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May
19
Novelties: Wristwatches That Help Screen Your Messages, and More
I’VE been looking at my wrist a lot lately — and not just to see what time it is.
I’ve been trying out some of the new watches that display caller IDs, text messages, Twitter and news feeds, and the weather, too — all beamed from a nearby companion smartphone.
The watches are intended for those times when it is inconvenient to pull a smartphone out of a backpack or a pocket to check messages. Instead, you just check your quietly vibrating wristwatch.
So if you’re riding your bike when your boss sends a text, or carrying a big bag of groceries when your mother-in-law fires off an e-mail, the snippet displayed on the watch face might help you decide whether to pay attention.
Some of these new watches are already on the market; others are in prototype. Sony’s SmartWatch, which sells for $ 149.99 at Sony stores and at the company Web site, is optimized to work with Sony’s Xperia line of phones, said Stephen Sneeden, the United States product marketing manager for Sony Mobile. But it is also compatible with most Android-based phones running version 2.1 and above, he said. A list of smartphone models that work with the watch will be posted at the Web site.
THE SmartWatch has a sleek color touch screen that works by way of swipes, taps and the occasional two-fingered pinch. There is only one actual button — the on/off one tucked discreetly into the side. A rubbery black band comes with the watch; bands in five other shades cost $ 19.99 each.
The Sony watch has its limitations. If you’ve wandered off on an errand and left your smartphone behind, don’t expect the phone to relay messages to your wrist from afar. The range for Bluetooth wireless communication between watch and phone is about 30 feet, Mr. Sneeden said.
The touch screen has deep, attractive colors indoors but fades in direct sunlight. The watch has no voice capabilities built into it, and you cannot type replies on it, though you can send canned, prewritten responses like “Busy now.” Gmail is the main e-mail program it uses; attachments can’t be read.
But you may find that the watch has advantages, too. Vibrations on your wrist to notify you of messages are far harder to miss than fainter ones coming from a phone stashed in a coat pocket. And there are many times — say, when you’re sitting in a meeting, supposedly paying attention — when the wrist is a discreet spot to check Facebook updates along with the time.
The SmartWatch requires two apps for setup — LiveWare Manager and SmartWatch — both free on Google Play. Most Xperia phones have LiveWare preloaded, Mr. Sneeden said.
Another Android-based smart watch, the WIMM One, was created primarily for developers who will incorporate it into mobile electronic products, said Tim Twerdahl, vice president for product marketing at WIMM Labs in Los Altos, Calif. The watch is also available on Amazon for $ 199.
The WIMM One, a bit chunkier than the Sony SmartWatch, has a lot of built-in processing power, and two wireless communication modes — Bluetooth and Wi-Fi — so that it can work through a home network.
“It will sync via Wi-Fi to your home office network and run all the apps without being paired to a phone,” Mr. Twerdahl said. This allows a user to read news feeds and to check messages on the watch face even if the phone isn’t near.
The watch has a touch screen with two display modes. A power-saving black-and-white display turns the backlight off and uses ambient light to illuminate the screen. But holding a finger down on the watch face for a second brings a full-color screen to life.
WIMM One typically lasts about 30 hours on a single charge, Mr. Twerdahl said.
The watch comes preloaded with six apps. Other apps, all free, are at the WIMM Micro App Store Beta.
More smart watches are on the way, including the Pebble, now in prototype, which will display information from Android phones and iPhones. It has a black-and-white e-paper display and buttons, rather than a touch screen.
Many apps for the new watches can help owners with a range of practical tasks. One coming app for WINN One, Mr. Twerdahl said, will let a user draw a finger forward or back across the watch to change slides during a presentation.
Another app may be handy in shopping. With a few swipes,” he said, “you can check your credit card balance” to see if you are exceeding your limit.
May
19
Planning your parent’s retirement
The Baby Boomers are doing some serious retirement planning these days.
Just one problem. They forgot to plan for their parents.
They may be 55, but their parents now need their children more than ever before.
I have many clients that have at least one parent with Alzheimer’s disease — often in their 80s or 90s. The Boomers face many social, physical and mental challenges with their parents. These can be very difficult on their own.
In addition, there are several financial challenges that arise that must be faced and in every case, intergenerational or cross-family financial discussions are the key to a positive outcome.
Here are four challenges to deal with and possible solutions:
1. We saved for our retirement, but didn’t plan on paying for everyone else’s as well.
Every retirement planning discussion should include the following question: “Are your parents and in-laws likely to be a financial burden, fairly independent, or are you expecting a meaningful inheritance?”
While many people have a hunch about it, they really need to have a better handle on it, as it is key to their own retirement plans. In my firm, we recommend that, if possible, they have a conversation with their parents that starts with: “We are doing some personal retirement planning, and we were asked a question about our parents. We don’t need to get into huge detail, but we wanted to have a discussion about whether we might need to provide some financial support to you or whether we thought there would be a meaningful inheritance. (Wait for laughter to stop.)”
It is possible that this question will have a pretty short response and won’t go further, but in most cases it does open the door to a more complete discussion.
2. Why are we responsible for Mom and Dad? What about your brothers?
Sometimes life isn’t fair. There is always someone who shoulders more of the load. It doesn’t stop just because Mom is getting old and needs support.
Support for older parents is both in terms of time and energy, and also can be in terms of money.
In many cases, women in particular have to retire early and give up an income to look after parents. This in itself could affect their retirement plan. Should they be entitled to get paid by the parents? Should they get a larger inheritance?
In an ideal world, the child that provides most of the caregiving is not in need of any compensation, and the parents can pay for any needs that arise.
In the real world, sometimes there does need to be some financial compensation for all of the time that one child puts in. With siblings, you will likely never get full agreement on these arrangements. It is usually something that should be co-ordinated between the caregiver child and the parent, and other siblings should be notified of the facts. It isn’t a vote.
3. We should have had the insurance discussion sooner.
If you are 45 years old, do you know what insurance coverage your parents have? Do they have critical-illness insurance, long-term care insurance, individual life insurance, joint first-to-die, joint last-to-die life insurance? Did their insurance coverage expire at 65 or 75?
The reality is that this is your business. All of these insurance policies, other than joint last to die, will have an impact on your parents’ financial well-being. They may mean the difference between them being able to look after themselves financially or require your financial support.
This conversation is also a good eye-opener for the 45-year-old — and it may raise some opportunities.
Opportunity No. 1: It may be too late for your parents to be properly set up due to health issues, but now is the time that you should be ensuring that living benefits like critical-illness insurance, in particular, is explored.
Opportunity No. 2: If one of your parents is in reasonably good health — even if they are 75 years old — taking out a life insurance policy on a parent may be an important part of your retirement plan. I know this may not seem right at first glance, but if the 45-year-old is going to have to look after the parents financially, it can impair his personal retirement plan. If his insured parent dies in 20 years, the son will receive a tax-free insurance payout at age 65 — a perfect time from a retirement perspective. In many cases, the return on investment of this type of insurance policy can be 7%+ on an after-tax basis.
4. Do Mom and Dad have powers of attorney in place? What about their will?
Once again, what might not be considered your business can quickly become your most important business. They should have a power of attorney over personal care. This provides guidance on who can make medical decisions on the patient’s behalf, if he is unable to make his own decisions. It usually deals with items like whether you want doctors to make ‘heroic efforts’ to save your life, or not.
There should also be a power of attorney over property. This gives someone the ability to sign documents on another person’s behalf. Without it, many necessary financial transactions and decisions will happen at a snail’s pace.
As for their will, do you know where to find it? Has it been looked at in the past 20 years? Are the executors of the will up to date? Have the named executors died 10 years ago? These issues could become a nightmare for the survivors if they aren’t reviewed and clarified.
I believe the most important issue here is opening up the lines of communication with older parents. It is important to position the conversation in terms of your own personal planning, and addressing questions that you need to answer to complete your plan.
As the Baby Boomer children, you need to have these conversations with your parents. It will benefit everyone in the long run — and there is no day better than today.
Financial Post
Ted Rechtshaffen is president and chief executive of TriDelta Financial, a firm that provides independent financial planning and
investment advice.
May
19
Media Decoder Blog: NBC’s ‘Community’ to Lose Its Temperamental Maestro
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May
19
How to get out of paying for kids’ education
NEW YORK – Tracy Repchuk’s three children are still in grade school, but she’s already got college funding figured out. The Repchuk kids are 14, 15, and 16 and when they head off to college in a few years, here’s how much their parents will be chipping in: Zero.
Not because they are being punished for something: Tracy calls all three wonderful, outgoing and well-adjusted. And not because the family is strapped for cash: Tracy, 47, is an author and social media strategist, and her husband David Repchuk is a mobile solutions developer.
‘It’s their life, not mine’
Instead, the financial tough love is simply the way the Burbank, California, resident was brought up, and she sees it as the best way to foster the self-reliance that will pay dividends for the rest of their lives.
“I’ve told my children that if they’re interested in college, it would be their responsibility to pay for it,” says Repchuk. “This wasn’t a surprise announcement, since I’ve felt this way forever. It’s their life, not mine.”
It may seem a tad harsh, but Repchuk certainly isn’t alone in letting children fend for themselves once they’re grown. According to a new study from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 62% of young adults (between the ages of 19 and 22) are getting some kind of financial help from their parents — which means 38% aren’t getting a dime.
Drill down further into the numbers, and just 35% of those kids ages 19-22 are getting tuition assistance. Sometimes that’s because parents don’t have any money to give, and sometimes it’s because their offspring are no longer in school by that point.
But other times, parents could potentially afford to help, but don’t. “We did three waves of interviews, ending in 2009,” says Patrick Wightman, the study’s lead author. “Over the course of the recession we saw even higher-income families cutting back on their financial support.”
It’s not surprising that some parents are turning off the spigot. According to the Department of Agriculture, which tracks expenditures, the inflation-adjusted bill for raising a child up to age 17 these days (not even including college costs) is almost US$ 300,000 for every single Sophia and Samuel.
Given the horrific state of savings in this country — 49% of Americans aren’t chipping in to any retirement plan at all, according to financial-services trade association LIMRA — it’s hardly shocking, and perhaps highly necessary, that parents should be thinking about themselves first. As we’re told on airplanes before every takeoff: In case of emergency, put on your own oxygen mask first, and only then help out your kids.
But even among those with the financial wherewithal to pay for their kids’ college, there are some who just don’t believe in the message it passes along. Without any skin in the game, the thinking goes, young adults won’t truly understand the value of their education — or the value of a dollar.
“I worked, received scholarships, and took out loans,” says Nerina Garcia, a psychologist and assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine. “It made me more responsible and work harder at school, because I knew I couldn’t flunk out; it would cost me too much. Now I plan to do the same for my 10-month-old daughter.”
Of course, these are trying economic times that we live in, and college is less affordable than it was when many of these opinionated parents did their coursework.
Tuition is already at record highs and rising: The average student who takes out loans is graduating with around US$ 23,300 in debt, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While median incomes have stagnated over the last 20 years, tuition and fees have shot up 130 percent, according to the College Board. If your attitude towards your children is “sink or swim,” it’s entirely possible that some kids may drown.
Also, don’t think that just because parents aren’t footing the bill, that kids will magically be granted even more financial aid. Almost all students in their late teens or early 20s are still considered dependents, so parental incomes and assets will still factor into the equation.
If mom and dad aren’t contributing any money at all, it’s the student who’s going to have to come up with the difference — by dipping into any savings they might have, working part-time while pursuing their degree, or taking costly loans.
FIRST, DO NO HARM
Here are some guidelines for handling the tricky subject of tuition help while sticking to your parental principles:
— Don’t torpedo financial aid offers. Even parents who aren’t going to contribute should fill out what’s called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which is basically the gateway to all federal grants and loans.
If parents don’t intend on chipping in? “It doesn’t matter,” says Joe Hurley, founder of Savingforcollege.com. “The parents’ assets and income must be reported on the FAFSA.”
If they don’t fill it out, the student won’t get any federal financial aid, and their options become very narrow. In that case, their only shot at federal aid is if they’re officially classified as an “independent student” — which is highly unlikely unless they’re already married, have a kid, or are over age 23.
— Get creative. There are ways to give your kids a running start in life, without necessarily writing them a blank check. When children attend college in their hometowns, some parents let them stay at home rent-free for a while. That frees up the kids’ cash flow to be earmarked for other necessities like tuition or books, without putting a dent in the parents’ own savings. Or reserve the right to help out with student debt later on, after your own retirement-savings goals are further along.
— Find the right balance. College financing isn’t necessarily an either/or proposition. With an obligation to cover a portion of their education, kids will learn the value of the dollars coming in and going out, without being totally crushed by financial burdens.
“We contribute when and what we are able,” says Jacquie Whitt, co-founder of Adios Adventure Travel and mom to 21-year-old college student Keenan Whitt Linsly. “But should college students contribute to their own education? I would have to say ‘Hell, yes!’ Our son chooses to work and contribute, and we support his efforts. It’s good for him. It’s good for everyone.”
© Thomson Reuters 2012
