Boomers, it’s time to spend—and pay taxes on—your 401(k)-By Suzanne Woolley

LLANDUDNO, WALES - SEPTEMBER 08: Senior citizens relax on Llandudno Promenade on September 8, 2014 in …

What the IRS giveth, the IRS taketh away.

At age 70½, the bill comes due on all those tax-deferred savings accounts we’ve been building, and this week the oldest baby boomers will begin to reach that finish line—with many millions more to follow.

Those waves of retirees will be required to start pulling money from their IRAs and 401(k)s. Following an Internal Revenue Service formula, these annual withdrawals can push you into a higher tax bracket, so financial planners put a lot of energy into building strategies to minimize the tax bite.

To be most effective, you need to plan far in advance of the magic age. So anyone with sizable savings may want to get familiar with how these required minimum distributions (RMD) work—and the options for handling them—well before they have to crack open the nest egg.

To get a jump-start on what's involved, here are some quick rules of the road:

• While you have the option of tapping tax-deferred retirement savings accounts without penalty starting at age 59½, you are required by law to start taking distributions from your IRA, 401(k) and other kinds of tax-deferred accounts by April 1 of the year after you turn 70½. From then on, you have to take money out before Dec. 31 every year. If you are still working at that age and participating in your employer's 401(k) plan, you may be able to defer RMDs from that account.
• The amount you must withdraw is tied to an IRS formula based on life expectancy. Say you just turned 70½ and have one $600,000 IRA. An IRS table (PDF) sets your distribution period at 27.4 years. Your $600,000 divided by 27.4 equals about $22,000. Whether you want it now or not, that's what you have to take out. 
• The penalties for noncompliance are steep. If you forget to take an RMD, or don't withdraw the full amount, the IRS wants 50 percent of the amount you didn't withdraw. You can avoid this by having your IRA custodian calculate your RMD for you and automatically transfer the money to an account with them or your bank, a service many offer.

As you'd imagine, things become trickier once you get into tax strategies. For those to work, you must have sizable amounts saved in both tax-deferred and taxable accounts. If you already have a Roth IRA in place, all the better. By shifting money between these accounts, and paying tax on some at opportune times, you can lessen the ultimate tax damage and add years of retirement income.

A few caveats: Everyone's situation is different, and no one can predict future tax policy. One bit of advice that applies to all: Any financial adviser you use should be a fiduciary, required to act in your best interests.

Fill up the bucket

One of the main ways planners help clients facing big RMDs is strategically converting money from a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA, which is funded with after-tax money. That's because those required distributions can push you into a higher tax bracket, said Kevin Reardon of Shakespeare Wealth Management in Pewaukee, Wis.
At some point after 59½, when a client can tap tax-deferred accounts without penalty, but before 70½, when they must, Reardon has them convert chunks of a regular IRA into a Roth before they retire. The point is to take advantage of a period when they're in a low tax bracket. Without income yet from RMDs, a pension, or Social Security, there may be a gap between current income and the limit for remaining in the 15 percent tax bracket, for example. The point is to fill that gap with money withdrawn from your traditional IRA, pay tax on it, and put it in a Roth.

How much you convert depends on a lot of things, including how much you have in taxable accounts both to live on and to cover the tax, and how close your income is to the next tax bracket. And of course, there are big benefits to having money compound tax-free in an IRA. Planners have to weigh these considerations against the chance of a higher tax bracket when you start taking distributions and other income streams kick in.

Reardon's clients typically delay taking Social Security until age 70. That gets them a much higher monthly benefit than if they'd taken it earlier. It also means Social Security benefits—which are taxed to a degree—don't add to income while clients are trying to fill their 15 percent “tax bucket.”

You Must Convert!

Here's an example of how the strategy could work, courtesy of certified financial planner John Shanley of Pinnacle Investment Management in Simsbury, Conn. His firm worked with a married couple, 67 and 59 years old, who are retiring later this year. The older client is deferring Social Security until 70, and the couple will have $17,000 in income coming from a pension starting in 2017.

The couple's spending needs in 2017 and 2018 will come from taxable accounts. Since they have low income for two years, they'll convert $75,000 of a traditional IRA to a Roth in both years. A small part of that conversion falls in the 10 percent bracket and the rest in the 15 percent bracket. By lessening future RMDs, the client won't be bumped into the 25 percent tax bracket in 2019 or the 28 percent bracket they might have hit in later years, said Shanley. 

A helpful way to look at the savings is to compare the tax bill generated by a conversion today with what it would likely cost down the line, he said. For instance, a $75,000 move from an IRA to a Roth now at a 15 percent rate costs $11,250 in tax. The same transfer later, while in a 25 percent tax bracket, would cost $18,750. 

The conversion’s tax benefit in later years may be diminished if new income streams start, say from another pension or more RMD income, but it’s still a way to take advantage of a few years at a lower rate, Shanley said. 

And finally, if you’ve done so well that the RMDs aren’t needed, you can make "qualified charitable distributions" of up to $100,000 a year. That way, RMDs won't be included in gross income. You have to be careful, though—the company holding your tax-deferred account must send the money directly to a qualified charity.

Culled from Bloomberg

Aging parents: Your adult kids aren't total ingrates like you think they are-By Lisa Scherzer

Fidelity survey shows kids of aging parents are willing to help them out

Getty Images

Parents getting closer to retirement might be (pleasantly) surprised to learn their offspring expect to help them out. According to a new Fidelity Investments Family & Finance Study, most parents (93%) feel it’s wrong to become financially dependent on one's kids, but only 30% of adult children surveyed feel the same. So parents might not want to become a financial burden — despite the fact that their kids expect and are willing to step in and help.

See, parents, your children aren’t total ingrates: All those years supporting them might finally pay off.

The findings “point to the fact that adult children are looking at their parents and their parents’ need for help not as an obligation, but as an opportunity to help, to pay them back,” says Suzanne Schmitt, vice president for family engagement at Fidelity Investments. Parents are often under the impression that they must be entirely self-sufficient in retirement, and they make decisions based on that assumption — including where they are or aren’t able to travel and generally what kind of lifestyle they can afford.

“If they knew their kids might help out, it could radically improve their life,” she says.

That might be the only real bit of positive news from the study, however. The Fidelity report, conducted every two years, found other issues where parents and their adult children are not in agreement:

-Estate planning: 92% of parents expect one of their children will assume the role of executor of their estate. But when asked, around 27% of the kids identified as filling this role didn’t know about it.

-Caregiving: While 72% of parents expect one of their kids to assume long-term caregiver responsibilities in retirement if needed, 40% of children didn’t know of this expectation. (One surprising trend from the report: A growing number of millennials are providing caregiving support for a parent.)

-Managing money: 69% of parents surveyed expect one of their children will help manage their finances in retirement, but more than one-third of kids who were identified for this responsibility weren’t clued in.

Overall, nearly four in 10 families disagree on roles and responsibilities as parents age — whether that’s who’s going to provide care, or who’s going to serve as executor of a parent’s estate.

Survey after survey have illustrated similar communication gaps when it comes to talking about money with family. Few people like talking about getting old, dying and how much money they do or don’t have. A T. Rowe Price study recently found that parents are more than willing to overspend on their kids but are reluctant to discuss money with them. Another found that Americans would rather talk about sex than money.

All this, of course, is fodder for Fidelity (and other money managers) to urge people to start planning. And the earlier the better; Schmitt says often families are forced into these conversations when there’s a health crisis or a death. You can find Fidelity’s resources for families here and here. (You can find plenty of resources online.)

Fidelity interviewed 1,273 parents age 55 and over (who had investable assets of at least $100,000 and a child older than 25) and 221 adult children older than 25 with money in an IRA, 401(k) or another investment account; the adult kids 30 and older needed to have at least $10,000 saved.

Culled from Yahoo Finance

4 aggressive moves in your 40s to achieve long-term financial goals - By Sandra Block

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The kids are old enough to drive themselves to band practice, and you're planning an anniversary getaway with your spouse. Life is good. But college bills loom, and you're neglecting your retirement accounts as you sock away money for college.

Beef up investing. Saving for retirement is the priority. First, max out contributions to your workplace retirement plan. In 2016, you can contribute up to $18,000 to a 401(k) or similar employer-provided savings plan (or $24,000 if you're 50 or older). But be careful. If you stash all of your retirement savings in tax-deferred accounts, you could find yourself facing a big tax hit when you retire, says Jon Meyer, a CFP in Minneapolis. Withdrawals from 401(k) plans and traditional IRAs are taxed at your ordinary income tax rate.

If you aren't contributing to a Roth IRA, this is a good time to start. Contributions are after-tax, but withdrawals are tax- and penalty-free as long as you're at least 59½ and have owned the Roth for at least five years. In 2016, you and your spouse can each stash up to $5,500 in a Roth ($6,500 if you're 50 or older) if your adjusted gross income is $184,000 or less; if your AGI is between $184,000 and $194,000, you can contribute a reduced amount.

Taxable savings accounts will also help minimize your tax bills in retirement. Most investors pay 15% on long-term capital gains and dividends; investors in the 10% and 15% tax brackets pay 0%. Choose tax-efficient index funds or actively managed funds with low turnover to hold down your tax bill even further, Meyer says.
Save at least enough in your retirement plan to take full advantage of the company match. After that, says Meyer, the breakdown between taxable and tax-deferred accounts depends on your tax bracket. Workers in lower tax brackets are better off diverting some of their savings to a Roth and taxable accounts because the immediate benefit of tax deferral is less valuable. If you're in a high tax bracket--say 35%--sock away as much as you can in tax-deferred accounts because you'll probably be in a lower tax bracket when you take withdrawals.
It is also an excellent time to sit down with a financial planner and review your investment mix. Over long periods, stocks deliver higher returns than bonds. You need a healthy share of stocks and stock mutual funds in your portfolio to build a nest egg that will last 30 years or longer.
Juggle saving for college and retirement. It's tempting to put retirement savings on hold in order to give your children the best college education that money can buy. But financial planners are nearly unanimous in their belief that this is a bad idea.
The reason is simple: You (or your children) can borrow for college, but you can't borrow for retirement, and it's difficult to make up for lost time. Working longer isn't always an option: Many people are forced to retire earlier than they planned because of health problems or corporate downsizing. If you reach retirement and you've saved more than you need, you can help your children pay off their student loans, says Andrew Houte, a CFP in Brookfield, Wis. Plus, "it's not the worst thing in the world for your kids to have some skin in the game," says Houte.
Max out your earnings. Remain technologically nimble, even if you don't work for a high-tech company. There are plenty of online courses you can take to improve your social media and digital skills. Constant Contact offers online seminars (some of them free) on how to use social media for a variety of business purposes. Many local community colleges and university extension offices provide courses designed to enhance your digital skills. You can find YouTube videos on everything from computer coding to Adobe Photoshop.
Don't focus just on how much money you take home every week. Make sure you're taking advantage of employee benefits that could build wealth and contribute to your retirement security. Does your employer match contributions to a health savings account? Offer retiree health benefits? A pension? Houte says some of his clients have switched jobs---and even taken a pay cut---in order to work for an employer that provides better retirement benefits.
Pay off debt. Retiring mortgage-free is a worthy goal. You'll eliminate one of your largest expenses, which means you won't be forced to take large withdrawals from your retirement savings during market downturns to pay the bills. But at this point in your life, there may be better uses for your money, especially if you have a mortgage with a low interest rate. Focus on paying off debt with higher interest rates, such as credit card balances and parent college loans.

If you still have money left over, consider accelerating your mortgage payments. You could refinance to a 15-year mortgage, or you could simply make extra payments on your current mortgage. You'll pay the equivalent of 13 monthly payments instead of 12 by dividing your payment by 12 and adding that amount to each monthly bill. Or you could simply make an extra payment at year-end. On a 30-year mortgage, making an extra monthly payment each year would reduce the term of your loan by about four years.

culled from kiplinger

5 things every college student should know about investing

I’m sure you’re aware of recent studies that focus on the importance of emotional intelligence over intelligence quotient (IQ) in high-achieving individuals. As I see it, building your financial intelligence (FI) is just as essential to business and personal success. However, most people don’t understand how to measure – or enhance – their financial intelligence.
In the business world, the study of FI is growing, thanks in large part to the pioneering work of the late Karen Berman and her co-author, Joe Knight. According to them, “financial intelligence isn’t some innate ability that you either have or don’t have. Like most disciplines and skill sets, it must not only be learned, it must also be practiced and applies.”
Berman and Knight’s best-selling work, Financial Intelligence, identifies the four fundamental skill sets essential to successful FI:
1.      Understand the foundation: the ability to read an income statement and a balance sheet, the difference between profit and cash, and other key concepts.
2.      Understand the art. Finance and accounting are an art as well as a science. The two disciplines must try to quantify what can’t always be quantified, and so must rely on rules, estimates, and assumptions.
3.      Understand analysis. Financial intelligence includes the ability to analyze the numbers in greater depth. This includes being able to calculate profitability, leverage, liquidity and efficiency ratios and understanding the meaning of the results. Conducting ROI analysis and interpreting the results are also part of financial intelligence.
4.      Understand the big picture. Financial intelligence also means being able to understand a business’s financial results in context - that is, within the framework of the big picture. Factors such as the economy, the competitive environment, regulations and changing customer needs and expectations as well as new technologies all affect how the numbers are interpreted.

Berman and Knight’s work in this area has proved so popular they even produced a comic book version for readers who prefer graphical storytelling! You can also take a nationally-validated online financial intelligence quiz and see how your knowledge stacks up to other managers.
When the topic came up with my millennial colleague, Brandon Wilson, I learned that Brandon’s been working steadily to increase his FI since graduating from college. Now that he’s active in the world of financial advisory services, Brandon has written an informative, no-BS approach entitled 5 Things Every College Student Should Know about Investing. I think you’ll find Brandon’s piece filled with insights and suggestions for building FI skills early. He offers the kind of pragmatic guidance that every person should receive before entering the work world!

Credit Richard Hagen (Tumbli )

Retirement at Age 80? How This Could Happen to You-Megan Elliott

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Retirement piggy bank | Source: iStock

Eighty is the new 65, at least when it comes to retirement. More than a third of middle class Americans surveyed by Wells Fargo said they’d need to work until age 80 or beyond before they could retire comfortably. For young workers, retirement after 70 may be the norm. The average member of the class of 2015 will need to work until age 75, an analysis by financial website Nerdwallet found. Some may end up working until they hit their eighth decade, which could give them just a handful of years in retirement. (The average 23-year-old today can expect to live into their early to mid-80s.)

Many Americans have come to accept the inevitability of a late retirement. Since 1991, the number of people who expect to retire at or before age 65 has fallen from 84% to 46%, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Twenty-five years ago, 9% of people expected to work past age 70. Today, 26% do.

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Anticipating a retirement date in your 70s or 80s isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you love your job. But for many, delayed retirement won’t be a matter of choice. Millennials will have to stay in the workforce longer because high student debt, rising rents, and a hesitancy to invest will make it difficult for them to save enough money to quit their jobs, according to NerdWallet. Many other workers find themselves reaching 60 or 65 with paltry nest eggs and big expenses, like mortgage payments or college for the kids, still hanging over their heads. Those financial pressures leave many no choice but to stick it out at the office for a few more years until they feel retirement is within reach.

Why Americans are delaying retirement

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Retirement ahead | Source: iStock

Who’s to blame for our ever-increasing retirement age? A number of factors are at play. Pensions have largely disappeared, leaving workers to figure out how to fund their retirements on their own. Many people don’t have access to retirement plans at work, which makes it harder to save.

Stagnant wages are also a problem for people who want to save. In 2013, middle-income workers were earning just 6% more than they did in 1976, an increase of less than 0.2% per year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. For others, the very idea of retirement has changed. Rather than rounds of golf and long RV trips, they might be open to the idea of a phased retirement, or willing to put off retirement in exchange for better work-life balance during their younger years.

Human error is also contributing to rising retirement ages. From not saving enough to raiding retirement accounts too soon, it’s easy to make mistakes that may force you to put off retirement until your 80s. Here are three of the biggest.

1. You start saving too late

Procrastination is the enemy of success. If you wait until your 40s or 50s to start saving for retirement, you’re going to find it much more difficult to save enough money to maintain your current standard of living after you quit working.
“Consistently saving from the start of one’s working life is the key to creating retirement savings,” Joe Ready, head of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust, said.
Don’t believe us? Just take a look at this chart from J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Consistently saving $10,000 a year from age 25 to 65 yields a nest egg of $1.8 million, assuming a return of 6.5%. If you wait until 35 to start saving the same amount, your portfolio will be worth almost $1 million less at retirement.

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Source: J.P. Morgan Asset Management

2. You borrow from your retirement account

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Broken piggy bank | Source: Thinkstock

Twenty percent of Americans admit to raiding their retirement account early, a 2014 Gallup poll found. Sixteen percent took out a 401(k) loan, and 9% made an early withdrawal. Doing either does huge damage to your retirement savings, as the chart below shows.

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Source: J.P. Morgan Asset Management

With steady contributions of 9% of your annual salary, you’d be on track to have a retirement nest egg of $1.7 million at age 65. But once you take two relatively small loans of $10,000 each, plus an early withdrawal of another $10,000, your portfolio’s value falls to $1.2 million, a drop of 30%. When you tap your 401(k) early, you’ll probably cut back on contributions as you pay back the loan, as well as lose out on any future growth of the investments you sold, which causes you to fall behind in your savings, financial advisor Ric Edelman explained to CNBC.

3. You don’t save enough

Saving something for retirement is better than saving nothing in retirement. If you’re young and feeling other financial pressures, you may start out by saving just 2% or 3% of your salary. That’s a good start, but it’s a far cry from the 10% to 15% financial planners recommend setting aside, even if your employer matches your contributions. Gradually increasing your savings amount can make it more likely you’ll retire at 65 rather than 80.
How much of a difference does aggressive saving really make? A 25-year-old man making $40,000 a year who saves 3% of his salary annually has a 58% chance of not running out of money in retirement, according to EBRI research. If he increases his savings rate to 6.4%, he has a 75% chance of not going broke in retirement. And if he sets aside 14% of his salary, as many financial experts would suggest, he has a 90% chance of meeting his financial needs in retirement.

Culled from wallstreet

We are embarking on pension reforms in Liberia–VonBallmoos

He is astonishingly skilful in fielding questions. He has succeeded in beefing-up the profile of his organization, particularly by expanding its investments nation-wide. Dewitt VonBallmoos is the Director General of Liberia’s National Social Security and Welfare Corporation NASSCORP. Tall and fair in complexion, he spoke to ABUBAKAR HASHIM about the current reforms on-going, the investments of NASSCORP and other related issues
When you look back, what has been the journey, in terms of your achievements and challenges?
We took over the leadership of National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) in 2006 when President Sirleaf first came to power, I was the Deputy- Director General. We met a completely devastated, empty shell of a corporation. Clearly this was after the war period, understandably, the challenges were apparently the same throughout the country. The human resource and, capital capacity were lacking. Even though NASSCORP was established in 1975, and the pension fund in 1988, when we came in, we met almost zero balances. We met only $645,000 and 5 Million Liberian Dollars. There was a back- log of pensions to be paid. We met these challenges and took it head long. First, we had this place automated. Ten years later, we can boast second to non, customized social security automated system. We have won awards from the International Social Security Association (ISSA), a global body, for this process.
Its been a long ten years, we had gradually groomed, from an operational budget of 2m to now a budget of over 30m dollars, in ten years.
NASSCORP is a pension fund. We are all over the country. We are in eight of the counties. Some counties serve other counties, based on economic activities. We have raised our staff level, salaries and standards of living. We have all pensioners paid up- to- date by the 15th of every month. We have about 7,000 plus pensioners that are paid by 15th of every month, through the various banks in the country. With the automated system, all these beneficiaries have bank accounts.
We have also done a lot of investments, mainly in real estate, due to prevailing situation in the country. We are still a new trust fund. So in relation to other African countries, we are relatively young. As we grow, we will increase our investment profile. We have investments in Grand Bassa County, in Lofa county, in Magib and in, Kakata. Our largest investment is the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) building here in Monrovia. As we speak, we are almost completing our new headquarters building at 24th Street, Sinkor and simultaneously, constructing a first class Diagnostic Centre, which will be ready by July next year.
We have also partnered with the National Housing Authority to construct Low Cost Housing for the general population. This is in line with the vision of the present government, to make housing affordable to the vast majority of Liberians. It is in joint collaboration with the Liberian Bank for Development and Industries (LBDI).
We are in process of having a pension reform. The laws were done in 1975 and 1988. They need to be reformed to meet the present situation. This reform will increase our efficiency.
Could you please explain this pension reform?

You see, what was applicable, say in 1975, clearly need to be changed. We are taking it up to Madam President, for onward presentation to the legislature for appropriate amendment. Areas of reform like the contribution rates need to be adjusted. The vesting period need to be adjusted.
All these need to come in conformity with what prevails in the region. Liberia, as we speak, is the lowest in the region, particularly in these areas of contributing and vesting rates. In fact, these areas are subject to review every five years, because it has to be relative to be prevailing situation. Hopefully, before the end of the year, we will have achieved these reforms.
What are your challenges so far?

Our basic challenge so far is getting our pay rolls. Because we’ve automated our system permits us to get our pay rolls from employers electronically and distribute payments electronically to individuals’ accounts. For instance, an employer will send in a cheque of say, $10,000 for employees. But who are these employees? So submission of pay roll by employers is a formidable challenge. The details of employees are lacking.
The other challenge is defaulting employers. Defaulting put the work force at risk. So also their pensions will be at risk. You also have employees that do not remit. So it is our responsibility to find out these discrepancies and normalize them.
What is your relationship with other Social Security Corporations in Africa and in the Sub-Region?
As we speak, the head of the Social Security in Nigeria and I are on the committee of ISSA. We meet twice a year. We have a cordial relationship with Sierra Leone, Ghana and others, particularly in training. So also with the Gambia.

Culled from News

Protesting pensioners, students ground Owerri On June 16, 20166:19 amIn NewsComments By Chidi Nkwopara & Chinonso Alozie OWERRI—Traffic was held for several hours, yesterday, in Owerri, especially at the Wetheral/Okigwe Road roundabout, following the peaceful protest carried out by scores of senior citizens in Imo State. Some of the angry retirees, including the State Chairman of Nigerian Union of Pensioners, NUP, Chief G. Ezeji, who defied the heavy downpour experienced in the municipality, told Vanguard that they were prepared to remain at the roundabout for as long as their failing health could allow. The angry pensioners, who rebuffed entreaties by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Taiwo Lakanu, virtually chased away the Commissioner for Internally Generated Revenue and Pension Matters, Dr. Vitalis Ajumbe, insisting that they wanted to hear directly from the governor. The situation became more complex when students joined the protest, as they equally outlined a litany of their worries. Chief Ezeji narrated how their plight started: “When the present Imo State government came on board on May 29, 2011, the citizens, including the Imo pensioners whole-heartedly welcomed and supported the government of Governor Rochas Okorocha. “On July 18, 2011, he hosted the Imo pensioners at Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri, and commenced the payment of three months arrears of pension owed to civil service workers. That was his first act of friendship towards the senior citizens of Imo State. “He paid the civil pensioners their monthly pension up to December 31, 2014. As for the local government pensioners, he paid them their monthly pension up to December 31, 2014. The retired primary school teachers were paid up to March 2014.” Our challenges “Ironically, he started owing the civil pensioners from February 2015 and now owes them 16 months from February 2015 to May 31, 2016. The local government pensioners are now owed 26 months from March 2014 to May 2016. The IBC pensioners are now owed 36 months. The Alvan Ikoku College of Education retirees are owed 68 months. “The state government is also not paying gratuities to pensioners that are retiring weekly, monthly and yearly. The present Imo State government has refused to harmonize pensions based on Federal Government pension award of six per cent in 2003, and 15 per cent Federal Government award of 2007, as well as 33 per cent Federal Government award of 2011. “The Imo State pensioners are still receiving pensions based on Chief Olusegun Obasanjo minimum wage of N7, 500 awarded on 2000. “The harmonization arrears accruing from the Abdulsalami Abubakar and Obasanjo awards totaling 73 months are unpaid to Imo pensioners. The retired permanent secretaries of Imo State are equally suffering with the civil service pensioners in all the problems listed above.” Genesis of our problems Pensioner-slumps-400x232“When the governor stopped paying us the listed entitlements, we decided to bear with him because of the campaign era and voted for him en masse. Immediately, after his victory at the poll, the union congratulated him and that was followed by a paid advert in a local newspaper, during his swearing-in as governor for the second tenure. “The union wrote and enumerated the problems of Imo pensioners to the governor on May 25, 2015. In the said letter, we sought for audience with the governor on June 10, 2015, but ironically the said letter was not acknowledged and audience not granted till today. On the whole, government only paid about 305 pensioners last October 2015. “As at today, the pensioners are owed between 16 and 38 months arrears. All efforts made for governments to change its policy of starving the pensioners to death has not yielded any fruit. “Retired teachers, retired local government pensioners, civil service pensioners, including Alvan Ikoku College of Education retirees, Imo Broadcasting Corporation, IBC, retirees and retired Permanent Secretaries are suffering untold hardship as a result. A good number of pensioners have died of hunger and diseases. Our demands “The state government verified pensioners in 2011. Again in 2014, during the tenure of the maiden Commissioner for Internal Resources and Pensions, Chief Nick Oparandudu, the Imo Pensioners were verified for the third time in 2015, under the supervision of the Chairman, Local Government Service Commission. That was followed by the 4th verification in all the community government councils. “Also from November 30, 2015, government verified those that did not benefit from the payment made by the government in October 2015. With these listed verifications conducted by government, it is unfortunate that the same government is still talking of ghost pensioners. We thought that government, through these verification exercises, should by now come up with the list of ghost pensioners it alleged are on its payroll. “These notwithstanding, the leadership and members of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Imo State, is not against verification provided it goes with payment immediately to physically verified pensioners. The leadership and members of our union have demonstrated maturity and patience in our present situation. We call on the Imo State government to pay us our entitlements. “If South East states like Anambra, Enugu, Abia and Ebonyi without oil revenue are paying their senior citizens, it is incumbent on the governor of Imo State to follow suit. Why cannot Imo pay her citizens? We, therefore, call on the Imo State government to pay the accumulated arrears of pensions immediately. Students protest Meanwhile, the students of the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri, FEDPONEK, and Federal University of Technology Owerri, FUTO, have described the state government as being insensitive to their plights. The students numbering over 900, marched from their various institutions to the state capital, demanding that the government should come and make their roads motorable. They also displayed their placards which read, ‘We are dying here,’ ‘Where is the Rescue Mission?’ ‘Are these institutions not in Imo State, we are tired of promises,’ ‘Come and repair our roads,’ among others. Speaking to Vanguard, the Presidents of the Students’ Union Government, SUG, of FEDPONEK and FUTO, Comrades Ike Emmanuel and Ezenwa Obinna, respectively said that they would continue the protest until their demands were not only given attention but also solved.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/06/pensioners-students-ground-owerri/

The Secret to Success? 7 Billionaires Tell You How to Get Rich-Megan Elliott

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Billionaire Mark Cuban | Aaron Davidson/Getty Images

Get-rich-quick schemes are just that – schemes. Much as we might wish otherwise, none of us are never going to go from average Joe to the Forbes list of richest people in the world overnight.

So how do the rich get rich? Some are born that way and some get lucky. Others have advantages most of us will never have. But if you ask the world’s self-made billionaires how they achieved success, most will tell you it’s not that they’re necessarily smarter than everyone else and they didn’t rely on a some super-secret formula the rest of us don’t know about. Instead, they often credit their success to a mixture of passion and perseverance, plus a healthy dose of stubbornness.

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That advice is all well and good, but it’s a little vague. We wanted to dig a bit deeper and find out what some of the world’s most successful people really think you need to do to get rich. Here are seven incredibly successful people on what they believe you need to do to add those extra zeros to your bank account balance.

1. Save your money

Entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is worth $3 billion. He built his wealth from the ground up, and now he doesn’t hesitate to dispense advice to those who hope to replicate his success.
One of Cuban’s tips for getting rich? Don’t blow your cash on stupid stuff. Here’s one of the tips he shared in a blog post entitled “How to Get Rich”:
“Save your money. Save as much money as you possibly can. Every penny you can. Instead of coffee, drink water. Instead of going to McDonald’s, eat mac and cheese. Cut up your credit cards. If you use a credit card, you don’t want to be rich. The first step to getting rich, requires discipline. If you really want to be rich, you need to find the discipline, can you?”

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The Secret to Success? 7 Billionaires Tell

2. Go against the grain

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The “Oracle of Omaha” is a popular source of investing wisdom, not surprising given that he’s the third-richest man in the world, with a net worth of $72.7 billion. Warren Buffett’s consistent approach to investing has been key to his success. He’s made his fortune by bucking trends and betting on companies that have been overlooked by other investors. Here’s how he summed up his approach in the book Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist:

“I will tell you the secret of getting rich on Wall Street. Close the doors. You try to be greedy when others are fearful and you try to be very fearful when others are greedy.”

3. Don’t be timid

Shrinking violets and wallflowers aren’t good candidates for future billionaire status. If you want to get rich, you need to be bold enough to take chances, even if your ideas seem a little crazy. That risk-taking approach paid off in a big way for Eli Broad, the founder of KB Homes, who has a net worth of $7.1 billion.
Back in the mid-1950s, Broad had an idea that he could make money by building houses without basements, which would make them affordable for more people. The fact that he had no experience in construction or real estate didn’t stop him from pursuing his ideas, as he explained in a 2006 commencement address at UCLA’s school of arts and architecture:
“No one ever made a million bucks by being cautious or timid or reasonable. I was 22 years old and recently married when I had the crazy idea that I should give up my career as a CPA and become a homebuilder. I didn’t know anything about building houses. Sometimes the craziest ideas are the ones that yield the greatest payoffs.”

4. Make something yourself

Relying on others for your success is a recipe for disaster. At least, that’s the lesson that Forrest Mars, Sr., learned from his time working at Mars, Inc., his father’s candy business. At the time, Mars sourced all its chocolate from its competitor, Hershey’s. After quitting the family business, Mars (who was worth $4 billion at the time of his death in 1999) moved to Europe, got a job in a candy factory, and figured out how to make chocolate himself. Then he invented the Mars bar. He eventually returned to the family business, and it’s now the sixth-largest privately held company in the U.S.
“If you want to get rich, you gotta know how to make a product. And you aren’t going to hire anybody to make a product for you to make you rich,” he was quoted as saying in the book Business Builders in Sweets and Treats. He also made it clear that he wasn’t just a guy who made chocolate bars. “I’m not a candy maker. I’m empire minded,” he explained.

5. Recognize opportunity

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Great success may sometimes seem like it’s a matter of luck, but really it’s a matter of knowing when to seize a great opportunity, says Eric Schmidt, former CEO and current executive chairman of Google (net worth $10 billion). He should know. Schmidt didn’t found Google, but he was smart enough to accept a job offer there in 2001. A big part of success is just trying to be in the right place at the right time, he said in a commencement address at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009.
“Don’t bother to have a plan at all. All that stuff about plan, throw that out.  It seems to me that it’s all about opportunity and make your own luck. You study the most successful people, and they work hard and they take advantage of opportunities that come that they don’t know are going to happen to them. You cannot plan innovation, you cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be in the right place and be ready.”

6. Take care of yourself

Justine Musk may not be a billionaire herself, but she has a pretty good idea of what makes them tick. The ex-wife of Tesla founder Elon Musk (net worth: $13 billion) has seen what she calls “extreme success” firsthand, and she knows that getting to that level of wealth isn’t easy. Not only to you need to be “obsessed,” as she explained in a Quora post, but you need to be in peak physical condition:
“It helps to have superhuman energy and stamina. If you are not blessed with godlike genetics, then make it a point to get into the best shape possible. There will be jet lag, mental fatigue, bouts of hard partying, loneliness, pointless meetings, major setbacks, family drama, issues with the Significant Other you rarely see, dark nights of the soul, people who bore and annoy you, little sleep, less sleep than that. Keep your body sharp to keep your mind sharp. It pays off.”

7. Follow your passion

Most billionaires agree that passion is important if you’re trying to achieve great success. Some would say it’s the most important thing — that you should concentrate on your passion and then let success follow from that, rather than focusing on the money first. Jim Koch, who founded the Boston Beer Co., said that’s what helped transform him into a billionaire.
Long before craft beer was a national craze, Koch (the son of a brewer) decided to dedicate himself to brewing quality beer, which was then hard to find in America. His quirky passion paid off handsomely, but getting rich wasn’t the point, as he explained in an interview with Business Insider:
“The most common thing I remind people of is to only pursue something you love, because a small business is going to be very demanding of your time, your energy — it just eats your life. And if you’re doing something you love, then you will accept and even enjoy that. If you’re just doing it to get rich, you’re gonna lose heart. I tell everyone, getting rich is life’s biggest booby trap. It comes down to what would you rather be, happy or rich? I say do what’s gonna make you happy.”

Culled from Money & Career Cheat Sheet