Financial

The first step is to figure out a realistic financial goal for yourself and your family. Talk with your loved ones to ensure that everyone has the same goals in mind. Clearly not all families will have the same end goal – figure out what is important to you, whether it is early retirement, financial comfort, children’s education, travel, taking care of elders, or your children.

Someone starting their savings in their early 20s can save 10% of their income and have a sufficient nest egg, while someone starting in their 40s may have to bump that number up more towards 20%. This is all dependent on the time of your life that you choose to start, the size of your current nest egg, and the amount of money that you will need to retire comfortably.

It is always a good idea to contribute as much as possible to retirement plans, to take advantage of tax deferral and employer matches.

Generally people need around 80% of their pre-retirement income after they have retired for the first few years and then learn how to live on less. This will greatly depend on the expenses that you plan on having:

• Is the mortgage already paid off?
• Do you have car payments?
• Are you sending your children through school?

Another strategy worth following is to always have an emergency fund of at least 6 months of expenses. Considering your situation and the situations of the people that you depend on or depend on you, you can adjust the number of months accordingly, but 6 is a good ballpark number. This will also depend on how many bills you need to pay.

• Risk vs. Return
• Asset Allocation
• Diversifying
• Monitoring Progress

Keep tabs on how your assets are performing. If they seem to be underperforming, you may want to change your investments to some that may be more lucrative. You may want to also check to make sure that the investments that you own are in line with your current investment strategy. Your strategy may change over time. Be sure to compare your investments to your current situation.

There are definite risks to investing, but educating yourself can drastically limit your exposure to these risks.

• When the rate of return is great, the risk usually is as well. Depending on the situation, you may put yourself at risk to lose all of your initial investment.
• There is a great difference in the liquidity of assets. Some can be sold in moments, and some may take quite a bit of time – take this into consideration when buying. Some may also have penalties for selling early or maturation dates.
• Investing in a company with little or no history is much riskier than those with a proven track record.
• The previous performance of a stock doesn’t necessarily mean that the stock will follow that pattern.
• Pay attention to news that pertains to the companies that you hold, information that is released about the companies in the news can seriously affect the values of the investments you hold.

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• Always trade through your brokerage firm.
• Never make purchases from phone solicitations offering the next hot stock.
• Never send personal checks to a sales rep, always to the company.
• Always receive your monthly statements to double check that everything is correct and that there are no irregular charges.
• If any sales representatives attempt anything that seems out of place, contact the branch manager of the company.

A bond is simply a certificate which the borrower promises to repay within a certain time period. For the privilege of using the money, the government entity, municipality or company will agree to pay a certain amount of interest per year, usually an exact percentage of the amount loaned.

Bondholders do not own any part of the companies they lend to – they do not receive the benefits of dividends or the privilege to vote on company matters as stockholders would, and the success of the investment isn’t related to that company’s record in the market either. A bondholder is entitled to receive the amount that was agreed upon, as well as the principal of the bond.

Corporate bonds are generally issued in the denominations of $1000. This price is referred to as the face value of the bond – this is the amount that is agreed to be paid by the company at the time that it matures. Bond prices can differ from their face values, because the prices of the bonds are correlated to the current market rates. When these rates change, the value of the bond will as well. If one were to sell the bond before the time that it matures, the bond may be worth less than was initially paid. A callable bond is one that the issuer may choose to buy back at full face value before the maturity date.

There are three major features of bonds:

• Issuing Organization
• Maturity
• Quality

Short Term Bonds mature in two years or less and long term bonds mature in ten or more. Intermediate is between two and ten years.

Bond quality is the rating of the creditworthiness of an issuing organization. There are organizations that specialize in judging bond quality. The higher the rating, the lower the risk of the investment. The rating system uses letters A through D. The only bond considered to be risk free is the U.S. Treasury Bond

• Generally bond prices and interest rates have an inverse relationship – as interest rates drop, bond prices rise and vice versa.

Bond prices are heavily influenced by maturity – the longer the maturity, the greater the change in price for a change in interest rates. If interest rates rise, it would make a larger difference in the 20 year bond, as opposed to a 10 year bond. Because of this, bond fund managers will attempt to change the fund’s average maturity to anticipate changes in interest rates.

• A “call” is when the issuer of the bonds has an opportunity to redeem the bonds after a certain specified amount of time has passed. This doesn’t guarantee a continuation of a high yield after the call date – it limits the appreciation of the bonds, and it makes the investment more risky. These call provisions can be complex, so it is best for investors that don’t have strong knowledge to avoid bonds with a call feature

All mutual funds distributions should be reported as income, whether you reinvest or not. Taxable distributions come in two forms, ordinary dividends and capital gains. The distributions of ordinary dividends represent the net earnings of the fund and are paid out periodically to the shareholders. Since these payments are considered to be dividends to you, they must be accounted for accordingly.

Capital Gain Distributions are the net gains of the sales of securities in the fund’s portfolio and will be taxed at a different rate than that of ordinary dividends. Yearly, your mutual fund will send you a form, called the 1099-DIV, which will have a detailed breakdown of all of these.

Funds will generally give you the opportunity to automatically reinvest in the fund. This does not prevent you from paying tax on your assets, but this reinvestment will prevent you from paying more “buy” fees to get into the fund, so it is advantageous.