Top Ten Best Countries to Retire in

The Best Countries to Retire in 2014

First Published Date: February 19, 2014 ADawnJournal.com

Overseas retirement magazine InternationalLiving.com recently published its Annual Global Retirement Index 2014 featuring the best countries on earth to retire. The editors look at various criteria, such as cost of living, climate, real estate, health care, etc to compile their list of world’s best places to retire. Here are the top ten countries for 2014:

1. Panama

2. Ecuador

3. Malaysia

4. Costa Rica

5. Spain

6. Colombia

7. Mexico

8. Malta

9. Uruguay

10. Thailand

The full list has many countries in South America. However, personally I would be reluctant to live in countries like Colombia or Mexico. Asian hot spots like the Philippines and Thailand are not on top of the list. The reason South American countries are dominant is because data are collected from Canadian and American expat retirees, and distance played a significant role, as South American countries are lot closer to them than Asian countries. To view the full list, click The World’s Best Retirement havens .

Top Three Retirement Moving Mistakes

Avoid These Retirement Relocating Mistakes

First Published Date: May 16, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

As you are not tied to any location once you are retired, it opens up endless possibilities to move to any place of your choice. However, jumping too conclusions too fast without considering a variety of things can cause lots of trouble. Here are some common things to consider before moving to your dream place.

Moving to An Unknown Place – Moving to a place where you don’t know anyone sounds like an adventure, but consider the drawbacks as well. You will be losing your support groups like friends and family, known health care providers, familiar stores, car mechanics, home contractors, and so on. In case of emergency, when you need someone to fix something or for other assistance, you will have a much tougher time getting the help you need right away.

Buying vs. Renting – Do not buy a new place in a new community without finding out more details and spending enough time at that location. If your new destination is near your current home, you can find out a lot more without living there physically. However, if it’s a place far away from your current location, it makes sense to rent for a while and experience how things are there without buying a place.

Don’t Forget These – There are many other things to consider before moving to a new place. Here are some of the most important things you need to check out: cost of living, climate, outdoor activities, indoor activities, what sorts of people live there, if it is a high-tax or low-tax area, how safe the neighbourhood is, how far it is from a major city, how far from an airport or a train station, what types of public transports available, and so on.

5 Retirement Mistakes To Avoid

Five Retirement Planning Mistakes

First Published Date : April 11, 2012

Unexpected global economic fluctuations and downturn have made Canadians rethink and reevaluate their retirement strategies. And in a time like this, a mistake can be irreversible and can go a long way. The best suggestion? Avoid mistakes in the first place. Today, I will look at some common mistakes to avoid.

Not Planning Early and Setting Goals – If you have just joined the workforce and happen to bump into this article – congratulations! A lot of us make the mistake to plan and set realistic goals early enough to achieve it. You should have a clear picture of when you want to retire, how you would like to retire, how much income you need to support yourself, where you would like to live, etc.

Investing and Diversifying too Conservatively – If you are too conservative, you may keep all your money, but it is almost guaranteed that you will lose out to inflation. Technology has brought so many modern day investment vehicles (one example is ETF) to regular investors these days, which was unimaginable just 5-10 years ago. You need several considerable investments with a moderate diversification.

Misunderstanding Expenses – Don’t make the mistake of overestimating or underestimating your retirement needs. Make a list of all your expenses and try living on that before your actual retirement. Keep in mind that some expenses will gradually drop out once you retire.

Misunderstanding Debt Management – Don’t look at debt management the traditional way. One simple example is paying off your mortgage or investment loans ASAP. If you have investment loans that earn you more than the interest you pay to carry the loan, it may not make sense to pay off investment loans or mortgage on an accelerated pace as you can earn more money if you use the extra payments towards investments that have higher returns.

Misunderstanding Tax Consequences – You can re-energize your retirement assets and income if you go through proper tax planning. Optimized, tax efficient income retirement assets will last a lot longer than those without proper tax planning.
The best way to handle all these I mentioned above is to educate yourself on various retirement aspects. Although retirement planning looks black and white on the surface, it is complicated and it is unlikely that you will know all the ins and outs by yourself. I always recommend consulting a retirement professional to discuss your unique situations.

5 Tips to Help You With Your Work After Retirement

5 Retirement Planning Tips

Published Date: February 2, 2012

As the global economy plunges and retirement portfolio shrinks, many Canadians are worried more than ever for their financial well being after retirement. Some retirees will be able to maintain their expected living standards regardless of how the economy does. However, this may not be the case for everyone. If you need to work or are thinking of working after retirement, here are some tips to help you with your decision.

1. Some of the government programs for retirees such as Old Age Security (OAS) credit, the government pension plan (CPP), and so on may be affected if you work full- or part-time after retirement.

2. The best way to handle your clawbacks or drawbacks to government benefit programs is to consult a financial planner or tax specialist. They have tools and calculators to show you exactly what your own numbers will look like based on your unique situation (as everyone’s scenarios are different)

3. There are free online tools and calculators available as well to help you with your retirement planning. Such online tools and calculators are available here: Sun Life’s Retirement Tools and Calculators

4. Service Canada offers Canadian Retirement Income Calculator to generate retirement income information and post retirement benefit information, including CPP benefits and OAS.

5. Regardless of how much research you do on your own, my suggestion would be to still sit with a retirement professional and discuss your situations. Due to the complex nature of retirement benefits and clawbacks, it is worth paying for advice and take action based on accurate and updated information. 

How To Retire Early

Retiring Early

First Published Date: July 6, 2011 ADawnJournal.com

When you are thinking of retiring, there are many things you will want to do in order to retire early. Retiring early is very important because it gives you more time to enjoy your Golden Years, but you also need to make sure you have enough money for those Golden Years as well.

Naturally, the most important thing you can do is to start early in saving up for your retirement savings. You want to start early because not only will that help you weather any financial storms in life, it will allow you to save more money for a longer period of time. If you do not start early with saving for your retirement, there is little chance that you are going to be able to retire early.

Of course, starting early is only part of it, you need to also cut how much you spend. Remember, the less you spend, the more you save. The more you save, the earlier you can retire. It really is just that easy, so forget about getting that second car and look at getting some money into the bank instead. Do you need a big house? No, then go and put that money you would have spent on a large mortgage into the bank.

Start putting money into your retirement plans at work as soon as you can. Whether it is a Canada Pension Plan or IRA with the United States.

Investing is important if you want to retire early but it will do you no good to invest in risky ventures that could cost you all the money you have saved.

When you are younger, you can invest more aggressively because there is a greater amount of time to recoup any losses you suffer. However, as you age, make your investments safer and safer. Don’t be investing in junk bonds at the age of 50 because you may win big, but you could just as easily lose very big.

Mortgages cost a lot of money and the sooner you pay off your mortgage, the more money you can save each month. If your mortgage costs you $1,500 a month, paying it off will earn you $3,000 every two months, $30,000 every 20 months and by the time you reach five years, you will have saved $150,000.

Obviously, it is not always that easy to save for an early retirement but by starting sooner, spending less and being wise with your investments you could see yourself hitting your golden years at 50, instead of 65, giving you a lot of extra time to enjoy life before you have to slow things done because of old age.

Of course if you don’t do any of these things, you can always hope that you a rich uncle will pass away and leave you a vast fortune that you can retire on, but that is about as likely as winning the lottery.