Plant Services - August 2007 - (Page 53) WEB HUNTER Checking the future Sooner or later we’re going to develop an interest in retirement planning T large. Now, the ratio is low because there are so many retirhere are two broad classes of income – earned and ees living longer and fewer workers, thanks to automation. unearned. You must exert effort to achieve earned So, if you want your share of what you paid in, you’d better income. The better option is unearned, or passive, know how the system works and how to work the system. To income from investments, which keeps appearing in your that end, I’d suggest paying a visit to www.ssa.gov/retire2 to mailbox each month all by itself. Regardless of the economic take advantage of the “Plan Your Retirement” page. Here’s system under which you operate, when your passive income where you find benefit calculators, facts about eligibility, is sufficient to cover your living expenses, you’ve achieved information about what to do if you’re near retirement, onfinancial freedom. line benefits application, a Social Security FAQ and other Investments rely on the concept of compounding, which resources you’ll need when you lose or give up should be of vital interest to those who have your source of earned income. quite a few years to go before retirement. Time is a friend that should be embraced for If you hang the power it brings. If you’re close to retireTaking a gamble around long ment age, however, you should have read this For the moment, let’s assume that Social Seenough, you column about 30 years ago. curity benefits actually will exist when we deEveryone is interested in money, especially learn two things cide to get our share. As you’re aware, those if the money happens to be in your account. who have spent a lifetime paying into this – life is not a So, be careful out there and consult an indeimaginary trust fund have the option of retirdress rehearsal ing early, a move that prompts our hired hands pendent financial expert before you commit and whatever the family savings to anything other than a in Washington to send us smaller monthly two-page display ad in this magazine. checks. On the other hand, working beyond you’ve saved With that caveat, I invite you to join me what is considered a normal retirement age refor retirement in exploring that morass we call the Web to sults in a larger-than-normal check. The monisn’t going to be etary tradeoff is obvious. You can have either retrieve practical, zero-cost, noncommercial, enough. registration-free Web resources for plant promore years of retirement fun with a thinner fessionals thinking about retirement, early or pocketbook or fewer, perhaps less vibrant, reotherwise. One Web site gets several mentions tirement years with more money. If you opt this month. If content is king, this one wears the crown. It’s out early and then live for a lot longer than you expected, not a matter of bias. Remember, we search the Web so you you will have passed the breakeven point and come out bedon’t have to. hind financially. Such is the thesis behind an article titled “A retirement mistake Boomers should avoid,” by Jeanne Sahadi, a senior writer for CNNMoney.com. The breakeven Can it pay? calculator cited in the article requires you to enter data from The Industrial Revolution decreased the importance of the the official benefits form the Social Security Administrafamily farm as the source of old-age security. Able-bodied tion sends you every few years. So, get your paperwork and rural people migrated to the cities where the paychecks pay a visit to http://money.cnn.com, where you should enter came regularly, as long as one remained young and ablethe author’s name in the search box in the upper right corbodied. Patiently, Destitution sat on the sidelines waiting ner. Be sure it’s configured to search the entire site. When I to pounce on workers who lost or gave up that source of searched, the article was the 20th entry down. income. That made for an unhappy populace, which was part of the motivation for FDR to sign the Social Security Act into law in the mid-1930s. Initially, the ratio of active Neatly aligned ducks workers paying in to former workers drawing benefits was You’ll never get out of this world alive. And, no, you really August 2007 www.PLANTSERVICES.com 53 http://www.plantservices.com/voices/web_hunter.html http://www.ssa.gov/retire2 http://CNNMoney.com http://money.cnn.com http://www.PlantServices.com
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