Have you noticed that when you search on the web for retirement communities, you will usually find a large number of ‘manufactured’ home developments?

I’ve always had the impression that a ‘manufactured’ home is kinda like a mobile home that has no wheels and isn’t designed to be mobile. What is your impression? Does anyone out there live in/own a manufactured home. How do you think it compares with a tradional ‘brick & stick” home vs. a mobile home?

Some of them come with a respectable parcel of land, but is it owned land or leased land? Is it marketable property? That is, if you become feeble or sick and have to go to a nursing home, can you sell it and get your investment back (assuming no repeat of the recent home value plunge)? Can anyone comment on a recent sale (or lack thereof)?

We’d like to hear from you!

I’ve often heard it asked: “If you don’t plan on where you are going, how will you know when you get there?” I’ve also heard it said that, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Many of us approach life’s major transitions without any sort of planning; we just let life happen to us. But, entering retirement is one of those transitions that have a very difficult “do-over”, if any at all.

It’s particularly true if you are already on a tight budget going into your mid-sixties. Perhaps you don’t feel confident that you have enough of a nest egg to enjoy your “golden years,” and you feel a nagging anxiety in your soul as the calendar pages slip away. Good or bad, it is essential that you have a handle on what to expect financially as you transition to living on your savings and a fixed income. It helps to know what’s ahead of you.

The first thing you might consider doing is to create a few spreadsheets and do some “proforma” projections of how your income is going to flow. If you own Excel or a similar spreadsheet program, you can begin right away to create these spreadsheets. Now, if you don’t own such applications, don’t go out and spend a couple of hundred dollars on Excel or some expensive budgeting software. Assuming you have some skill in using a spreadsheet, you could just go to Google.com and sign up for a FREE account where you can immediately take advantage of “Google Docs”. Google Docs consists of a suite of free “productivity” software, including spreadsheet, word processing and presentation functions. If you don’t have experience with Excel (or Word), remember that it costs nothing to sign up and explore Google’s free online applications.

Google Docs makes “office suite software” not only CHEAP to use, but also incredibly easy.  There are books available to help you, including the “for Dummies” series. You will likely find them in a well equipped library, but these are books you’ll want to own for reference, so after looking them over at the library (or the bookstore), pick the best and buy it so you’ll always have it close at hand. In a coming article, we’ll get into more depth on this; for now, you may want to check out some of the resources mentioned.

A reader asked whether it is better for her to start Social Security benefits at 62 or wait until age 66. The answer really depends on many factors, including her health, her family’s typical longevity and, well, whether she looks both ways when crossing the street! Seriously, though, according to the actuaries (the math scientists in the insurance business), taking your Social Security payments at age 62 or at the normal retirement age of 66, has no effect on the total that you’ll receive over your remaining lifetime. That’s a concept, however, that applies to millions of people as a group, not necessarily to you as an individual.

Let’s say you are born in 1950 and would have a normal Social Security benefit commencement age of 66 (for someone born from 1943 to 1954). Further, let’s say you would normally receive a monthly benefit of $2,000 at age 66, but you decide to take early commencement at age 62. According to the Social Security Administration website (www.socialsecurity.gov), you’ll get hit with a 25% reduction at age 62. This means that your benefit would be reduced to $1,500 per month at age 62. At some point in time, according to theory, the totals in each scenario will equal out. So, based on that theory, you decide to wait till age 66 and then apply for your benefit. Then, you decide to celebrate your decision and gleefully run out to Ben & Jerry’s for a nice big sundae. In your glee, you neglect to look both ways and don’t see the bus coming.

Total received: $0! Had you decided to take the age 62 benefit, you would have received $72,000!

As time passes, the difference becomes less significant. At age 70, you would have received $144,000 since age 62, vs. $96,000 since age 66. At around age 78 it balances out and having started payments at 62 looks less advantageous.

None of this, however, takes into consideration that you might not have earned a salary from 62 to 66, nor that you might have invested any of the proceeds.

Obviously, not a reality-based question!

I’ve heard the question often. It goes something like this: “I have $X of credit card debt, and while I want to be debt-free, I’m sure I could miss some great investment results if I throw all my money at my credit card debt!”

To me, if you look at the math, it doesn’t make any sense. If you invest in some common stock or common stock funds, you might grow by some percentage as time passes. While you are waiting for time to pass . . . Google these words:  “stocks plunge 2008 2009″. What appears as a result of that search should shake you back to reality! Fact is the market can be volatile. Hopefully, we won’t see the plunge that we witnessed in those years. Investing involves the risk that the same thing could happen — even as you are reading this!

The question behind the question, though, is more like, “Would I borrow money at 20% interest to invest in a market where I could very well lose that much and more?” When you make the choice to not pay down debt in order to use your money for another purpose, it is as if you are borrowing that money again! To be sure, it could go up by twice that rate, but if you’re reading this blog because the name fits you (baby boomer), can you afford this risk? Twenty, ten or maybe even five years ago, your answer might have been clouded by the distance to retirement, but now it should be clouded by the distance you could add to retirement!

Another point of view, to me, is this: What better investment is there where the investment result is guaranteed to be at least twenty percent? Think of it: by paying off a debt accumulating at 20% it is as if you have invested at that rate. A $10,000 debt right now will become $12,000 a year from now. So if you pay it off today, logically, you will have $2,000 more in your asset pocket a year from now.

So how do you accomplish such a feat — paying off debt? There are a few turkeys out their selling bogus software and books teaching you to “borrow your way out of debt” (my words, not theirs!), but there are also quite a few solid sources of wise advice. One of my favorites can be found at: http://www.daveramsey.com while another can be found at http://www.thesimpledollar.com

I frequently refer to each of these often when I discuss money with my friends. Where do you get your advice?