it will default to your cloud storage location.

This Popup Will Show If you Change Where you Open or Create a Data File

The advantage is that it saves a LOT of clicks each time you are working with files.

This same update also helps if you are using a “Shared Folder” on a network in your office. You can go there once and it will ask if you want that as your default. If you say “Yes” then you won’t have to do all those clicks again!

Hope you enjoy this new enhancement…

Thanks and Happy Planning!

Filed Under: Advanced Retirement Planning, Basic Retirement Planning, Financial Advisors, Retirement News, Torrid Tech Talk Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Fast Forward Your Retirement Date

September 20, 2018 by Leave a Comment

It’s almost the weekend!retirement - Weekend

Does a life in retirement make you dream of simpler times? Time to spend with family and friends?  This weekend my family and I are looking forward to spending time with family on a weekend camping trip. We have lots of fun activities planned – s’mores, bike riding, games, etc. We’ve been preparing for this for quite a while so everyone is excited that it’s finally here. There are few things in life more relaxing to me than sitting in the woods around a campfire laughing, telling stories, catching up with friends and family. Some of you are thinking that is the worst possible idea ever! LOL! That’s ok. To each his own, right?

How are your weekend plans shaking up?

Is it necessary for you to work this weekend to complete what you couldn’t finish during the week?

Are you making plans for a fun get-away?

Are you busy, but doing things you love to do?

Do your weekend plans make you long for that time you can finally retire – whether it’s to enjoy times like this more often or to never have to work on the weekend again?

Help for your Retirement Plans

Maybe this article from US News can help you move that retirement date closer than it is now:

7 Strategies to Bump Up Your Retirement Date.

If you aren’t satisfied with your current weekend calendar, maybe some of these suggestions can help make your dreams a reality. Every step you take, however small, can have great benefits in the long run. It may feel like you aren’t making progress as quickly as you would like. Be patient. Be dedicated to your plan. Seek professional advise if you need to.

We would love to hear from you.

What would be most helpful for you as you’re planning your retirement?

Do you want to know if you will “run out of money” or not?  If so our software RetirementView is the best tool on Planet Earth for showing you just that….

Click for $50 Off RetirementView – Memorial Day Special

Enter Promo Code:  SUMMER19

Filed Under: Basic Retirement Planning, Personal Travel and Holidays, Torrid Tech Talk

Lake Blue Ridge Fireworks – Pro Leadgen – Thank You For Registering

September 13, 2018 by Leave a Comment

THANK YOU FOR REGISTERING FOR OUR WEBINAR…

(It was a ONE CLICK registration… so you should shortly get an email from GoToWebinar with details in your email box)

On this webinar, You will learn about our new Explosive Lead Gen System….

This past July 4th Tim recording some Fireworks out on Lake Blue Ridge in North Georgia…

Do you know what it’s like to have some explosive power behind your practice?

Many advisors like you are using the RetirementView software to skyrocket what you do in one-on-one conversations with prospects and clients.

And that’s great!

You are getting rid of the “red” on a daily and weekly basis…. and helping people in the process.

But what if you could take that rocket fuel and apply it to your “lead generation” efforts?

Did you know that I invented the idea of a web financial calculator back in 1994?

I designed the first retirement calculator, the first Social Security estimator, the first Risk Profile analyzer and many more.

Lately all I hear about from advisors like you is “I need more leads!  If I could just get in front of more people, then I know I could really make a bigger impact AND make more money!”

Well, we heard you loud and clear!

We have created a “lead generation” version of RetirementView that runs from your website.

Yep!

It looks nearly identical to the desktop version, but it’s web based.

It does NOT let the prospect use every aspect of the software.

They can’t create a couples plan or add cash infusions and special expenses.

Clicking on those things tells them to contact YOU!

Or to set up an appointment with you… typically using a Calendly.com type of system.

What does that let you do????

It let’s you use the power of RetirementView with “mass marketing”…

Yep.  You can email it out to a list.  You could mail post cards about it.  You could let “groups” access it ….and it is advertising YOU and YOUR PRACTICE the entire time.

Maybe you have a radio show.  You can drive traffic to it from your radio program…

You can hang it off your existing website OR we could put it on it’s own domain name for you if you like so you can do ultimate tracking on it.

So….

Make sure you attend the WEBINAR to learn all about this new system!

AGAIN SEE YOU ON THE WEBINAR – DETAILS SHOULD HAVE BEEN EMAILED TO YOU DIRECTLY FROM GOTOWEBINAR!

Thanks and Happy Planning!

Regards,

-Tim

P.S.  No this is not my car… Ford GT350 I think at a car show that was at a conference in Phoenix a few years back.

Filed Under: Torrid Tech Talk

Lake Blue Ridge Fireworks – Pro Leadgen Purchase Page

July 3, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Explosive Lead Gen System….

This past July 4th Tim recording some Fireworks out on Lake Blue Ridge in North Georgia…

Do you know what it’s like to have some explosive power behind your practice?

Many advisors like you are using the RetirementView software to skyrocket what you do in one-on-one conversations with prospects and clients.

And that’s great!

You are getting rid of the “red” on a daily and weekly basis…. and helping people in the process.

But what if you could take that rocket fuel and apply it to your “lead generation” efforts?

Did you know that I invented the idea of a web financial calculator back in 1994?

I designed the first retirement calculator, the first Social Security estimator, the first Risk Profile analyzer and many more.

Lately all I hear about from advisors like you is “I need more leads!  If I could just get in front of more people, then I know I could really make a bigger impact AND make more money!”

Well, we heard you loud and clear!

We have created a “lead generation” version of RetirementView that runs from your website.

Yep!

It looks nearly identical to the desktop version, but it’s web based.

It does NOT let the prospect use every aspect of the software.

They can’t create a couples plan or add cash infusions and special expenses.

Clicking on those things tells them to contact YOU!

Or to set up an appointment with you… typically using a Calendly.com type of system.

What does that let you do????

It let’s you use the power of RetirementView with “mass marketing”…

Yep.  You can email it out to a list.  You could mail post cards about it.  You could let “groups” access it ….and it is advertising YOU and YOUR PRACTICE the entire time.

Maybe you have a radio show.  You can drive traffic to it from your radio program…

You can hang it off your existing website OR we could put it on it’s own domain name for you if you like so you can do ultimate tracking on it.

So….

In honor of this great holiday, we’re making you this explosive offer!

You can light up your lead generation by getting the “RetirementView 360 CLOUD Lead Generation Tool”.

What you get:

  • a branded version of the cloud lead gen RetirementView tool
  • tracking for Google and Facebook pixel
  • set up of Calendly.com for prospects to create appointments with you
  • teaser ads for you right on the lead gen RetirementView tool
  • social media images you can post to Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
  • image for you to use in your email footer
  • FREE integration with your website (by popup link or by framing it out)

To take advantage of this incredible lead generation package, click here to order.

This offer is only good through Wednesday July 11th, 2018, so don’t delay.

From all of us here at Torrid Technologies, we hope you have a very happy and safe 4th!

Filed Under: Torrid Tech Talk

Lake Blue Ridge Fireworks (Consumer)

July 3, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Happy Independence Day to you all!

Tim got his started a little early – or someone across the lake from him anyway. Check out the video of the show.


July 4th fireworks on the lake 2018 from Tim Turner on Vimeo.

In honor of this great holiday, we’re making you this explosive offer!

You can light up your retirement planning with RetirementView Personal or Couples Edition for $50 off of your first year’s subscription (this is a one time discount).

To take advantage of this offer, click here and use the promo code FIREWORKS50 at checkout.

This offer is only good through Sunday July 8th, 2018, so don’t delay.

From all of us here at Torrid Technologies, we hope you have a very happy and safe 4th!

Filed Under: Torrid Tech Talk
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