Posted on Tue, Mar 31, 2009
Feeling stressed out by the economy? Reuters News reports that a new website by the U.S. government may help soothe frazzled nerves or at least put yon on the lookout for strange behaviors.
A guide to “Getting Through Tough Economic Times” available at http://www.samhsa.gov/economy/ is meant to “help people identify any serious health concerns related to financial worries, develop coping skills and find help,” the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced this week.
Left unchecked, stress can lead to the risk of clinical depression, anxiety and compulsive behaviors such as gambling, overeating and even spending, SAMHSA said.
Behavioral changes to be aware of include: persistent sadness, excessive anxiety, lack of sleep or constant fatigue, excessive irritability or anger, increased drinking, and Illicit drug use including misuse of medications.
Of particular importance is helping people see the warning signs of depression, suicidal thinking and other serious mental illnesses, SAMHSA said.
The site directs people to caregivers and also offers tips on ways to reduce the causes of stress, such as finding a new job and refinancing mortgages.
Efinancial was founded to take the stress out of financial decisions like life insurance. Stress-free life insurance could even be our motto. How are you keeping your cool?
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Posted on Fri, Mar 27, 2009
American consumers and businesses are embarking on a new era of thrift, saving more money than ever before. Should you be concerned about safety? A homespun urban myth quips that a mattress may be a better vault for those savings than a neighborhood bank.
Fortunately, for your wealth and your health, there’s no need to lose sleep or make your mattress uncomfortable. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures all funds on deposit with affiliated financial institutions up to $250,000 per depositor. A good thing, too, since the U.S. personal saving rate in the last three months of 2008 rose to its highest level in six years.
“If American consumers are less indebted, live within their means and have more money in savings, they are better positioned to spend on a sustainable basis for years to come,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. “As painful as that is economically in the short run, these developments will better serve us in the long run.”
The gains in personal savings have come even as interest rates drop to negligible levels. According to a weekly Bankrate.com survey, the average one-year certificate of deposit paid 1.63 percent interest, while average money-market accounts paid 0.54 percent interest.
“Consumers are rational,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR. “They respond to incentives and conditions, and right now the conditions and incentives are: spend as little as you can, and pay down as much as you can. You hunker down. That’s what the consumer’s doing.”
Besides passbook savings, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, and the mattress, innovative insurance products are another way to save money and build substantial cash equity while putting those dollars to work by protecting against financial disaster. How are your savings plans shaping up?
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Posted on Sat, Mar 21, 2009
What’s more important to today’s retiree: flexibility in investing or rock-solid dependability? It will come as no surprise that the pendulum is swinging in answer to that question, from the former to the latter.
A recent survey reported in investmentadvisor.com found that those at or nearing retirement “expressed significantly lower levels of financial comfort, greater concern about further market declines, and higher interest in guaranteed income streams for retirement” than one year ago.”
Where once “the ability to make decisions about how money is invested, diversified, and allocated” was held as the most important factor, now it is the safety and sustainability of a “guaranteed payment stream” above all else.
One such product for creating that kind of stability for retirement is the Annuity.
In the U.S. an annuity contract is created when an individual gives a life insurance company money which may grow on a tax-deferred basis and then can be distributed back to the owner in several ways. The defining characteristic of all annuity contracts is the option for a guaranteed distribution of income until the death of the person or persons named in the contract. Perhaps confusingly, the majority of modern annuity customers use annuities only to accumulate funds and to take lump-sum withdrawals without using the guaranteed-income-for-life feature.
Annuity contracts in the United States are defined by the Internal Revenue Code and regulated by the individual states. Variable annuities have features of both life insurance and investment products.In the U.S., annuity contracts may be issued only by life insurance companies, although private annuity contracts may be arranged between donors to non-profits to reduce taxes. Insurance companies are regulated by the states, so contracts or options that may be available in some states may not be available in others.
How would an annuity work for those who are at or close to retirement age? For example, suppose a husband and wife, both 65 years old, have saved $1,000,000 saved for retirement but have an income need of $45,000 annually. “In order to guarantee this income for both their lives in an immediate annuity they would need to deposit $647,946, leaving $352,054 to further invest or save for possible inheritance.” If the same couple was interested in a cost of living increase of 3% on this immediate annuity, they would need to deposit $872,622. This would leave them with a 4.5% income guaranteed which increases by 3% annually while keeping $127,378 available for emergencies.”
A common income strategy for annuities is to determine the fixed expenses you will have during retirement and the figure for the required deposit into the immediate annuity. This gives retirees an income guarantee for their fixed expenses and allows them to stay in the market with remaining assets to act as their longer term inflation hedge.
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Posted on Tue, Mar 17, 2009
“In hard economic times, investors look for ways to lighten their financial load,” writes life insurance advisor Peter C. Kat in this month’s
Journal of Financial Planning.
Affordable life insurance can have a decisive role to play. Instead of buying higher-cost permanent policies that generate cash value, policy buyers can look to much lower-cost term insurance for savings while protecting their families against catastrophic loss. If cash value policies are acquired make sure they are low expense so you can have immediate liquidity if and when you need funds. When savings have amassed in a policy and cash is needed, investors may be able to withdraw or borrow from cash values of permanent policies.
Financial decisions can come under stress in difficult economic times. Yet, decisions about life insurance during such periods are vital to your family’s future. So keep these guidelines in mind. Term life insurance is much more relevant because of its simple, low costs. Low-expense survivorship universal life should be used for term insurance when estate tax liquidity is the problem. Static-priced universal life insurance with low to zero cash values shows its significant weakness when liquidity is needed, and is often rejected for that reason alone. Finally, the amount of early whole life and conventional universal life cash values can be improved by buying low-cost versions.
The Journal of Financial Planning is the official publication of the Financial Planning AssociationTo get a
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Posted on Fri, Mar 13, 2009
If you’re within clicking distance of this blog post, chances are good you do at least part of your shopping online these days. We hope you’ve already discovered why
Efinancial is the best place to
shop for life insurance. With this post, we’d like to help you “insure” that your other household purchases result in the lowest price for the best value. The nifty Web tools that follow keep an eye on prices for you at Amazon.com as well as some other Web sites to fill you in on sales, price drops and special offers.
Amazon Price Watch (aka NukePrice.com) <
http://www.nukeprice.com/onlinetools.html>
Amazon Price Watch may sound like it’s only Amazon.com prices, but it actually works with around 100 online retailers. You can have it watch the price of something by dropping its link into the service’s Web form, or by installing a browser add-on that lets you start tracking from the retailer’s site.
Apnoti
<http://www.apnoti.com/>
Apnoti watches Amazon for price drops. You can use it either by dropping in the Amazon product link and your e-mail address or installing a tool bar that adds the option to watch a price to Amazon.com. Apnoti refreshes its price index “continuously” so you can be notified when a price drops usually within the hour.
BeatThat!
<http://beatthat.com/>
BeatThat is primarily a deals site that lets users add deals they’ve found in return for cash. However, each product on the site can be watched to see if it drops below whatever price threshold you set. You must be a registered user of the site to make use of this feature.
Buy it Later
<http://www.buylatr.com/>
Buy it Later is a tool that’s been designed specifically for Amazon.com. You install a small browser add-on, which will add a new button to Amazon product pages that lets you opt-in to buy it at a later date. Once you click this the tool will start tracking the price. It also gives you the heads up when an item comes back in stock, which can be useful if you’re looking to buy something with a low supply.
CamelCamelCamel
<http://camelcamelcamel.com/>
While camel imagery does not bring price watching to mind, the site does a great job at it. You can search items on Amazon and a few other retailers. It’s also got a great grid of products that have had the biggest price drops by day and week both in dollar amount and in percentage. One of the most important things the site does, however, is show you a price history from the past month both from Amazon and third-party retailers.
EDealInfo
<http://www.edealinfo.com/>
EDealInfo may not be the prettiest site of the bunch, but it’s got a simple and powerful way to build a deal alert without too many specifics. For example, you can keep track of an entire genre of products for price drops, like all digital cameras from a certain retailer, or group of retailers. It’s also registration-free.
FatWallet
<http://www.fatwallet.com/toolbar/>
FatWallet is mainly a deals forum site, but it also has a few tools that can harass the wisdom of the crowds to save you some cash. Firefox users can install the site’s extension which will cross reference the deal to see if there are any coupons or special cash back offers. Consider this a good place to double check a deal you’re tracking using one of the other sites on this list.
NetHaggler
<http://www.nethaggler.com/howitworks_new.jsp?current_tab=2>
NetHaggler is a service designed to let users band together to get a lower price from a retailer by buying a single product as a group. It also has a price tracking feature that lets you bookmark items you’d be interested in buying for a certain price. Its system will then send you an alert either if your product falls within the price you’ve set, or if it’s been able to haggle down the price by bulk buying with other users.
Ookong
<http://ookong.com/>
Ookong is another Amazon deal finder. It’s currently for Firefox only, and requires you to install it to make use of its price-dropping prowess. Once it’s on your machine you get a new button on all Amazon product pages that lets you track an item for any price drops. If the price goes down you get a little pop-up message in the bottom corner of your browser.
PriceDrop
<http://pricedrop.stuffstuff.org/>
PriceDrop is an extension that users install in their browser to be alerted when the price of a product from Amazon.com goes down. You can monitor all your alerts in one list, and it gives you a real-time pop-up in the corner of your screen when it’s time to alert you. Considering the tool only checks for price changes once every 18 hours it may not be the fastest, most real-time option, but it’s one of the simpler options that won’t clog up your e-mail in-box.
PriceGrabber
<http://www.pricegrabber.com/ulists.php>
PriceGrabber’s claim to fame is that it does the comparison shopping for you, but it’s also got a robust alert tool that will let you know when an item’s price fluctuates. To add items you simply search for them through PriceGrabber’s database. You can also add any item to this list from its special PriceGrabber product page. You must be registered with PriceGrabber to use this tool, which many other services on this list don’t require.
Price Pinx
<http://www.pricepinx.com/>
Price Pinx, like most other services on this list, lets you drop in a URL to set up a price alert. However, most will find it useful for tracking public price drops. Once users begin tracking an item with the service Price Pinx makes it public, and puts some of the biggest sales on its front page, making it good for deal hunting.
Price Protectr
<http://www.priceprotectr.com/>
Price Protectr is a simple tracking service. You just drop in the URL from a retailer’s product page then set whether you want it to give you alerts about price drops, or e-mail you if there’s been a price drop. For retailers that have a price protection plan this might save you some cash. The service works with around 150 online retailers and has a special toolbar where users can begin to track an item from any of these sites.
Savvy Circle
<http://www.savvycircle.com/>
As one of the longest lists of support stores in this bunch. Just like all the others you just tell it the products you want to keep an eye on and it sends you an e-mail when it goes on sale. You’ll need to register with the service to get alerts though.
Shop It To Me
<http://www.shopittome.com/>
Shop It To Me is the one service on this list that’s dedicated specifically to clothes. Its sister site Shop It To Me Running also does specific shoe brands and sides. With both sites you give it your sizes and specific brands you like and it will give you the heads up when items in that size go on sale. This is one of the better ways to make sure you don’t head off to some sale only to find everything is three sizes too big or small.
ShoppingNotes
<http://shoppingnotes.com/>
ShoppingNotes is one of the simplest tools on this list. There’s no sign-up, you just give the site the product page URL (or URLs as a group) and your e-mail address. It then sends you an e-mail if the price goes down. Besides its main site there’s a bookmarklet you can add to your browser to begin watching a price from any site you’re on.
Slickdeals
<http://forums.slickdeals.net/dealalerts.php?do=adddealalert>
Slickdeals, like Fatwallet is mainly a deals forum. It also has a deal alert tool. Unlike some of the other tools though, it won’t scour the entire Internet to find out when something goes on sale. Instead it will keep an eye on new forum threads and send you an e-mail or private message. Note that you must be registered with the site to use this feature.
Trackle
<http://www.trackle.com/>
Trackle is one of the newest services on this list, having just launched in early February. It’s an alerts service where you can have it keep a lookout for price drops, deals, and reviews on new products. It also has a special filter that can look for the same items on Craigslist in case you want to skip retail entirely.
Waitable
<http://waitable.com/>
Waitable is a price watcher that works with both bar codes and Amazon.com product pages. You set the price and it will send you both an e-mail and an SMS alert when it hits that price. It’s not the prettiest service of the bunch but it does a great job, and lets you manage your alerts on a single page and subscribe to alerts in an RSS feed if you don’t feel like junking up your e-mail in-box or mobile phone.
WishRadar
<http://wishradar.com/>
WishRadar is designed specifically for Amazon.com. If you’re a registered Amazon user, you can simply add items you find to your wish list. WishRadar then tracks those items and will let you know if there are price changes, or if the prices come down to what you’ve set.
Yotify
<http://www.yotify.com/default.aspx>
Yotify works much the same way Trackle does, by letting you set up an alert for a specific product, or genre of products. It then goes out and scouts the Web anywhere from one week to when you tell it you’re no longer interested. Unlike some other tools Yotify doesn’t offer a whole lot of refinement over which retailers you want to limit your search to, but if you’re looking for the lowest price, this may not be important.
ZingSale
<http://zingsale.com/>
ZingSale is one of the prettiest sites on this list and, like the others, is set up to let you quickly put together a list of items you want to track for price drops. It’s got a fast and smart search engine, with a very deep level of categorization, which can help narrow down your searches. And its e-mails lead directly to the retailer that’s selling it at the lowest price.
To get a
Term Life Insurance Quote or Research how to
Buy Life Insurance Online visit
Efinancial.com
Posted on Tue, Mar 10, 2009
Financial
insurance for retirementcan take many forms. Whole or Universal Life insurance policies and annuities can build actual cash value for those golden years. It’s a good thing, too. Most small business workers have employer-sponsored retirement options that range from slim to none.
Under the proposed federal budget plan from the new Obama administration, employers that don’t offer a retirement plan would be required to enroll their workers in a direct-deposit IRA account.
This requirement is one step in Obama’s goal of creating a system of automatic workplace pensions apart from Social Security. Employees at businesses that do offer retirement plans would be automatically enrolled in them, with the ability to opt out if they choose. The automatic enrollment feature would significantly increase the number of low- and moderate-income workers who save for retirement, according to the Obama administration.
About 75 million workers – most of them working for small businesses – lack access to an employer-based retirement plan.
Under the Obama proposal, small businesses that don’t offer retirement plans would not be required to contribute money to their workers’ IRAs, but they would have to set them up and link them to their payroll systems. Opponents claim that will cost some money and pose an additional burden for small businesses. Your future is on the line.
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Term Life Insurance Quote or Research how to
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Posted on Thu, Mar 05, 2009
Not all is dark and gloomy in today’s economic environment.
Wal-Mart has announced that comparable sales at its US discount stores and Supercenters jumped 5 per cent in February, continuing its dominance of the faltering retail sector.
The world’s largest retailer also raised its annual dividend by 15 per cent to $1.09, as it continues to pile up cash at a time when many other leading US companies are cutting back on dividend payments to conserve liquidity.
The retailer said its February sales were supported by increased customer traffic, with continued strength in its grocery, health and entertainment businesses. It also said that it saw sales growth in home furnishings – a category where it had previously struggled.
Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club discount warehouse stores reported a 5.9 per cent increase in comparable sales excluding fuel, outperforming the 4 per cent US sales increase reported by its rival Costco on Wednesday.
The luxury category in retail sales has fared far differently. Saks and Neiman Marcus, the luxury department stores, reported sharp year on ear declines of 26 per cent and 20.1 per cent respectively. Nordstrom department storess saw its comparable sales fall 15.6 per cent.
Target, Wal-Mart’s more upmarket rival, saw comparable sales fall 4.1 per cent. JC Penney, the department store, reported an 8.8 per cent decline, better than the mid-double digit fall it had forecast, and said it had seen good sales of its own brand women’s clothing and benefited from home furnishings sale.
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Term Life Insurance Quote or Research how to
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Posted on Sun, Mar 01, 2009
The
Financial Times reports that AIG will announce a radical plan to break itself up after 90 years as a global insurance conglomerate by ceding control of its two largest divisions to the US government in exchange for a $30 billion-plus lifeline.
“We are breaking up AIG but we are trying to do it in a way that preserves value for the taxpayer, the employees and the businesses,” said a person close to the plan, which was revealed by the Financial Times last week.
People close to the situation said the authorities, which already own 80 per cent of AIG, would get a controlling stake of 70-75 per cent in American International Assurance (AIA) – AIG’s large Asian operations – and American Life Insurance Company (Alico), a global life insurance business. The structure is aimed at giving the government a better chance to recoup taxpayers’ money when the two businesses are sold or listed.
AIG will also securitize $10 to $15 billion of cash flow from its US life insurance operations and sell the bonds to the government, insiders said. In return, the government will cancel most or all of the $37 billion it is owed from AIG as part of a $60 billion credit line it extended in November. The authorities will also lower the interest rate on the rest of the loan, saving AIG $1billion a year. And the government will provide a $30 billion standby equity line – a promise to buy preferred shares in AIG – that it can tap if needed.
To get a
Term Life Insurance Quote or Research how to
Buy Life Insurance Online visit
Efinancial.com