Shrinking Social Security

A new report says Social Security will replace less of your income than it did before, thanks to taxes, Medicare and the reality of hitting your 60's.

Social Security has been getting to a point that many of us who are under 40 will never see any of the money we put into it. This article talks about what the equivelant social security paycheck will be in the future compared to what it is now.

Since few of us actually like to save, here's some incentive: a new study says Social Security will replace much less of your pre-retirement income than it has for retirees in the past.

To give you an idea of what that means to your wallet, consider a 65-year-old average earner making, say, $36,000 the day he retires. He might get about $14,000 in Social Security benefits after paying his Medicare premiums today. But if it were 2030, that same earner would pocket closer to the equivalent of $10,000. And the more you earn, the greater the difference would be.

Anyone who at least thinks about their retirement, hopefully isn't relying on social security to live on at that point. We aren't going to get much, if anything by that time even though we paid in so much. We are paying for the people that weren't educated about retirement investing in the past, and need this money now, but we hav emuch more information available to us now so that we can make better plans. Investing in any number of things like network cables, computers, oil, etc. is a better option than waiting for social security to pay us when it doesn't even keep up with inflation.

For a more in depth look at this story look here.

Blog Advertising

I've always been a person who likes to work on their own. I'm not an employee type of individual so several months back i decided to jump into the online world to earn money. What I found was that there were a ton of website owners who were willing to pay me to advertise on blogs. That's when I found PayPerPost.

As a blogger for them I am doing very well. In fact I am making enough money doing paid blogging that I don't even need to have a "real" job. I can work when I want, and work int he comfort of my own home with out getting hassled by a manager, or anyone else for that matter when it comes to my income.

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Forecasting in Business

I've always felt that forecasting many of the aspects of business, investments, and taxes was an extremely important aspect of finance. Taxes are something that most do not plan ahead for. The average person only looks at their taxes in April and wants to know what they can write off then, when they could have planned a head and gotten much bigger tax breaks if they looked at their Taxes in January the precious year and made some guestimates on what they could, or could not implement into their tax plan.

Small business is no different if you are looking to take into account your revenues and expenses. Using some handy forecasting software is something that really helps get an overall picture of where you are going, where you want to go, and recognize trends that you may be able to correct, or even improve upon just by having the data. I can't even tell you how many times I've improved my bottom line just because I take a pro-active approach to my business expenses.

Fantasy Football Leagues Already?

One of my favorite past times is fantasy sports. Be it football or baseball I can't go a year with out being in several leagues and participating in many "practice" drafts before I get into my big time competition drafts. Since I have so much experience in it now I tend to gravitate to leagues that have great prizes. Fantasy Football is probably my favorite. It really takes my mind off the Detroit Lions and how poor that franchise is. I am now to the point where I actually just root for players instead of my team. The Lions are more of a "cues circus music" kind of team that you enjoy laughing at every week. Way past caring if they win or lose now.

AAFL.com has a great system going in which you can win some HUGE fantasy prizes. These aren't those chumps you get in those Yahoo leagues either. The guys in these leagues know waht they are doing and they will give you some competition sompared to waht those other places offer you most of the time. It is rare to join one of those public leagues on Yahoo or something only to realize at the draft you won already because the mangaers are making some really oddball picks in the early rounds while you are stacking your line up wioth keepers.