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Dividend Investing Revisited

Remember the interesting conversation we had about dividend investing?

I discussed my plan to retire without spending any of the capital I've accumulated (I want a retirement where I can simply live off the earnings of my assets without decreasing the principal). I mentioned that dividend investing, along with real estate, could be a possible way to reach my goal.

Retirement Budgeting

In The Charles Schwab Guide to Finances After Fifty: Answers to Your Most Important Money Questionsthe author provides a basic, sample budget meant to determine how much you'll need to save for retirement. Here are her thoughts:

Total first-year spending goal (including taxes): $110,000
Minus Social Security: ($30,000)
Minus annual pension: ($20,000)
Minus rental income: ($20,000)

First-year withdrawal: $40,000
Retirement portfolio target (first-year withdrawal times 25): $1,000,000

It's not a bad start. It's certainly rather basic, but it gets people thinking in the right manner IMO.

If we take this same methodology and apply it to what I'm thinking for my retirement, here's what we'd get:

Grow Your Career by Volunteering

Here's a piece from the Wall Street Journal that details the career advantages of volunteering. Other than the great feeling and satisfaction you get from helping others, there are a whole host of positive benefits associated with serving a non-profit. A few of them:

Top Ten Money Recommendations for Every Age

As you might imagine, I get lots of requests from publishers who want to send me a book to review on Free Money Finance. Of all the requests I get, I probably only bite on 25% of them (the ones I think I might be interested in.) And of those I request, I only end up writing about one in five (many have GREAT titles but their content is lacking).

How Much to Save Per Day to Retire in 30 Years

While traveling recently I picked up a copy of USA Today at my hotel. Reading through the financial section, I saw an interesting question. A reader was asking how much he would have to invest per day to retire in 30 years.

I found the response online and here's what they had to say:

Investors might be surprised to hear that for the average, typical person making a number of back-of-the-envelope assumptions, $82.28 a day may be what you should be shooting for, based on an analysis done for USA TODAY by investment management firm T. Rowe Price. If you save $82 a day and invest it in a fairly aggressive but not crazy portfolio, in 30 years you could amass enough wealth to generate the U.S. average household income for 30 years, even after adjusted for inflation.

Likability Key to Job Success

Here's a piece from the Wall Street Journal about likability being key to career success. Their thoughts:

"Likability" is becoming a bigger factor for success at work as social networks and videoconferencing grow. The impact goes beyond a high-school popularity contest. The ability to come across as likable is shaping how people are sized up and treated by bosses and co-workers.

Likable people are more apt to be hired, get help at work, get useful information from others and have mistakes forgiven. A study of 133 managers last year by researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that if an auditor is likable and gives a well-organized argument, managers tend to comply with his suggestions, even if they disagree and the auditor lacks supporting evidence.

Help a Reader: Retirement Tipping Point

Here's an email I recently received from a reader:

I have a question to which I haven't been able to find an answer online. I'm currently 32, have about $25,000 in my retirement accounts, and contribute approximately 18 percent of my income to my employer-sponsored plan and Roth IRA. I'm wondering when, if ever, I can stop contributing to these plans. I've read articles to the effect that people who invest for 10-15 years early in their careers (and then stop) do just as good, if not better, with final balances as those who start at 35 or 40 and contribute for the remainder of their careers.

I'm just curious... what is that "tipping point" where my contributions aren't going to make a significant increase to my final retirement balance. Is there a way to easily calculate this or is this a better question for a financial planner?

What are your thoughts for him?

Should I Roll My IRA into My New Job's 401k?

Here's a question a CNN Money reader asked:

I'm 59, and I just got a new job. Should I move my IRA to the 401(k) plan or keep it separate?

Here's their response:

Are the fees lower in your 401(k) than in your IRA? Would you like all your retirement dollars in one pot? Do you prefer your 401(k)'s investment options?

If the answers are yes, yes, and yes, a roll-in could make sense, says Kevin O'Fee, a defined-contribution management executive at Fidelity.

Here's what my response would have been:

No.

Is that it? Just "no"? Yep. Just "no."

Why would I say that? Because I know, for the vast majority of people:

Cost of Average Wedding Almost $30,000

I can't resist. I know I've covered the cost of weddings previously, but every year when the new numbers come out, I'm astounded once again.

Here are the highlights for 2013:

Financials of Real Estate Investment #3

Here are the details of my third rental real estate property. I purchased it in the middle of 2013. For reference, here are links to details on property #1 and property #2. And here are the details on my real estate plans.

One Building, Four Units

Here are the highlights of how I came to own this place: