 | | Retirement Checklist | | | | To keep yourself on track to healthier personal finances,
start here by setting due dates for your own financial to-dos. Click the button
next to each item to add it to your Yahoo! Calendar or
print out this checklist of
retirement planning
to-do's and check off each item as you complete it. Get ready to
face your
financial fears today!
For more information on each item, refer back to Suze Orman's article:
"The Sane Retirement
Plan". | |
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| | Pay off your mortgage before you stop workingGetting out of debt is the most powerful way to create a comfortable and affordable retirement. Get your loans paid
off early and you not only have peace of mind, you also save tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments that
you can use to finance your retirement. If things really get
rough and you need extra income, you can do a reverse mortgage if you are 62 or older and have at least half of your
home paid off. With a reverse mortgage, the bank pays you a monthly income based on the equity you have in your home. | | | | | |
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| | Get out of credit card debtDo you realize the interest rate on a credit card is easily three times the rate on many mortgages? And it kills me
when I hear people tell me they only pay the minimum monthly amount on their card debt. Do that and you will be
paying off that money for decades. If you pay only the minimum due on an 18-percent card with a $9,000 balance,
you're looking at a 31-year payoff period - and you'll end up making $13,000 in interest payments! | | | | | |
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| | Pay off your auto loansPlease don't screw up your future by taking out huge loans to finance a luxury car you can't afford, just so you can
impress people you don't even know. It's insanity. Cars are one of the worst investments in existence. Actually, let
me take that back. Cars shouldn't even be thought of as an investment. The moment you drive them off the lot they are
losing value and there's nothing you can do about it. | | | | | |
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| | Begin Contributing to a Roth IRA NowAt age 30, if you take the $3,000 you were about to blow on a vacation and instead invested it in a solid low-cost
mutual fund such as the Vanguard Total Market Index fund within
your ROTH IRA, and your investment earns the long-term average return of about 10 percent a year, you're looking at
having $84,300 by the time you hit 65. And what if you keep making that $3,000 investment each year? You will have an
incredible $978,690 by 65. | | | | | |
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