The Expo was well attended but many Baby Boomers were there to see the Winnebago campervans and visit the retirement village stands. I attended all the Financial Seminars which were not well attended at all.

The seminars ran all day. Here is a quick run-down of the ones I liked the best along with some comments by me.

Clearview Retirement Solutions

Here the key thing for me was the financial planners are paid a salary. That means no commissions before or after the sale. The presentation was very informative and covered much of the new legislation about retirement, super contributions and taxation and tax free withdrawal after 60.

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Here is my latest bates retirement income strategy model #2. You can check out retirement income strategy model #1 and compare them.

As I learn more from my research I find the picture of what I need to do becomes clearer. So I have decided to revise my model and it is shown below.

This is what I think will work for me. It may not suit all Baby Boomers but I find simple diagrams and pictures give me a better understanding of what I need to achieve.

(A large diagram is displayed later in the Post)

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I much appreciate a comment I received on my Post about Apathy of Baby Boomers to take control of their nest eggs. I do believe there is a lot of truth in the comment that Baby Boomers are innocent when it comes to their retirement nest egg. But I contend this is unacceptable in an adult in their late 50’s and beyond who is or is about to retire.

In many countries around the worlds where compulsory contributions are taken out of salaries each month for all workers they can be forgiven if they lose sight of this money. Many young people today will wait 40 years or more before they see any of that money. It becomes unreal and may just be considered another form of tax. If you can’t spend it when you want to then just forget it may be the lament.

Innocence occurs because the time horizon is too far out to be of concern, plus in the early years the amount are so small as to be of no consequence. There is a total disconnect between the retirement money, the investor and the fund manager. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s seems there is deep seated apathy in Baby Boomers over their retirement nest eggs. Despite all the posts I have written on this blog there seems very little concern out there or at least any that is being expressed. This seems to be the only rational explanation. Every day there are new headlines about:

• stock market losses seriously eroding retirement nest eggs.
• financial fees and charges of up to 30 times declared costs eating into retirement funds.
• subprime crisis destroying house values everywhere including those owned by baby boomers
• baby boomers may have to work for much longer to replenish their nest eggs after the bear market and recession few admit is happening.

So why aren’t baby boomers making their presence felt?

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I may not have got all Mutual Fund fees and charges but you should be horrified by the list of the ones I have found. The Mutual Fund industry has found many ways to part you from your money with their loads, fees, charges and hidden costs. They do this slowly with small percentages over time so you don’t notice. MER’s or Expense Ratios are for their great looking prospectus. But many fees and charges may not be included in the Expense Ratios. So you may have to hunt down or demand your financial planner make a full written disclosure on each fund you are invested in.

You should be alarmed by the figures in the table below. it is from the excellent site Retire Early Home Page by John P. Greaney. It clearly shows when you are accumulating a nest egg what effect fees have on the final amount of your nest egg after 40 years. As you can see fees of 3% result in your nest egg being less than 50% ($427,219) compared to fees of 0.02% ($968,249) after 40 years of saving. That money is paid to your financial planner over that 40 year period. Whether you are in the USA with an IRA or in Australia with a Superannuation Fund the fees take the same toll on your retirement nest egg.

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Well it happened, the S&P 500 is officially is down over 20% and that means a technical recession is occurring. What does it mean to you with your retirement funds taking a serious hit? One thing it doesn’t mean is that you should capitulate and sell all your equity funds and rush to cash. On this one point i agree with the financial industry but with qualifications.

Unfortunately it is too late for that. If you didn’t use a stop loss or instruct your financial planner to exit your funds at a loss acceptable to you, you have now become a genuine long term buy and hold investor.

The financial planning world has got you where they want you. What’s left of your money is safe for them to use and lose testing the market looking for the next bull.

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Hello to all the Baby Boomers in Australia that have visited this blog today. I hope you find it informative and useful. You probably got here after reading Annette Sampson’s article in the Money section of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Please take the time to read the About Me so you may know more about me and what I am trying to do.

This blog is aimed at all Baby Boomers all over the world who are in retirement or just about to retire. it is not a blog for investment advice though.

The blog aims to help Baby Boomers protect their nest egg in retirement and reveal to them all the ways their nest egg can be taken from them when in retirement. Read the rest of this entry »

A Baby Boomer friend of mine has sent me his WRAP Account results through to June 2008. We both decided in November 2006 that we would hand our retirement nest eggs over to the “Professionals” so we could spend our time doing other things as we move into semi-retirement.

Our retirement nest eggs were put straight into a diversified portfolio of mutual funds within a few days of giving our financial planner our money.

It turns out that our timing could not have been any worse. From November 2006 through to November 2007 the markets became more volatile. Property was in the doldrums already but then we got hit with International fixed interest losses because the Aussie dollar was rising against the US Dollar. Then we got hit again with dropping interest rates in the USA. The International share losses offset the Australian share gains to give us zero returns.

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