Eliminating Liabilities:  The Path To Financially Comfortable Retirement

Most Americans enter the workforce as young adults with a dream and vision of retiring one day.  The large majority of companies offer employees retirement benefits, and most people have some form of 401k or other retirement investment vehicle.  Most Americans are very aware of the need to save for retirement; however, the reality is that very few Americans actually retire comfortably.

Here are a few government statistics that depict the financial state of Americans:

• 70% of working Americans do not believe they will have enough money to retire, and between the ages of 30 and 54, nearly 80% feel this way.

• The average savings of a 50 year old in the U.S. is only $2,500

• 62% of Americans retire with less than $25,000 in assets

• Another 35% retire with less than $100,000 in assets

These statistics make it clear that very few people actually retire comfortably.  The question we need to ask is why?  Is the problem simply that most Americans do not earn enough money to save sufficiently?  To answer this question, let’s calculate the lifetime earnings of the average American.

If a person lands a job paying $30,000 per year by the time they are 25 years old, then they will have earned over $1.8 million over the course of a 35 year working career if they simply receive an inflation raise of 3% each year!  That is a lot of money.  Basic personal finance tells us to save 10% of what we make in a savings account.  If the average person were to do this, they would save over $180,000 over the course of their career, and that figure is not taking any interest into account.  With interest the figure would be substantially higher.  The problem is most people do not save; instead, they fall victim to American consumerism.

The American economy is based on consumerism, which means that if you and I do not spend money, the economy will completely collapse.  From youth, most Americans are taught that debt is a way of life.  Most young people are expected to incur heavy debts to pay for college, then they go into further debt by financing day-to-day expenses with credit cards, and car loans are usually the next stop.  When most Americans begin earning more, they simply increase their standard of living proportionately by driving nicer cars, living in nicer homes, taking nicer vacations, etc.  Thus, no real, substantial increase in savings is ever established.

The first step to building substantial net worth and saving for retirement is to eliminate liabilities and make the decision to live debt free.  This can be very difficult initially.  Let’s break it down into simple steps.

• Write out all of your liabilities.  List the exact dollar amount you have on balance and the accompanying interest rate.

• List them in order of highest interest rate to lowest.

• The next step is to track all of your expenses for 1 month.  Write down every single penny you spend whether it is for a pack of gum or a new television.

• At the end of the month take a brutally honest evaluation of where you are spending your money, and decide how much of it is non-essential.

• Take all of these non-essential funds and funnel them into paying off your highest interest debt, and commit to keep living this way until all of your debt is paid off.

• Once your debts are paid off, don’t start spending money like a drunken sailor again.  Instead, begin saving it.  A solid foundation of financial independence will be built once you have 6 months of living expenses saved up and you are debt free.

With proper planning and discipline, anyone can be debt free.  No matter how difficult your situation may seem, you can get out by following this advice.  Risky investment such as stocks and forex should be avoided until a solid foundation is laid.

What Is Reinstatement And How Can It Help You?

Nobody in the world may like to loose his home sweet home on foreclosure. Before his home gone forever he might think about any other way to avoid foreclosure. If you are serious about to keep your home for you, you have an option which is loan Reinstatement. This reinstatement is the best way to avoid and stop foreclosure of the homeowners when the lender initiates to do so. By reinstatement homeowners can establish themselves to the lender that they have a new fund or a new way to repay all the outstanding balance of that mortgage loan as early as possible.

As the loan become so old that is why they have to pay a lump-sum amount of extra payments for reinstatement with all previous dues and in addition of the current monthly payments. For payment of the extra money like their late charges and any fees for reinstatement and attorneys costs with last all dues the homeowners have to give a certified check to the lender.

If a homeowner faced a foreclosure of his home, he might loose his credit score and even for that he also may get trouble to rent a house after loosing his own home on foreclosure procedure. By any way people always like to stay away from foreclosure to avoid this aftereffect on their life. The main benefit of choosing reinstatement is that your home remains your own. And you are also back on track of paying regularly so that your credit score become stable.  There must have any other loan which is taken by you to create the fund for saving your home so it may difficult to you that control the two loan monthly payments.

After being sure that you may zero the balance out you can go with the bank for loan reinstatement. However you also have to care about your affordability of this two loan and the extra payments to bank for processing the loan reinstatement.

What happens during a foreclosure?

Are you a homeowner with foreclosure questions? What happens during a foreclosure is the most common question that might come into your mind. Well this article tells you all about it. It is rather a step by step process where the lender tries to get their money. Now if you fail to pay the first payment, the lender sends you a late notice. If you ignore it, he will resend it after a certain period of time. If again it is ignored by you, then the lender sends a final notice demanding the full payment. This is generally known a acceleration clause and is included in most mortgage contracts.


Once a person is back with his payment by 3 or 6 months, the lender invokes the acceleration clause in the mortgage contract. The bank will now demand the whole payment along with any legal fees or any other late payment charges. This is where the foreclosure gets started. The lender sends a certified letter of foreclosure to the homeowner by any local sheriff. He also gets it up in the legal section of a local newspaper of publication. Here the homeowner tries to defend himself by working out with the bank. But the bank will only stop the foreclosure if they receive the full payment for the home.

Finally the court date is set where the homeowner, the lender and other financial interest people will attend for the auction of the home. The homeowner has still the facility to save his home by working with the bank and making the payment in full. But if the homeowner fails to pay or save his home, the auction date is finally decided. This is generally called the foreclosure sale or a sheriff’s sale. Anyone taking part in the action will have to deposit a stipulated check. At the auction the highest bid wins the property. But apart from all these there are a number of ways by which you can prevent foreclosure. You can find companies in your city dealing with such services over the internet.