Build Your Own Pension Using Immediate Annuities

If you don't have a pension, or your pension is too small, consider creating your own pension using an immediate annuity (aka single premium income annuity).

Life Expectancies: Mortality Rates for 65 Year Old Males

Mortality Rates for 65 Year-Old Males

Here's another way to look at the life expectancy problem. The graph above shows the mortality rates for a hypothetical population of males who are exactly 65 years old. The bar at age 65 indicates that 1.7% of this group would be expected to die while still 65 -- i.e., before reaching age 66. The remaining bars show what percent of the original group is expected to die each succeeding year until age 100.

It's worth noting that

The Life Expectancy Problem: How Long Will You Live?

Being realistic about how long you will live, your life expectancy, can increase your chances of a successful retirement.

Life-expectancy: People are Living Longer

Life Expectancy In The United States

There is both good news and bad news about life expectancy. The good news is life spans are getting longer; life expectancy at birth has increased more than 15 years just since 1930. (see graph above. Click to expand.)

Increasing Life Expectancy is a Double-Edged Sword

The bad news is ... life spans are getting longer. One result of the dramatic decrease in mortality rates over the last century or so, is that retirees are spending more and more years in retirement. And, that means they are spending more and more years living off their retirement savings. While living longer is generally a good thing,

Interest Rate Forecast for 5-Year Treasury Notes

In this post, we forecast the yields for five-year treasury notes/bonds over the next five years using the same technique we used in an earlier post. In the earlier post, Where Are Interest Rates Headed?, we used the current yield curve to derive the yield curve as it is expected to be one, two and five years in the future. In effect, this post takes the results from that post and looks at them through a different lens.

Market Forecast of Five-Year Interest Rates for Next 5 Years

Market Forecast of Five-Year Interest Rates

In the graph above (click to expand) the solid blue line represents five-year U.S. Treasury Notes. Year zero shows the "current" yield of 0.68% (To be consistent with the graph in the previous post, "current" is as of June 15, 2012). The remaining points show the expected yield on five-year treasuries from one to five years in the future. The expected yields were derived from

My Dropcam HD Security Camera: A Quickie Review

To supplement my traditional alarm system I now have live, internet-accessible video and audio of my home via my hi-def Dropcam video camera.  Here's a quick review based upon about a week's usage.

Sample Dropcam HD (high definition) Video

Sample Dropcam HD Video

What's a Dropcam HD Camera??

With my Dropcam video camera, even though I'm currently in New York City, anytime day or night I can pull out my Droid and get a live "hi-def" view of what's happening at my home in Houston (similar to the sample shot above). Not only that, but if there is movement or sound

June 2012 Stock Market Update

Dow Index Monthly Closes Through June, 2012

A Disappointing Second Quarter

June was actually a pretty good month.  On the final day of trading, the Dow was up 2.2%, rallying on good news from Europe.  However, it marked the end of a disappointing second quarter.  The market fell 2.5% during the quarter, primarily because of concerns about a) Europe, b) China, and c) the U.S. -- three of the most important drivers of the global economy.

An emerging domestic concern lately is the so-called "fiscal cliff" looming on