Federal rate hike presents new obstacles for some Central Florida residents  

Please tab past the video for my contribution to this article.

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We grew up learning the basic three R’s to get us started in life. Here are three R’s to pay attention to as you wind things down.
Get Real about your retirement.
Have you figured out how much income you will need and where it will come from? Is your retirement age realistic? How long might you live in retirement? You have to be able to answer these questions before you retire.
Resist the desire to dump all of your stocks. We have just had the worst start of a year, financially speaking, since 2008. Panic might lead a number of investors to think they have to get out of the stock market fast. Step back and don’t sell so fast. Over the long term, stocks have outperformed other types of investments. Stocks generally keep investors ahead of inflation. These two factors are very important in retirement.
Re-evaluate your life insurance. Did you base your original life insurance purchases on providing for your family? Paying off your mortgage? Covering final expenses? As we reach retirement, we do not have the obligations we had. Hopefully, your kids are supporting themselves, and most retirees have paid off their mortgages. Lack of these two expenses may mean that you don’t need as much coverage as you once did. Look at lowering the face value of your coverage or converting your policy to a paid-up life insurance policy.

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Yes, it is that time of year again – tax time. You hate it; I know you do, as do I. But it is a necessary evil that you would like to get done, once, the right way. I will give you some common areas to be careful with, as most taxpayers make mistakes in these areas.
Please get your social security number correct! Simple right, but not for many filers. Some of us have a tendency to transpose numbers or write our spouse’s social security by our own name in error.
Check your math, and then check it again. If you use one of the tax filing programs, this becomes much less of an error. I know many of you still fill in your return by hand. Do your math, put the form down, go back and do your math again. It wouldn’t hurt to double check your inputs again also. Some digits get dropped or transposed.
Did you change your name? There are many reasons for someone to change their name. Make sure your have updated this with the Social Security Administration, then enter and spell correctly your name on your return.

Take your time, be careful, then you can forget about this for another year.

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Over the weekend of Christmas, my neighbor got married at home. It was so heart warming to see everything so pretty and everyone so happy. As newlyweds, there are a few things my neighbors now need to keep in mind as follows:
1. They no longer can file single but need to pick which married designation they want to file under. There are two choices: Married Filing Joint or Married Filing Separate. You will now be responsible for your spouse’s old tax debt (if there is one), but there are benefits to filing joint also- your standard deduction and personal exemptions will change.
2. Are you going to change your name? You will have to go to a government office to do so. If you do not, the Social Security Administration will notify the IRS of your name change; this has to be done prior to filing.
3. Are you a same-sex couple that married prior to 2013? If so, you may want to look at your old returns to see if there are any refunds you might be due to the law changes.

As someone who has been married for 29 years, I say congratulations & happy filing!

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Recently, I spoke to a woman who had just lost her husband. While she missed her husband terribly, per his wishes that she not mourn too long, she was trying to move on. They had celebrated his life and she was feeling as much at peace as one can after losing the love of your life. She received what I would call an average life insurance payout. Not a huge sum of money, but enough to maintain her over the next 25 years. Her angst was caused by her brothers; she did not know what to do.
Next week she will be attending a family function and she knew they were going to ask her for money. Let me correct that: she knew they were going to pressure her because now she was “rich.” Her brothers have made a lot a bad choices; drugs, drinking, not paying their bills on time, not able to hold a job, things we have all heard before. I tried to assure her that she did not have to address, or more importantly, take care of their problems. I told her that I know no one can push our buttons better than our siblings, but she had to be strong.
She was not responsibly for how they had lived their lives and the choices they had made to get them into the positions they are in – she needed to let them know that their comments were rude and hurtful. It was time for her to be selfish. Selfishness in this situation would be her only salvation to assure that she could financially maintain her lifestyle.
We want to help our families, but if we do not take care of ourselves, we cannot help anyone.

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When my Daughter was young, we had my sister appointed as the person named to take care of her financially, and a friend named to take care of her physically. Many people do not split these responsibilities, for us it was the best choice. Now, my daughter is in her 20’s and should be able to take care of herself. The question is: do we burden her with the responsibility of taking care of us if that is necessary? Who will take care of you? Situations change, someone you may have appointed to take care of you either physically or financially may no longer be the best choice.
As the year comes to a close, please review your choices. Make sure that “your person” is still the best person for you.

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I was friends with a girl in high school that constantly wished she would just wake up thinner. She never did anything in the way of physical exercise and I have no idea what shape she is in now.
Financial fitness is just like physical fitness; one step at a time and a continual process. Here are a few steps to get you going:
Review where you stand.
Look at your account statements to see what your investments have been doing, bank statements should be checked for balances and potential errors, and review your spending. For 2016, commit one hour each month to this review process. Weigh your spending vs. what you set for a savings/investment goal. Adjust as needed.

Nutrition is important.
Just as eating properly is important to any fitness goal, feeding your investments is important to your future financial wellbeing. Money issues are one of the biggest stressors we have to deal with. Make sure this is not an issue by properly and regularly feeding your investments the proper amounts for your goals.

Be careful.
Many times when people are new at fitness, they get over zealous and end up hurting themselves. Take it slow and build. The same goes for saving and investing. Make sure you have a good emergency fund before you start long term investing.

Here’s to physical and fiscal fitness in 2016!

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