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Articles by Shane Flait

• Estate Planning Addresses Your 5 Basic Questions in Later Life
  You may have heard about estate planning. Your estate is composed of everything you own - and that includes yourself. But what is the 'planning' really about and should you be concerned getting it done? At some point later in life you decide that you should make provisions for both you and your estate. This article addresses 5 basic questions that encompass those provisions, the consequence of not answering them, and the urgency for doing so.
  Published 07Nov2009, viewed 64 times

• Devices for Answering Your 5 Estate Planning Questions
  Estate planning arranges handling yourself and your assets when you become sufficiently disabled and when you die. In this article I suggest strategies to use in your response to the 5 key estate planning question.
  Published 07Nov2009, viewed 64 times

• Estate Planning Is Important Even If You're Not Rich - Here's Why.
  Those of you who aren't wealthy, generally think that estate planning is only for the rich. But on considering a few simple questions and seeing what can happen to your wealth, you might reconsider having no estate plan. This article gives a few simple examples of why estate planning is necessary for almost everyone.
  Published 08Nov2009, viewed 76 times

• Family Courts Tyrannically Deny Fit Fathers Their Constitutional Right to Parent Their Children
  Family courts routinely deny one fit parent - overwhelming the father- his parental right to raise his child. They tyrannically allege a right to deny father's fundamental rights since they do so for 'the best interest of the child'. Such family court claims are tyrannical and directly conflict with constitutional rights and protections - as this article shows.
  Published 08Nov2009, viewed 60 times

• How Taxation Rules Your Investment Options
  You grow your savings so to use them later. Outside of contributing they grow according to how you invest them. Government's taxation plays an important part in how you choose what to invest in and how to hold that investment. This article overviews how your savings or investments are taxed and how that influences what you choose to invest in.
  Published 07Nov2009, viewed 202 times

• Making Yourself Financially Independent Isn't Lucky - It's Planning
  If you want to accomplish something, you'll invariably need a plan - an effective plan. Most people think becoming financially independent is a pie-in-the-sky happenstance for those with high incomes, lottery winners, and lucky investors. They're wrong. With commitment and a mindset, it's within reach of most. In this article I'll map out a way that almost everybody can achieve financial independence if they put their mind to it.
  Published 05Nov2009, viewed 143 times

• IRAs, Roths, and 401(k)s with Taxed and Untaxed Minimum Required Distributions (MRDs)
  IRA and Roth IRAs are two examples of government-regulated retirement savings plans - called qualified plans. Both are generally personal plans you set up that you can contribute to and withdraw from. Other examples of qualified plans associated with work are 401(k), 403(b) and their Roth versions- like Roth 401(k). This article explains which qualified plans have minimum required distributions (MRDs) associated with them and some strategy.
  Published 05Nov2009, viewed 103 times

• Jailed Father on Hunger Strike to Protest Denial of His Parental and Other Constitutional Rights
  Dr. Amir Sanjari, was divorce after a 17 year marriage. He's a UK Citizen who was originally invited to the United States to Stony Brook University, New York for a research position. Now he's destitute and on a hungar strike in jail to protest the unconstitutional denial of father' rights and more.
  Published 05Nov2009, viewed 21 times

• Coming to Terms with Asset Protection Strategies
  Asset protection deals with protecting your assets from others who may make a claim on them through a court action. Developing an approach to what asset protection strategy you need requires you to understand which assets of yours are vulnerable to be claimed, when, and from whom. This article outlines these points and the boundaries and limitations that affect your choice of asset protection device.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 94 times

• Your Life Insurance Policy Presents Many Options If You're Short on Cash
  If you're in need of cash or running short on income, you can turn to your permanent life insurance policy to help you out. Your policy carries both a cash value and provides a death benefit at your death. Both these attributes give it value you can extract for yourself. This article shows a variety of ways your policy can solve your cash needs.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 79 times

• Family Courts Give Fathers No Protection for Their Rights and Assets - Just Tyranny
  Divorce and paternity lawsuits have sky-rocketed over the last 40 years. They produce immeasurable damage to fathers, their children, their productivity, their assets and their futures. It's wholly uncalled for except for benefits that a mega billion dollar divorce industry receives at the expense of fathers by denying their most fundamental rights. This article explains why fathers find no protection for their children and their assets.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 88 times

• Real Estate Can Give You High Growth Rates at Low Risk
  Buying residential housing offers the best investment for relatively little risk if done conservatively. Whether you buy home or a house to rent, tax laws, leverage, and demand help you to acquire and grow your real estate investment. This article shows you how.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 119 times

• How Much Income Tax Are the Feds Really Taking from You?
  If you're trying to save money, you ought to know how much the federal government is taking from what you earn. Most people just don't know. Finding out will show you why it's hard to get ahead. This article shows how the fed gets 35.4% of an $80,000 working income.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 236 times

• Government Asset Protection - Too Much and None Where There Should Be
  Government laws and its legal system play a part in asset protection. In some venues they may protect too much, while in others, they're the villain that we should be protected from. This article examines when and where.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 107 times

• Earnings Are As Important As Contributions to Your Retirement Savings
  Just contributing to your retirement savings is not enough. You've got to make them earn decent returns so their compounding effects significantly add to what you eventually accumulate. To settle for pathetic investment earnings makes saving for retirement only a contribution game with meagre results. This article shows the kind of earnings you need to compound your way to a decent retirement.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 114 times

• Owning Residential Rental Income Property Grows Your Wealth Faster and Better
  If you want to grow your wealth fast and better, buy residential property to rent out. Your investment will grow faster because of the leverage that a mortgage gives you, and it grows better because rental income, tax laws, and responsible mortgage decisions keep your risk extremely low for such a high return. Here's how.
  Published 11Oct2009, viewed 170 times

• Retirement Phase Questions to Answer
  Retirement brings a whole new set of considerations to our lives. It's our third - and last - phase of life. In this article I'll outline the sequential stages of our retirement years and the issues you should address - ideally, early in the first stage.
  Published 10Aug2009, viewed 140 times

• Manage Your Retirement Income with the Critical Ages in Mind
  Certain ages are critical when managing our retirement plans. Failure to plan with those ages in mind can produce lost benefits. In this article I outline those dates and explain how they affect your retirement benefits.
  Published 09Aug2009, viewed 176 times

• Enjoy Retirement by Recreating a New Mental Outlook
  Retirement is our third phase of life. Our first phase found us growing up and becoming educated to make a living. In the Second phase we create a family and the wealth to support and raise the kids through their own first phase. we need to recreate our outlook for our third phase to reap a new opportunity for enjoyment and avoid the depression and loss of purpose that many retirees feel. This article addresses how you can do just that.
  Published 07Aug2009, viewed 87 times

• It's Never Too Late to Create an Agreeable Retirement
  If you're a Boomer or fast approaching retirement age but you're far behind in retirement savings, don't give up. You can still pull together a retirement that you can enjoy. With perseverance, planning, and sacrifice, you can retire in relative comfort even with a late start. In this article I show you how to set up a strategy for achieving a good retirement by maximizing your retirement income and minimizing your living expenses.
  Published 05Aug2009, viewed 93 times

• Medical Tourism - Going Off-Shore for Less Expensive but Quality Procedures
  With the cost of U.S. healthcare increasing, finding alternatives that lower costs come into play. If you require a hospital procedure that's too expensive for you, consider going off-shore. There you can find quality care at significantly reduced prices. This article introduces you to taking the off-shore alternative called Medical Tourism. I explain what it means and who's taking advantage of it.
  Published 03Aug2009, viewed 97 times

• Medicaid Planning With an Annuity
  Medicaid planning refers to arranging or transferring your assets to prevent or to minimize their use by Medicaid if pay for your long term care. This article explains how you can shelter some of your assets with an annuity while you or your spouse has Medicaid pay for your long term care costs.
  Published 31Jul2009, viewed 214 times

• IRAs and Qualified Plans Offer Limited Asset Protection
  You can lose your assets to creditors (whom you've borrowed from), to claims under divorce or paternity suits, to trumped-up claims against your deep pockets, or to government for taxes owed. What you have in your IRA or other qualified plan has some asset protection. But federal and state laws together determine when and how much protection those assets actually have - and from whom. That's what this article addresses.
  Published 29Jul2009, viewed 184 times

• A Self-directed IRA: the Pros and Cons
  Government rules allow use of your IRA for more types of investments than banks and mutual fund companies allow. But you must steer clear of violation self-dealing rules for those nonconventional IRA investments. But, taxation of IRAs obliterates the tax-advantages of some alternative investments. This article overviews nonconventional investments, tax rules and restrictions, and suggests reasons for and against investing in them.
  Published 29Jul2009, viewed 429 times

• Allocate to Achieve a Goal and Rebalance to Maintain It
  Entering retirement is a good time to strategize on how best to allocate your resources to achieve your goals. Maintaining your strategy will keep you on track. In this article I'll review the basics of allocation.
  Published 06Jul2009, viewed 120 times

• Term Insurance and Terms You Need to Understand
  Insurance companies charge you premiums based on your health and age. When you buy life insurance to cover you for only a set number of years, the insurance companies offer you different types of premium options to pay for your coverage. This article explains some key words that insurance companies use to characterize these premium types. Understanding them is critical to recognizing the possible cost and length of your coverage.
  Published 04Jul2009, viewed 118 times

• Which Type Of Life Insurance Suits You?
  The ultimate reason for buying life insurance is for paying a benefit (i.e. a dollar amount) to a beneficiary when you die. It can also help you save money. Life insurance policies take one of several basic types. This article summarizes each type and some of the benefits it offers to your situation.
  Published 04Jul2009, viewed 123 times

• How to Let Medicaid Pay for Your Long Term Care
  'Medicaid Planning' has come to mean planning to transfer your assets to loved ones in order to qualify for Medicaid coverage of your long term care (LTC) costs. That's because annual nursing home costs about $75,000 nationwide and can easily eat through assets and savings. This article explains some key issues involved in arranging to let Medicaid pay for your long term care.
  Published 01Jul2009, viewed 87 times

• Annuities Help Retirees Secure An Income for Later in Retirement
  One aspect to living is that we never know when we'll die. Having saved money for their retirement income, retirees often worry that they'll outlive their savings since life expectancies are increasing. An annuity is an investment that is uniquely addressed to providing income for life. This article shows how you can use an annuity to assure yourself a future income if you live longer than you planned.
  Published 29Jun2009, viewed 203 times

• Income Taxation of Annuities, When and On What?
  An annuity is both a contract with an insurance company and an investment. Your contributions (often called premium payments) to it are invested to produce earnings. This article explains when and what is taxed as income under annuitization, withdrawals, and gifts of your annuity.
  Published 29Jun2009, viewed 193 times

• How to Calculate Your Minimum Required Distribution If You Own an IRA
  An IRA owner is the person who started and contributed to his IRA. As an owner, you must take a minimum required distribution (MRD) from your traditional IRA or non-deductible each year after reaching 701/2. This article explains the MRD rules for IRA owners only - not for beneficiary owners who have slightly different rules.
  Published 26Jun2009, viewed 119 times

• Your Remaining Life Expectancy for Retirement Planning
  How long will you statistically live? You probably think that statistically you'll live to about 75. But that's somewhat of a misconception. Having a better idea on what life expectancy means will help you better project how many years of retirement you need to plan for. And clearing up what life expectancy means to you is what this article is about.
  Published 23Jun2009, viewed 153 times

• Different Tax Treatments Suggest an Order for Tapping Your Sources of Income
  By the time you hit retirement, you've probably acquired a variety of savings and income assets. From these you'll withdraw income to live on and enjoy your retirement years. But because the tax treatment of your various assets differs, you should know that ordering how you withdraw from them can help preserve them longer. In this article I suggest a sequential order you should withdraw from the six common assets categories and why.
  Published 07Jun2009, viewed 110 times

• Keep Your Wealth Longer by Withdraw Income from Your IRA or 401(k) Only After Using Up Your Taxable
  As a retiree you've probably accumulated savings in both IRA-type retirement accounts and regular taxable accounts. You'll withdraw from them for your annual living expense. But the different tax treatments that apply to IRA-type and regular taxable accounts make it confusing about which type you should withdraw from first. Below I'll show that withdrawing from your taxable accounts first allows you to preserve your wealth longer.
  Published 05Jun2009, viewed 58 times

• Holding Time Makes Tax-advantaged Retirement Accounts Much Better Than Regular Taxable Accounts
  Because of the income tax rates imposed on withdrawals from government-regulated retirement savings plans - like IRAs - you may think that they're not all that much better than using regular taxable accounts. Below I'll show how your IRA-type account can eventually put a lot more in your pocket.
  Published 03Jun2009, viewed 113 times

• Withdraw Conservatively While Investing Aggressively to Preserve Your Income and Portfolio's Purchas
  Since you have a 50% chance of living more than 20 years at age 65, you really must plan to avoid dipping into principal until you're quite old. But inflation over this time will eat into your principal. In this article I'll show you just how conservatively you must withdraw income from your savings and how aggressively you must invest your savings to maintain the purchasing power of both your withdrawal income and your savings portfolio.
  Published 02Jun2009, viewed 71 times

• A Reverse Mortgage Is a Costly Option to Use Your Home Equity
  The first advantage of a reverse mortgage is that it allows you to borrow from your home equity without having to pay it back for as long as you live there. But it's a costly way to access your home equity. Here, I consider why it's costly, who might best use a reverse mortgage and other options to access home equity.
  Published 30May2009, viewed 102 times

• 3 Serious Health Questions You Must Answer Before Others Do - When You Can't
  Strokes and dementia can put you at the whim of someone else's decisions about your health care. To keep control of your own health-related decisions when you become incapacitated you must create distinct medical directives that answer how you'll be treated when incapacitated, when relying on life-sustaining equipment, and when you should be resuscitated. In the following I explain what each of these directives mean.
  Published 09May2009, viewed 161 times

• Know the 7 Key Parameters of Long Term Care Insurance
  Our chance for needing long term care (LTC) increases the longer we live. Directly paying for LTC can easily deplete an average person's estate leaving a beneficiary with no legacy. You can purchase LTC insurance to protect your legacy. But you must understand if the 7 key parameters of your policy will do the trick for you. These are explained below.
  Published 07May2009, viewed 64 times

• 3 Strategies for Using Your IRA to Invest in Real Estate
  With real estate prices depressed and a lot of wealth sitting in qualified plans, you may wonder how you can use that wealth to invest in real estate. In this article I offer considerations and strategies for using your IRA to position yourself in real estate for your future benefit.
  Published 06May2009, viewed 115 times

• Inflation Will Erode Over Half Your Income after 25 Years of Retirement - Unless You Invest Right
  Sixty-five year olds have a remaining life expectancy of about 20 years. And that means 50% will live even longer. So you should plan for your retirement income to last for at least 25 years. By all measures, inflation will take a big bite of a dollar's purchasing power over that time. Below, I review inflation's effect and the amount of portfolio growth you'll need to maintain your purchasing power in your withdrawal income.
  Published 04May2009, viewed 290 times

• Four Investments Carry 'Government' Asset Protection - But with Limitations
  Protecting your assets from unfair or unjust complaints is an important part of financial and estate planning. But before constructing a comprehensive asset protection plan, you should know what protection the government offers for 4 investment categories. Below, I overview from whom you are - and are not- protected and some limitations for these 4 investments categories: qualified plans, life insurance, annuities, and your homestead.
  Published 03May2009, viewed 191 times

• Use a Power of Attorney and a Medical Directive to Appoint Someone You Trust to Act on Your Behalf
  Dementia and other mental disabilities destroy our ability to act for ourselves - such as handling our financial and medical decisions. If you haven't assigned someone to make those decisions for you, someone else will - and may not make the kind of decisions you'd like. But you can only choose someone to act for you when you're mentally competent. So, below, I discuss the type of powers of attorney you can assign to anyone to act for you.
  Published 02May2009, viewed 95 times

• Six Answers about You and Long Term Care
  Long term care of elderly is everyone's concern since it will most likely affect you or your loved one. In this article I'll respond to 6 questions that encompass your long term care (LTC) concerns: 1. What is LTC? 2. Who needs LTC? 3. Who provides help for LTC? 4. What's the cost of LTC? 5. Who pays for LTC? 6. What should you do about LTC?
  Published 10Apr2009, viewed 93 times

• Know Your Retirement Health Phases To Optimize Lifestyle Choices at Minimum Expense
  Our health and activity level passes through 3 phases during retirement. And that'll alter our living options and expenses. By recognizing this, you can modify your living expenses now to suit your wishes and happiness. I'll outline these phases and the actions you can take to optimize your lifestyle choices by minimizing your expenses.
  Published 07Apr2009, viewed 115 times

• Plan Not To Be Gouged By Estate Taxes in 2011
  Just because the Estate Tax has been phased out in 2010, don't be lulled into thinking it won't be back with a vengeance. On the books, it's slated to return with only a $1 million exemption. Efforts to get rid of it altogether have failed. The government will be looking for more money anyway now anyway. The following give you the full picture and how to prepare for it.
  Published 05Apr2009, viewed 155 times

• 12 Things To Consider Before Moving Off Shore
  Living offshore (in a country other than the U.S.) can lower your living expenses and give you a better climate to enjoy. If you're thinking about moving offshore, do your research on the issues below for the country(s) you choose to move to.
  Published 31Mar2009, viewed 82 times

• Medicare - What's It All About?
  Medicare is a government regulated healthcare program for those 65 and older. We'll all be on it, so it's important to understand how it works. In this article I summarize the different parts and coverages that come under the Medicare program.
  Published 23Mar2009, viewed 94 times

• Know What Asset Protection Is All About
  Asset protection seeks to protect your assets from being taken under an unfair or unjust court action against you. In this article I'll orient you to the nature of such court actions, how they're enforced, and protection strategies to address them.
  Published 21Mar2009, viewed 94 times

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