The Baby Boomer Renaissance: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

Consumer Boomer

Posted: 31 Jan 2011 09:03 AM PST

Choosing a financial planner can be the single most important decision in your life. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone that was a client of Bernie Madoff’s and you’ll see the importance behind it. To give those victims some credit, it’s tough to know when someone is an outright crook and liar. Just like those people, many others don’t take enough care in selecting their advisor.

MarketWatch.com senior columnist Chuck Jaffe sometimes speaks to audiences on this topic, and when he does, he likes to conduct an informal poll. First, he asks people to raise their hand if they have ever worked with a financial advisor. Many hands go up.

photo credit: killthebird

Next, he asks these people to keep their hands in the air if they hired the first financial advisor they met with in their search. Few if any hands are lowered. Then he asks them to keep their hands up if they did a background check on that person before agreeing to work together. After asking that question, Jaffe writes, "I have never had a single hand stay in the air."

How Credible Are they?

When it comes to the "alphabet soup" of financial industry designations, some of them carry more clout than others. Some of the most respected professional designations are Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). These designations are earned only after thorough examinations and a required curriculum of college-level studies in financial planning applications, retirement, insurance and estate planning fundamentals and other topics. Real-world experience must also complement this course of study.

Beyond a financial professional's credentials and designations, you have the matter of compatibility. You don't want to work with someone who insists that you fit into a preconceived box, for you are not simply Investor A, Investor B or Investor C who deserves this or that generic strategy. Better financial professionals really get to know you – and they will not be offended if you make the effort to get to know them.

This is a relationship-based business, and when a financial consultant offers a thoughtfully considered, personalized strategy to a client resulting from one or more discovery meetings, he or she has taken a step to earn the respect and trust of that client. Finer financial professionals abide by a client's preferences and risk tolerance and take the client's values, needs and priorities into account.

Background Check on Your Financial Advisor

You can visit www.finra.org (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and use FINRA BrokerCheck to see if anything questionable has occurred in their career. If that financial professional is an investment advisor, you can go to the Securities and Exchange Commission and look at that advisor's Form ADV at advisorinfo.sec.gov. Part 1 will tell you about any issues with clients or regulatory agencies; Part 2 will tell you about the advisor's services, fees and investment strategies.

In addition, AARP offers you a Financial Adviser Questionnaire, and websites like abika.com, paladinregistry.com and advisorbackgroundcheck.com can provide you with further information.

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WineontheKeyboard

Indulge Me

Posted: 31 Jan 2011 03:57 AM PST

Please indulge me in a bit more of my obsession. Bird photos. Finches, to be exact this time.

finch in winter on branch

Lots of finches. More of my obsession with bird photos over on my photography blog, Kay Pickens St. Louis photographer.

three finches in a tree

Hanging out trying to survive the winter.

yellow finch on tree branch in winter

Just like me. Trying to survive the winter.

pair of finches at the bird feeder

They sing for me sometimes, like they are almost HAPPY in the winter! What’s up with that…

yellow finch on bird feeder harp

Well, excuse me for a bit. I need to go batten down the hatches. It appears they are forecasting the storm of the century for my area. Ice, sleet, freezing rain…then snow. Maybe lots and lots of snow. I keep clinging to my dream world that it will all just slip by us and it will be spring. Anyone care to join me in my fantasy life?

Going Like Sixty

Costa Rica: Staying With the Dogs at Lighthouse Animal Shelter Near Desmontes

Posted: 30 Jan 2011 10:12 PM PST

We like cheap when we travel. We also like off-the-beaten path.

That’s how we ended up staying at an animal shelter in Atenas Costa Rica for most of our stay.

Our kennel suite was pretty sweet.

This was our home base for the week. Nancy has always said she wants to be reincarnated as a tall, thin, young, sterile blond. I have decided I want to be reincarnated as a dog rescued by Frances and Bruce Jones at Lighthouse Animal Rescue Shelter.

The impact these two people have made on their community is clear at every turn. When we arrived they were caring for 17 dogs and cats (mostly dogs) that were abused and/or abandoned. When we left, they rescued three more.

For example:

Spanky had her ears burned off

Smoke had very hot oil or greased poured on him (that’s the black area – all healed up now)

Frances documents all her rescues with photos. Neither Nancy or I could bring ourselves to look at all of them. But one that illustrates how dramatic a change is possible is Flaca (Spanish for skinny.) Flaca was nursed back from imminent death by Frances.

France wrote me today

She now lives the life of a princess in Buenos Aires.

This is how Flaca was before Frances love and kindness and care-giving found her. Frances explained that at this point Flaca was in the last hours of her life. Her eyes were sunken and her skin pigment was gone.

There are many many more success stories like Flaca.

But Frances aims to change the culture and lack of education that leads to such abuse. Every dog in her neighborhood is spayed/neutered. She goes into the classrooms to explain how children are responsible for not only their pets, but the other dogs and cats they see on the streets.

We saw two examples.

One was a boy walking his dog – on a leash! Simple, right? Before Frances Jones, this didn’t happen. The kids didn’t take ownership for the care and safety of their pets.
Well fed street dogs. Would it be best that there were no street dogs? Sure. But when there are, they need to at least be fed. Frances has approached butcher shops to toss their scraps to the street dogs and not in the garbage. We saw a cab driver pull over to the curb to toss his left-over fast-food scraps to a street dog.

Frances and Bud Jones are two good people doing good work with the money out of their pockets and donations. One of the ways you can help (aside from a direct donation) is via a contest on Petfinder.com. Right now the site is messed up, but eventually it will be fixed. You can vote everyday – more if you know how to clear your cookies after every vote – just sayin’

Go to www.animalrescuesite.com. Click on the vertical tab on the far right that says “Shelter Challenge.” Search Costa Rica in the drop down and their name comes up vote and wait for the vote confirmation question which is a picture of an animal that you name. The site is borked when I tried, but if you think about it, give it a shot in a couple days.

France writes:

God bless you,
Frances “Kitten” Jones and all the fuzzbutts

Please visit our blog at http://mrbudbud.blogspot.com/
We’re on Facebook!! Just do a friend search for BudBud Jones
Or see our adoptable pets at http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/CR01.html

If you ever find yourself in Costa Rica and want to tell your friends your spending some time in a kennel, try Lighthouse Animal Shelter. It’s a dog-gone nice place with some purrfectly wonderful people.

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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Consumer Boomer

Spring Is Here – Round Up

Posted: 30 Jan 2011 01:51 PM PST

Okay, technically it’s not spring, but we did have sun over the weekend and even flirted with 50 degree weather. Might not be complete shorts and flip flop weather yet; but one can still hope. Until spring actually gets here, take a look at some good posts from around the web.

photo credit: CJ Schmit

Reads of the Week

Not Made of Money | Saving For College: When You Shouldn't Do It.
Squirrelers | The Disposition Effect.
Oblivious Investor | Your Personal Rate of Inflation.
Money Smarts Blog | TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage Review.
The Financial Blogger | 6 Superheroes Bloggers I Admire.
Bucksome Boomer | Resolutionize Your Finances: Insurance.
USNews – Money | The New Rules for Student Credit Cards.
Wealth Pilgrim | Credit Report Repair DIY For Dummies.
Generation X Finance | Are You Saving Too Much for Retirement?.
Couple Money | Baby Expenses and Budgets.
Frugal Dad | Planning a Wedding On a Budget.
Canadian Finance Blog | Five Big Flaws of Buy and Hold Investing.
My Dollar Plan | Tax Estimator to Calculate Your 2010 Tax Refund.
The Wisdom Journal | 57 Avoidable Tax Mistakes.
Sweating The Big Stuff |5 People Who Can Save You Time, Money, and Stress.
PT Money | What Happens When You Stop Using Your Credit Cards?
Moolanomy | How to Become a Millionaire.
Soldier of Finance | You Don't Have That Much Debt. Really?
Bible Money Matters | If You Itemize Your Taxes You'll Have To Wait Til February To File.
Studenomics | How-to Have a Killer Business Lunch.
Good Financial Cents | 14 Tax Deductions for Small Business Owners.
Smart on Money | Social Security Changes For 2011.
Free From Broke |Do You Need to Adjust Your Tax Withholding?

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Going Like Sixty

Costa Rica: “The Real Costa Rica” Guide TicoGrande Reminded Me of My Worst College Prof

Posted: 29 Jan 2011 10:20 PM PST

Did you ever have a college professor that everyone warned you about? The one that was brutal to students while he beat information into your brain?

The college prof I feared was Col. Kneussel. “Don’t take Kneussel for Business Law…” was the mantra around campus. I needed the class to graduate and I put it off as long as I could hoping I could arrange my schedule to get somebody – anybody – other than Colonel Kneussel.

I wasn’t in law school. I was trying to get a degree in advertising.

He was brutal. He had absolutely no interest in being liked. He asked trick questions about the cases. He dared you to give any other answer than he had in mind. He humiliated and embarrassed students who paid good money to get a college degree. Students dropped his class 2/3 of the way through he was so overbearing.

We had a Costa Rica tour guide that was exactly like that.

Someday I think we would like living in Costa Rica. We decided that time was a wastin’ so I started scouring the web for all the information about living in this Central America paradise.

There are tons of real estate people who charge money to haul you around on a bus all the while giving you the sales pitch on Costa Rica: names like We Love Costa Rica and Boomers in Costa Rica and Live In Costa Rica and Costa Rica Is The Best Place in the World for Retirees Because Everybody Loves The Weather and Property is Cheap.

They all have written books to lure you to sinking your money into property via their connections.

Pass.

I found TicoGrande who runs a website called The Real Costa Rica, and he seemed like a straight shooter. (Tico is a nickname for any native Costa Rican. Non-natives are called Gringos. Neither are prejorative.)

We started calling him Tico Tim because his real name is Tim Lytle. Tico Tim promised to tote us around the countryside in his car and not show us any real estate. His website is the most comprehensive conglomeration of information about what it takes live in Costa Rica. Tico Tim seemed like just what we wanted and needed to see if living in Costa Rica was for us.

We paid him a shit pot full of money and spent a couple days with him.

In exchanging emails and even during his preliminary phone conversation before our first face-t0-face he had the same kind of humor I do.

He’s a smart-ass.

What we learned after two hours with him in the car is that he is arrogant, egotistical, narcissistic, conceited, boorish and __________ (fill in the blank) smart ass.

He picked us up, drove a few blocks, parked in the shade and started his lecture. His first loutish behavior was to ogle three young women who walked past the car. Not only did he ogle them, he stopped talking. When he started up again, he said something to the effect of “you gotta love Costa Rica.” Then made some other slime-ball comment and returned to the subject of moving to Costa Rica.

Another example of his lack of interpersonal skills was the way he made sure we were hanging on his every word. He would set up an scenario then ask us if we knew why the scenario occurred. Then Blammo!

Man moves to Costa Rica without doing any research.
Man buys home
Man sells home and makes a nice profit

Question: Why did this happen?

My answer: Fraud.

“Why would you go there?” Tico Tim bellows. “Why would you assume a crime was committed? Why would you say that?

I was in the back seat so Nancy could hear and take good notes. I slid down as far as I could so he couldn’t see me in the rear view mirror and squeaked, “because you asked me.”

The “correct” answer was in the TicoGrande, The Real Costa Rica world, was:

He sold the property too cheap. He left money on the table.

Well yeah. Or he got lucky or was a crook. But none of those was acceptable to Tico Tim.

He had one of those personalities where no matter what either of us said, it was wrong. Even when we tried our best to agree, we couldn’t.

The sky sure is blue here.

No, the sky is azul, TicoGrande would proclaim. If you want to move here, you must learn the language.

I have been practicing my Spanish via the Pimsleur CD’s. Spent 12 hours and read another 4 hours. I knew a good bit of Spanish Spanish.

You need to learn Latin American Spanish.

Of course he was right more than he was wrong. Like Col. Kneussel taught me business laws that I still recall today, Tico Tim taught us the ways of Costa Rica probably better than most. But when Nancy was in tears at the end of the first day, I figured it wasn’t just me.

TicoGrande treated us like crap.

We ate, we drank, we slept, and we showed up for the second day tour with a new strategy. We would only answer Yes, No, or I Don’t Know. I promised Nancy that anytime she felt verbally abused again, I would call it off and have him return us to the hotel.

It worked. Until he neared our hotel to drop us at the end of the tour.

Was it worth it?

No response.

Was it worth it? Did you learn anything?

No response as we reached the curb, I said, “I’m afraid to answer.”

He demanded to know why so I told him I didn’t want to get yelled at.

TicoGrande, who had been talking for probably a total of 6 hours that day, and we were answering Yes, No, I Don’t Know, didn’t have a clue that we had a ton of questions but were afraid to ask.

He looked at Nancy and said “I didn’t yell at him, did I?” She said, Yes.

Did I yell at you?

Yes.

The Ugliest American we met in Costa Rica was the guy we paid a shit pot full of money to haul us around.

He was the Mike Tyson of Costa Rica. He was the Colonel Kneussel of Costa Rica. TicoGrande is not The Real Costa Rica. It’s a beautiful garden spot with lovely people who are charming and educated.

We Love Costa Rica.

We’re not so crazy about Tico Grande.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Baby Boomers U. S. (The Blog)

This Weeks Good Reads-Week Seventy-three

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 08:54 AM PST

Every week I come across an article or two that I find very helpful to me as a Baby Boomer and think may be of some interest to you, the community, as well.

They may be from an online news source, another Blog or Website or something I found surfing around the Internet. They could even be something that was sent in by a reader of the Blog or a member of the Baby Boomer’s Forum.

Enjoy!

On the House: A boomer boom goes bust by Al Heavens… If you were looking to sell your house for suplimental income when you retire. It may not be in the cards after the great housing bubble bust. Read on MacDuff.

Saving for Retirement Hindered by Healthcare Costs by unknown… In other related bad news for Boomers, it looks like Healthcare is not on our list of affordable options. Hope I can bring some good news next week?

I hope you found this weeks choice(s) helpful and enjoyable. What did you think? Do you have any suggestions for next week?

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