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Other Topics |
Wills, trusts, and charitable remainder
trusts
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Auto Insurance : Liability coverage
Good insurance will include all of these coverages, and others as well (towing, rental vehicle, etc). If your driving record is good, and you drive a modest vehicle ($$$ as well as performance), good insurance isn't costly. My insurance has all of these coverages, my driving record is clear, I drive a Corvette, and insurance costs me $1700 per year, dropping about $100 per year as my car gets older, and I'm with the same insurance company longer. If my car were average cost, and not a performance vehicle, my insurance costs would be about half of what they are for full coverage. If you don't have full coverage auto insurance, you should get it as part of a comprehensive financial planning regimen. | |
How much money is needed for Retirement?
Suppose you retired today, and have a $100,000 salary. You'd need $70K in annual income. If we assume 5.33% yield and 3% growth (8.33% return), then you'd need (100/5.33) = 18.75 * $70K = $1.3M in assets. That's only 13 times terminal salary. 8.33% long term return is fairly conservative. I'd say that if you have 15 times terminal salary in assets, you're quite adequately covered. All of these figures will be substantially lower (as they are for most people of more limited means) if you allow for gradual consumption of principal over some actuarial lifetime. This is in fact a more typical case, and the mathematics are more complicated. In that case, you need a maximum of maybe 12 times terminal income, and 10 times terminal income might easily suffice for up to 20 years or so in retirement (age 85 - how many live longer than that?). Most of these scenarios assume some things: your mortgage is paid; your kids are independent; you're not chronically ill or disabled; you're not supporting parents or others; you generally live within your means.
Stuart
Additionally, here is a primer on retirement planning. and a few retirement calculators, if you need to crunch your own numbers:
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Inheritance tax
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Credit Fraud / Identity Theft
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Credit reporting agencies
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Asset protection
The stock answer seems to be "get an excess liability (also called 'umbrella') insurance policy". These cost about $500/year for $1M in coverage and usually require your auto insurance be increased to 250K/500K limits when you purchase the excess liability coverage. More paranoid (or wealthy) individuals may want to investigate trusts and other mechanisms in addition to, or instead of, an excess liability insurance policy. | |
Credit Rating (FICO score)
Generally, the better your FICO score the better your interest rate for loans, and the more money you can loan. FICO reports are available from myfico.com and many other places. The FICO score is calculated based on length of credit, amount of credit available, on-time payment history, and a variety of other factors. Some companies advertise that they can "improve" your FICO score. While mistakes in your credit report can be corrected (by contacting the appropriate credit reporting agency), nothing more can legally be done to improve your FICO score. | |
How to find out if a Bank is FDIC insured?
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