Free Retirement Planning Tips

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Hello-

What makes Mexico one of the best countries to live and retire?

First, let’s learn more about Mexico:

Its extensive coastlines include the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Mexico has nice and warm people, unique food, art and archeology, pyramids, museums, Haciendas, 6,000 miles of shoreline, superb architecture and 21 century cities, weather from snow mountains in the Sierras, to rainy jungles in the Southeast and desert in the Northwest, lots of golf courses throughout the country, excellent fishing, world top destinations like Acapulco, Cancun, Cozumel, Los Cabos, and Patzcuaro. Mexico is ranked 7th major destination for foreigner visitors, according to WTO.

Sounds good so far.

What about the sights of Mexico?

Here’s a short video showing some of the scenery around Mexico:

What about working in Mexico?

Working may require a work visa, which is difficult to get if you just want to freelance for a short time.

Many important headquarters are located throughout the main cities of Mexico. Mexican top corporations like Televisa, Bimbo, Cemex, Telmex, Vitro, are often willing to hire professionals who speak English as their native language as most of the business scene is developed with North American corporations.

An excellent way to get to know and understand more of the country is to do some voluntary work. There are several organizations such as Travel to Teach that arrange work for international volunteers in Mexico and other countries in the region.

Native English speakers can pick up work, as English teachers. The upside is that English speakers with no knowledge of Spanish are sought after, because they will force their students to practice English. The downside is that salaries are somewhat low.

What about money in Mexico?

The currency of Mexico is the peso (MXN). The symbol for pesos is the same as for US dollars, which can be slightly confusing. Prices in dollars (in tourist areas) are labeled “US$” or sport an S with a double stroke. As of May 2008 the exchange rate hovers around $10.20 MXN to $1.00 USD.

US dollars are widely accepted in the far north and in tourist locales elsewhere. Euros are generally not accepted by merchants, and even banks headquartered in Europe may refuse to accept euros for exchange.

Best place to convert USD to pesos is the supermarket. At Pemex gas stations, attendants seem to be private enterprise minded. They will give you 500 pesos of gas and charge you $50 (which is 10.00 mexican to 1.00 dollar). And will readily convert 500 pesos to dollars by multiplying by .105 rather than dividing by 10.5 and thus supplement their hourly wage. Attendants carry a wad of cash and make their own change. While many Pemex stations accept credit cards, especially in locations that have heavy tourist traffic, some do not; travelers who intend to pay by credit card should ask the attendant if the card is accepted before pumping begins.

What about the water in Mexico?

Mexico is so notorious for traveler’s diarrhea that it is often called “Montezuma’s Revenge” (Venganza de Moctezuma). The reason for this is not so much the spicy food but the contamination of the water supply in some of the poorer zones in Mexico. In most of the small towns that are less industrialized, only the poorest Mexicans will drink tap water. The best policy is to only drink bottled or purified water, both of which are readily available. Just like in the USA, in most major Mexican cities the water is purified at the cities’ water company. In most restaurants in these poor zones, the only water served comes from large jugs of purified water. If you get sick visit your local clinic as soon as possible. There is medicine available that will counter the bacteria.

There is so much more to learn about living and retiring in Mexico.  You can read some first hand accounts here

These are just some of the reasons why Mexico is one of the best countries to live and retire to.

Thanks for reading.

Have a great day!

-Adam

Source.

Hello-

Money Magazine just came out with their annual best places to live in America issue this month.

Here’s the top 10:

I was looking at how they picked the winners.  You can read their selection process here.

Last year they looked at small towns.  This year, the towns had populations between 50,000 and 300,000.

So if you’re looking to live and retire in a bigger town then this year’s picks will serve you well.

Being from Texas, I was proud to see that 13 of the top 100 places to live were in Texas.  Yeehaw!

That just goes to show that Texas is a great place to live, even if we have to deal with the Dallas Cowboys struggles.  :o)

Check out Money Magazine’s best places to live section and use their free tool to help you find your best place.  Click here

They also offer tips on what to look for when selecting a place for you to live and retire.

Namely, you want to look at home prices, good schools, job growth, weather, crime, activities and leisure options, cost of living, transportation and medical care.

In the end though, it all comes down to what you like and what makes you happy.  You can just use guides like this to add or take away from your list of places to move and then go from there.

Good luck in your search for finding your best place.

Have a great day!

-Adam

I’m sending you a quick note right now, because I have something very important to tell you about.

In fact, right before posting this, I just called round most of my own family telling them about this website.

You see I was surfing the Internet the other day researching trading stocks and I came across an interesting website.

It’s about this email stock picks newsletter, and each week this guy sends out a stock pick…

And the average gain so far has been 84.79% within 3 days of the pick being made.

Anyhow I don’t want to tell you too much about this service, because it costs $12,500 to join the newsletter!

But I did a little further research, and after finding some interesting forum discussions, someone pointed me to another website.

You see the owner of this newsletter (who is the stock market genius who makes the picks) recognized he had a problem…

Even though subscribers of his newsletter are able to almost double their trading money each and every week…

The only way he was getting new subscribers, (at $12,500 a pop) was when his subscribers made recommendations to friends and family.

So he thought about this problem and came up with what I believe is an ingenious solution:

At the link below, you’ll be able to type in your name and email address.

For the next 4 weeks after, you’ll receive one stock pick per week (the same pick sent to his subscribers)…

And you’ll be able to see that his service is worth the cost… As you’ll be watching, live, each week as his actual stock picks almost double.

Now…

These stocks can often rise over 100% within a matter of days.

In fact after being a newsletter member for 3 weeks, I invested on the 4th stock pick… and made $1876.00 (pure profit).

Which is precisely why I just rang round all of my family telling them about this website.

Oh but there’s one more thing before I give you the address, there is a limit to the number of the newsletter placements.

Maybe David (who runs the newsletter) will have closed shop, by the time you read this email. If so, don’t worry as he’ll allow you to join the waiting list.

Click here for your 4 free stock picks

Best Regards,

David Lindberg

Hello-

The 2008 Retirement Confidence Survey indicates that more people are concerned about their retirement, the economy, and health care.

Most people do not have enough saved up to retire on:

“Most savings levels are modest— Forty-nine percent of workers report total savings and investments (not including the value of their primary residence or any defined benefit plans) of less than $50,000. Twenty-two percent of workers and 28 percent of retirees say they have no savings of any kind.”

Source

Can you live on retirement savings of only $50,000?

Probably not.

If you retire at 55 or 65 and expect to live 20-30 years, you’re going to need a lot more than $50,000 to retire on.  Social Security is not going to provide you with a comfortable retirement.

How much do you need to save for retirement?

There is no magic number that will work for everyone.  However, you need to add at least another zero to the $50,000 amount of retirement savings.  $500,000 is a good start.  Most will need up to a million or more.

How the heck are you going to save up to a million dollars by the time you retire?

How the heck do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

You need to start, and start now.

The goal is to save at least 10% of your gross income.  Do an automatic deduction from your paycheck and put that into your 401k at work or into an IRA.

Each year as you get a raise or bonus, increase the amount of your automatic deduction.

It’s easier to save for retirement when you don’t have debt to worry about.

Take the steps you need to get out of debt so you can devote more of your income to the future instead of paying for the past.

Work more hours at work, take voluntary overtime, start a second job.  There are many ways to increase your income or supplement your income.  But you won’t find them by watching TV when you get home from work.

If you take the small steps now to start saving for your retirement, you may actually get the chance to retire when you turn 65.  If not, you may be spending many more years at that thankless, unrewarding job of yours.

You don’t want a gruesome retirement do you?

Setup the automatic deduction, enroll in your 401k program at work, get out of debt, increase your income and save, save, save.

-Adam