For one week every fall, we begin the week with Labor Day and end the week with Retirement!
Labor Day is a familiar day to us. What may be unfamiliar is that the Friday after Labor Day is deemed 401(k) day according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA). This organization is committed to promoting the use of profit sharing, 401(k) and other savings and incentive programs by increasing awareness of their benefits to business, employee, government, media, and the academia communities. This organization is driven by the belief that corporate savings and incentive programs strengthen the free-enterprise system, empower and motivate the workforce and improve domestic and international competitiveness.
Participating in company sponsored savings plans like a 401(k) or 403(b) (for non-profits) is a great way to get retirement savings automated and consistent. Participating in these plans involve making an election to have a percentage of your wages automatically deferred and redirected to your retirement savings account. Many organizations provide a matching contribution for funds that are saved by the employee which is a great partnership to help you to grow this fund more quickly! 401(k) day is organized to remind everyone to begin or increase their commitment to saving for this latter season of life.
Take advantage of your company offerings!
According to a March 2015 National Compensation Survey conducted by the US Department of Labor only 64% of individuals that have access to a company sponsored retirement plan are making the choice to participate. Of this 64% of participants there is a higher adoption rate for state and local government workers than those in private industry. If you are currently not participating in a retirement savings plan available to you, the key takeaway here is to get started today!
Retirement in the Bible
Retirement as we customarily envision it is not a concept that is directly promoted in the bible with one exception. The exception is the instruction given to Levites to withdraw from the tent of meeting services when they reach age 50 (Numbers 8:23-25). The concept here and in other biblical passages is that the Lord has called each of us to a work and he will give us the strength to do the work to which we are called. While this is true, it is expected that as the body grows weary, the work should become easier to better match your physical capabilities.
In our practical lives, retirement is a time in which the work that we do becomes easier and not as demanding. For most of us, this will be accomplished as we withdraw from or reduce the amount of time we spend in corporate career and entrepreneurial activities. In preparation for this time, we should save money during the working years for this season of life. With this in place, the demand for the income that comes from corporate or self-employment should be reduced. This is the goal!
How much of your earnings should you save for retirement?
How much of your earnings should you save for your retirement? The specific answer is one that will be determined as a part of an individual retirement needs assessment exercise. No problem if you haven’t completed such an assessment! When participating in your company sponsored plan, all that is needed is for you to determine a percentage of your gross income that is to be deferred and redirected to retirement savings. Personally, I use and recommend an age-based savings percentage that increases later in life.
Wondering how you could possibly save this amount of your income? As you pay down your debt obligations and strive toward living a no-debt lifestyle this becomes possible. In the tax year 2016 there is an $18k limit on the total dollars that you can defer. Those over age 50 can defer an additional $6k annually. Depending on your level of compensation and number of total participants in the plan, company sponsored retirement plans may further restrict the amount of your income that you can save tax-deferred. Max out the amount that you can save tax-deferred in your company plan and make up the difference by redirecting your post-tax monies to an individual savings or investment account.
If you are self-employed or your employer does not have a sponsored retirement saving plan you will have to take the initiative to save for your later years. Work to save a portion of your income monthly and work up to the percentages listed above. After your nest egg begins to grow you will be ready to explore investment options to help to generate a return on these funds. It’s not difficult and I feel that everyone will be able to develop a strategy that works for them. Money reVerse is here to help with encouragement, information and one-on-one consulting engagements. Contact me to get more info!
Prepare for the day in which your work will be lighter and less demanding. Aggressively save for your retirement by taking advantage of your company sponsored retirement savings plan! Do it today!
What is the market going to do after the election?
This is the question of which everyone wants the answer and the answer is nowhere to be found. As we know with all things in our financial markets, there are many opinions but of course when we’re talking about future events, all opinions are speculative at best.
From what I’ve read of the presidential candidates, there are four key areas of our financial markets that will be affected as a result of our upcoming election. They are international business relations, health care, taxes and consumer discretionary (optional) spending. Here’s a few points to consider on these four areas.
With a republican presidential win, we should keep our eyes on the implementation of international agenda items from Trump. If he honors his promises to reform international trade by withdrawing from the newly signed Trans-Pacific Partnership, renegotiating NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and other seemingly impactful measures, this is likely to cause a negative impact to our international trade relationships. In this case it will be noticed mainy by large cap US companies since they are more likely than mid and small cap companies to have multi-national operations.
Based on campaign promises from both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there will be adjustments of some kind to the Affordable Care Act. As with the 2010 implementation of this health care reform, many health care business including insurance providers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies will be impacted by any changes that are made to this health care law. The implementation of this act caused an increase in the healthcare market sector. The nature of the next reform changes will dictate the overall effect of the stocks that comprise this market sector.
Spending for indulgence and non-essential extras will be impacted if there is less money brought into the household or if there are price increases on necessities. This is the reason to be aware of potential tax and interest rate changes that come as a new US president takes office.
Again, no one truly knows how our financial markets will react to our 2016 presidential election. Watching the key areas discussed here will keep you on your toes and having a better understanding of post-election changes that we see in our US financial markets.
Stay tuned!
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At the suggestion of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, many major credit card issuers have made FICO scores available to their customers at no charge. This has been a great thing for us as consumers as FICO is still by far the credit score that is most used by lenders.
In May of this year Discover did a new and even better thing. They made free FICO credit scores available to everyone – even those that do not carry a Discover credit card! These free scores are available via 
This chart shows the following pair of interesting facts:
1. The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ are all trading higher today than they did at the beginning of the year.
2. The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ set new all-time highs in 2016. These new highs have been in the record books for just over 60 days.
With all-time high records being set on all three indices, there is a high likelihood that there will be a market pullback in the future. All-time highs often result with a pullback and a market ""running start" before the next all-time high mark is hit. We are seeing that now as there has been a decrease in the index values since the Summer 2016 high values.
We’re still doing a pre-election focus on our financial markets. Stay tuned for more!
Carolyn
We all sometimes need reminders to do things that are best for us. While appearing on the October 8, 2016 episode of The Marriage Talk Show, I shared with the listners 6 Key Biblical Money To-Do's for Couples.
It was fun to be in the studio with the show hosts Ralph and Shelia Green and hearing from listeners that called in with comments and questions.
Missed the show? 
Carolyn
I’m excited to join Ralph and Shelia Green as they host The Marriage Talk Show, a weekly Christian radio show on the Fishbowl Radio Network. On this week’s show we will talk all things marriage and money.
Ralph and Shelia are armed with a passion for empowering couples in an effort to end the trend of increasing divorce rates in Christian marriages. They focus on teaching couples to become one in God in their marriage. This week’s topic: Money. We promise that every listener will be encouraged and walk away with information that can lead to transformation In the way you handle money. I’m excited to join the show this week and I’d love for you to join us by listening and calling in to be a part of the discussion!
The show airs every Saturday from 9 AM – 11 AM Central Time and I will be an in-studio guest on 10/8/2016. You can listen to the show in the “red” stream at 
This chart shows that when the incumbent president party won the election there was an upswing in the S&P 500 for the year. There was an S&P 500 loss for the year if the incumbent presidential party did not prevail. If this trend carries over to the 2016 election, we will see a 2016 market upswing with a Clinton victory and a market downswing with a Trump presidential win.
I'm honored to have recently joined the writing team at 
The referendum or public vote was open to the people of the UK and the question posed to them was “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Think of this as residents of any of our 50 states being asked should we stay or should we leave the United States. In simple terms, that was the question.
The result was 51.9% of voters opted to leave the European Union and 48.1% opposing the change. The UK, also known as Britain is leaving the 28 state European Union.
Union. They felt that breaking away from the union was the only way to protect and restore the country’s identity, independence, culture and pride. From my readings I’m interpreting that the people of Britain felt that receiving immigrants from other cultures in large numbers contributed to their feelings of losing their identity.
British citizens that opposed the EU exit stated that there would be substantial economic consequences associated with leaving the union and noted that the financial impact of the exit does not justify taking such an action.
The vote for Britain to exit the European Union was passed on Thursday June 23, 2016 and as predicted, there was a notable downturn in the US, European and Asian financial markets on Friday June 24, 2016.
The Brexit vote marks the beginning of a new stage production on this topic. Since the vote we’ve seen celebrations, resignations, negotiations and immigrations. Unfortunately, there’s also been a murder of a political leader as a part of the madness. Much unrest on European soil as a result of this historic vote.
I’m praying for God’s will to be done on earth. I’m seeking the Lord for peace in the land and I’m praying that he will educate us with insight on the topic. I’m believing that he will show us how to prosper in these financial markets in ways like no one else. I’m giving Him the glory already on this!
Did this help to clear up any questions that you had on this topic? Let me know. I would love to hear from you!
Our every day life choices have a direct effect on our financial well being, financial security and our financial future. Since we all want to improve our financial outlook, let’s take a closer look at the decisions that we make everyday that could affect us in this area.
Making a decision is the act of selecting when faced with two or more possibilities. We do this automatically hundreds of times a day. Do I answer the phone or let it go to voicemail? Do I brush my teeth this morning? Which route do I take to drive to work today? We all are very good at this. Looking back over the last 24 hours, I’m sure that you can quickly count 20 decisions that you made without any difficulty. If you’ve put a “can’t make a decision” label on yourself, let this serve as an instruction to mentally rip that false label from your thoughts about yourself!
Many of our daily life decisions affect our personal finances in some way. This is easily understood for major financial decisions like deciding to purchase a home, have a baby or start a business. What we may not realize is the fact that we make a larger impact to our overall financial well being as a result of the smaller every-day decisions that we make. Some of these decisions include answers to questions like do I take my lunch to work? Do I buy that toy that my child is crying for today? Should I participate in my company sponsored retirement savings plan?
I've found often times that when we retrace the steps to how we've gotten to an unfavorable financial situation we find that at the point of when we could have made a wise decision, there was no decision to be made. There wasn't an alternative on the table that best aligned with what we say matters most in our lives and in the lives of those that we love. No short-term or long-term plan on the table to oppose the "right now" money-related opportunity. We know what happens then...we go with "Why not??". Opportunity seized!!
When the Lord began showing me visions of how He sees the financial condition of His people, he began a work in me that led me to begin making plans to achieve this vision. I saw visions of His people achieving wealth in a comfortable way that was recognized by believers and non-believers alike. I saw His people using mainstream practices in our everday lives to bring to light the truth that we are a city that sits on a hill that cannot be hidden in the financial arena. I believed it. I began living it with the financial choices that I made. I implemented 3 key financial practices in my life and as a result rarely have a struggle making financial decisions. I have alternatives before me when presented with "right now" money decisions. 95% of the time, I choose to stick to achieving the God-given vision and so far it has paid off! I'm not boasting on myself, but I am boasting in the Lord!
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!Psalm 46:10 NKJV
Thank you for supporting Money reVerse!
Carolyn