Personal Finance in Your 50s All-in-One For Dummies

Eric Tyson

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119471530
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Finance

Manage your finances and enjoy your retirement

Retirement security is one of the most pressing social issues facing the world in the next 30 years—so if you're approaching your golden years, it's essential to have a secure financial future. Personal Finance in Your 50s All-in-One For Dummies provides targeted financial advice and assists soon-to-be or established boomers with making informed decisions about how best to spend, invest, and protect their wealth while planning for the future.

Retirement is an exciting time … but it can also be scary if you're not sure that you have your ducks in a row. This hands-on resource arms you with an arsenal of beginner to intermediate personal finance and estate planning techniques for everything from spending, saving, navigating insurance, managing medical costs, household expenses, and even employment.

• Build a diversified portfolio
• Create emergency funds
• Avoid scams and frauds
• Improve your estate planning

With the help of this all-in-one resource, you'll get a succinct framework and expert advice to help you make solid decisions and confidently plan for your future.

Book 1

Managing Your Career and Retirement

Contents at a Glance

1. Chapter 1: Finding a New Job after 50
   1. Recognizing the Need for and Value of Experienced Workers
   2. Tallying the Benefits of Staying in the Workforce
   3. Reorienting Yourself to Today’s Job-Search Realities
   4. Deciding What (Else) You Want Out of Work
   5. Pursuing Your Passion and Finding Purpose
   6. Putting Proven Success Strategies into Practice
   7. Dealing with Ageism
2. Chapter 2: Dealing with Changes in Employment
   1. Filing for Unemployment Benefits
   2. Getting Your Financial House in Order
   3. Financing Any Additional Education and Training
   4. Writing Off Your Job-Hunt Expenses
   5. Accounting for Social Security Benefits Reductions When You Work
   6. Taking Advantage of Additional Public Benefits
   7. Providing Benefits for Yourself
3. Chapter 3: Joining the Ranks of the Self-Employed
   1. Working on Contract
   2. Launching Your Own Business
   3. Becoming a Social Entrepreneur
   4. Exploring Franchising Opportunities
4. Chapter 4: Tracking Small Business Revenues and Costs
   1. Establishing an Accounting System for Your Business
   2. Keeping Good Tax Records for Your Small Business
5. Chapter 5: Estimated Taxes and Self-Employment Taxes
   1. Form 1040-ES: Estimated Tax for Individuals
   2. Keeping Current on Your Employees’ (and Your Own) Tax Withholding
   3. Schedule SE: Self-Employment Tax
   4. Form 8889: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
6. Chapter 6: Developing a Retirement Plan
   1. Deciding When to Retire
   2. Knowing How Much You Really Need for Retirement
   3. Eyeing the Components of Your Retirement Plan
   4. When Setting Up Your Couples Plan
   5. Crunching the Numbers
   6. Making Plans for Nonfinancial Matters
7. Chapter 7: Grasping Retirement Accounts and Their Rules
   1. Eyeing the Characteristics of Retirement Accounts
   2. Identifying the Different Types of Retirement Accounts
   3. Rolling Over Retirement Balances
   4. Choosing Beneficiaries for Your Retirement Accounts
   5. Taking Required Minimum Distributions, or RMDs

Chapter 1

Finding a New Job after 50

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding current workplace realities

Figuring out what you want … and want to do

Finding your place in the workplace

Retooling your job-search strategies for the 21st century

Welcome, job seekers! Finding a job at any age takes work and dedication. Some older job seekers assume that employers would rather outsource jobs to cheaper workers overseas or hire younger, less experienced workers for lower wages. Although these suspicions are confirmed by the hiring practices of some organizations, current studies show that employers are increasingly willing to consider older candidates and that age alone isn’t necessarily the reason some employers are unwilling to consider older candidates.

This chapter aims to help you shift your attitude about job hunting from one of apprehension to one of hope and possibility and to show you a few simple ways to rev up your job-search mojo to today’s new workplace reality for job seekers age 50 and older.

Recognizing the Need for and Value of Experienced Workers

The times really are a-changin’, and that’s good news for your job-hunting prospects. Whether you want to work in an office job, teach yoga, or head up a company, more employers are starting to realize that hiring workers age 50 and older is good for business, and more and more employers are discovering the value of experienced workers. Unfortunately for job seekers 50 and older, the fact that demand for experienced workers is on the rise is a well-kept secret. Realizing that employers need you is an important first step in the process of finding and landing the job you want. It gives you the enthusiasm and confidence to set out on what may be a long and arduous journey. This section reveals the reasons that the demand for older workers is rising — to invigorate you for the journey ahead and remind you of just how valuable you are to employers who need your skills, talents, and experience.

A job search can be disheartening for anyone, regardless of age. And if that’s what you’re feeling, never show it to a prospective employer. Always highlight the value you have to offer in every job-search communiqué you send out. If you need a confidence lift, take some time and review all your previous achievements.

Noting a change in the current workforce

Many CEOs are increasingly aware that they need to have older, more experienced workers on board. As the population ages, the workforce is aging right along with it. U.S. employees 65 and older now outnumber teenagers in the workforce for the first time since 1948. In 2002, workers 50 and older comprised 24.6 percent of the workforce. By 2012, they represented 32.3 percent. And by 2022, they’re projected to be 35.4 percent of the total workforce.

This emerging trend isn’t likely to change anytime soon. More than one in three workers age 45 and older expects to retire at age 66 or older, compared to just over one in five 10 years ago. Moreover, 72 percent of workers ages 45 to 74 envision working in retirement.

Employers are getting worried about their future workforce. In a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), one-third of HR professionals predicted that the loss of talent resulting from retirements or departures of workers age 55 and older would be either a problem or a crisis for their organization in the next six to ten years. The Manpower Group 2014 Talent Shortage Survey found that 40 percent of U.S. employers reported difficulty in filling jobs.

Seeing experienced workers as an affordable option

The old concerns that hiring someone your age would probably be too pricey are being debunked. Contrary to common perception, workers age 50 and older don’t cost significantly more than younger workers, according to the report “A Business Case for Workers Age 50+: A Look at the Value of Experience 2015,” commissioned by AARP and conducted by Aon Hewitt.

Shifting trends in reward and benefit programs mean that adding more age 50-plus talent to a workforce results in only minimal increases in hard dollar total labor costs. These trends include a broad move by large employers to performance-based versus tenure-based compensation, the decline in traditional benefit pension plans, and the fact that healthcare costs are increasing at a slower rate for older workers compared to younger workers.

Meanwhile, in today’s global and fast-paced workplace, firms often don’t have the time to squander while a younger worker ramps up skills and knowledge. Companies are slowly realizing that to stay competitive, it’s smarter to seek out and hire experienced workers. That means you’re on the cutting edge of a sweeping change in the demographics of the workplace.

Recent surveys show that companies are realizing that it’s strategically smart to pay more attention to recruiting and retaining workers age 50 and older. When organizations need someone to step in and do the job right now and solve an existing problem, they’re eager to hire the experienced worker.

That’s what the AARP report unveiled. Findings from a 2014 SHRM survey of HR professionals also back up that trend. SHRM’s The Aging Workforce survey also found that two-thirds of HR executives canvassed reported that their organization employed older workers who retired from other organizations or careers before joining their organization. Gold stars all around.

The Aging Workforce survey, part of a three-year national Aging Workforce Initiative by SHRM and the SHRM Foundation and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, also found that 61 percent of the 1,900 randomly selected SHRM HR professionals indicated that their organization had attempted to capitalize on and incorporate the experience of older workers in recruitment and retention strategies. (Kudos to them.) The top advantages of older workers were having more work experience (cited by 77 percent of respondents), being more mature/professional (71 percent), and having a stronger work ethic (70 percent).

Capitalizing on lower turnover

Employers find that workers age 50 and older are more loyal and aren’t as likely as younger workers to job jump. And that lower staff turnover benefits the bottom line, because the costs of high turnover are tangible. Finding, hiring, and training a new employee is a costly venture, and it becomes even costlier when that well-trained employee decides to jump ship and work for a competitor.

Plus, it’s hard to put a price on the institutional knowledge that goes out the door with a departing employee. Now tack on the stress that managers and coworkers must shoulder to make up for the work that falls between the cracks when an employee le...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Book 1: Managing Your Career and Retirement
• Book 2: Getting Your Affairs in Order
• Book 3: Dealing with Insurance
• Book 4: Handling Budgets and Investments
• Book 5: Planning Your Estate
• Book 6: Tapping Into Your Home’s Value
• About the Authors
• Connect with Dummies
• Index
• End User License Agreement