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Retirement Risks

Sep 12 2017
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How Can You Protect Yourself from Identity Theft and Data Breaches?

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Data breaches are a constant concern in our modern society. As the latest in a long string of data breaches, Equifax recently announced they were the target of a cyberattack in which the sensitive information of nearly half of all Americans was compromised. You can follow this link to see if you’re one of the 143 million potentially impacted. In addition, our Director of Financial Planning, Rob Cordeau, has put together a helpful piece on how you can prevent identity theft, what options you have for monitoring your credit, and what to do if you discover you’re a victim. While this was inspired by the Equifax breach, these are smart living tips for everyone to live by in this digital age. In the past, it seemed the biggest threat to our personal information was our own ignorance. Maybe we fell for a scam and gave out personal data or failed to use a strong password – or worse – we used the same, weak password for everything. Lately, however, the most likely cause of your personal information finding its way into a hacker’s grubby little hands seems to be not your own mistakes, but the corporate blunders of previously trusted companies. […]

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Aug 25 2017
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Review: When are those penny stock spam emails a good idea? Pretty much never.

By | Retirement Risks, Weekly Review, Healthy Aging | No Comments

We all hate spam, but clearly it works – otherwise we wouldn’t get so much of it. It may not cost much to send an email, but there still needs to be a positive return somewhere in the mix. This is true no matter what type of spam you get – winning a contest, weight loss, or stocks – someone is taking them up on the offer. I doubt that many people reading this are in danger of being suckered in by a pump and dump scam, but someone you know might be, especially older friends and relatives. Elderly folks tend to be more trusting and less informed of the latest scams, making them the perfect target for this type of garbage. Investment scams play right into one of retiree’s biggest fears – running out of money. And the spammers have just the answer. Unfortunately, financial exploitation of the elderly is distressingly common. When I moved to Maine, I had to transfer my licenses from Maryland, which required taking a class in Augusta. As far as I know, Maine is the only state that does something like this – everywhere else you just fill out a form and write a […]

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Aug 11 2017
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Review: How to gauge your chances of a phased retirement

By | Retirement Risks, Retirement Income Funding, Reliable Income, Retirement Insights, Financial Planning, Weekly Review | No Comments

A lot of people expect to work past “retirement age.” They either figure that they will need the additional income to live, or they just enjoy their work and everything that comes with it. Planning to work in retirement is a dangerous game. Working longer can have a huge impact on your retirement situation – not only will you still have an income, but you also won’t be pulling money from your savings. However, almost half of retirees leave the workforce before they planned to, and of those who retired early, over half left because of a personal or family health issue. That should be terrifying if your retirement income plan hinges on you working into your 70s. If you want to work in retirement, that’s great. But you need to recognize it’s a risk. You may not have that option. You owe it to yourself to look at the situation rationally and understand just how feasible your plan is. While 70 percent of companies say they are “aging friendly,” that doesn’t really mean all that much. Frankly, I’m curious about the third of companies that said they weren’t “aging friendly.” You need to look at what your company and […]

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