IBO Updates

Fred Harteis News Articles- Retirement planning strategies: 50 and beyond

Fred Harteis News Articles - It's crunch time! There's no way around it. The result of a lifetime of money habits will make itself abundantly clear. Your financial future depends now on a candid assessment of how well you've stuck to planning thus far.

If you're among the roughly six out of 10 individuals who have never tried to calculate what they need in retirement, do it pronto. That figure is like a destination on a map, giving you direction as you save, invest and create your overall financial plan. If you set a retirement savings goal, but you've forgotten about it, it's time to dust it off for a careful review. "You should be looking at your plan periodically, at least every three years," says Dick Bellmer, president of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.

1. Set realistic goals

First item for consideration: Your savings and investments thus far. Hopefully, you've been stashing funds away consistently, making maximum contributions to things like 401(k) plans and IRAs, as well as other accounts. These days, individuals 55 and older are on track to replace roughly 55 percent of their income during retirement with personal savings, Social Security and pension income, a recent study by the Fidelity Research Institute shows. That means they'll have to live on 45 percent less cash each month once they retire. 

How much is enough? That depends on your lifestyle and expenses, potential medical bills and the kind of support you'll have from, say, a pension plan and Social Security. As you review your savings goals, be careful not to set the bar too low. Of current retirees surveyed, 39 percent say they underestimated their spending, and expenses increased in retirement rather than going down, Fidelity Research says.

2. Call in the experts

With that in mind, it may be a good idea to seek a little professional guidance to ensure you're setting realistic goals. When asked in a recent poll by Employee Benefits Research Institute what was the most helpful thing they did to save, most respondents said it was hiring a financial adviser.

3. Take advantage of catch-up contributions

One of the first things a pro will encourage you to do is to keep saving. If you're still working and over 50, there are ways to catch up. You can begin putting more money into tax-sheltered retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs. This year, individuals age 50 or older can save up to $20,500 in a 401(k) and up to $5,000 in an IRA.

4. Time your exit

Savings and investments alone may not be enough to adequately fund your retirement. Planning also means making some vital life decisions, too.

You may want, or need, to delay retirement. If so, you'll have plenty of company. These days many workers are opting to "downshift" into retirement by working part-time or longer than they'd originally planned. A study from Putnam Investments found that 7 million retirees returned to work within 18 months. Among those, 32 percent said financial reasons prompted their decisions. And close to four out of 10 who went back said that if they could do it differently, they would have saved more in their company retirement plan.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis News Articles- Your Biggest Resume Blunders

Fred Harteis News - You formatted your resume ingeniously. You bolded your name and sized it just enough so it will stand out from the masses. You've proofread, spell-checked and edited it to death. You've even included creative (and of course, vital) information about why you're the best candidate for the job -- but have you gone too far?

In a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, hiring managers and human resource professionals across the nation shared the most unusual resume blunders they've come across in their careers. Top slip-ups from the survey included:

- Applicant included a picture of herself in a cheerleading uniform.

- Applicant used pale blue paper with teddy bears printed around the border.

- Applicant attached a letter from her mother.

- Applicant specified that his availability was limited because Friday, Saturday and Sunday was "drinking time."

- Applicant explained that he works well nude.

- Applicant explained an arrest by stating, "We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig."

- Applicant drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said it was the hiring manager's gift.

- Applicant explained a gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for three months.

- Applicant listed hobbies that included sitting on a levee at night watching alligators.

- Applicant mentioned the fact that her sister had once won a strawberry-eating contest.

Employers do appreciate creativity in job applicants because rooting through piles of resumes often times can be a monotonous task. The key however is to balance that creativity with professionalism. You want to stand out as someone unique but also someone with applicable experience who can add value to the company.

While the goal of a creative resume is to make a lasting impression, you want to make sure it's a good impression. Not sure what kind of impact your resume has? Try getting your resume professionally reviewed... for free. Job seekers can go to cbResume.com, upload their resumes, and receive instant feedback on how to improve their chances of being hired.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis News Articles- Retirement planning strategies: 50 and beyond

Fred Harteis News Articles - It's crunch time! There's no way around it. The result of a lifetime of money habits will make itself abundantly clear. Your financial future depends now on a candid assessment of how well you've stuck to planning thus far.

If you're among the roughly six out of 10 individuals who have never tried to calculate what they need in retirement, do it pronto. That figure is like a destination on a map, giving you direction as you save, invest and create your overall financial plan. If you set a retirement savings goal, but you've forgotten about it, it's time to dust it off for a careful review. "You should be looking at your plan periodically, at least every three years," says Dick Bellmer, president of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.

1. Set realistic goals

First item for consideration: Your savings and investments thus far. Hopefully, you've been stashing funds away consistently, making maximum contributions to things like 401(k) plans and IRAs, as well as other accounts. These days, individuals 55 and older are on track to replace roughly 55 percent of their income during retirement with personal savings, Social Security and pension income, a recent study by the Fidelity Research Institute shows. That means they'll have to live on 45 percent less cash each month once they retire. 

How much is enough? That depends on your lifestyle and expenses, potential medical bills and the kind of support you'll have from, say, a pension plan and Social Security. As you review your savings goals, be careful not to set the bar too low. Of current retirees surveyed, 39 percent say they underestimated their spending, and expenses increased in retirement rather than going down, Fidelity Research says.

2. Call in the experts

With that in mind, it may be a good idea to seek a little professional guidance to ensure you're setting realistic goals. When asked in a recent poll by Employee Benefits Research Institute what was the most helpful thing they did to save, most respondents said it was hiring a financial adviser.

3. Take advantage of catch-up contributions

One of the first things a pro will encourage you to do is to keep saving. If you're still working and over 50, there are ways to catch up. You can begin putting more money into tax-sheltered retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs. This year, individuals age 50 or older can save up to $20,500 in a 401(k) and up to $5,000 in an IRA.

4. Time your exit

Savings and investments alone may not be enough to adequately fund your retirement. Planning also means making some vital life decisions, too.

You may want, or need, to delay retirement. If so, you'll have plenty of company. These days many workers are opting to "downshift" into retirement by working part-time or longer than they'd originally planned. A study from Putnam Investments found that 7 million retirees returned to work within 18 months. Among those, 32 percent said financial reasons prompted their decisions. And close to four out of 10 who went back said that if they could do it differently, they would have saved more in their company retirement plan.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis News Articles - Resume Indiscretions Remain Widespread

Fred Harteis News Articles - Human resources surveys regularly show that anything upward of a third of résumés may be knowingly incorrect, from "padding"--or overplaying qualifications or previous work experience--to outright falsehoods, while companies generally are spending more time conducting background checks and verifying claims.

According to a survey by CareerBuilder.com last October, over half of HR managers said they had flagged a lie on an applicant's résumé. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 93% of those who caught a lie did not hire the candidate.

A 2004 report by the Government Accountability Office found that 463 government employees in eight federal agencies had listed bogus academic credentials on their résumés. Twenty-eight of the individuals held senior-level positions, a number the GAO called "an understatement." The most senior fakers included three managers with top security clearance at the National Nuclear Security Administration and executives at the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation.

In February 2006, the CEO of Radio Shack, Dave Edmondson, resigned after 11 years at the helm when an investigation by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had turned up overstated qualifications on his academic record.

In 2002, TheStreet.com discovered that Bausch & Lomb's CEO Ronald Zarrella had claimed an M.B.A., which he didn't have for a decade or so. He kept his job but lost his bonus.

Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA, much-criticized in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, found himself at the sharp end of an investigation by Time magazine, which indicated that he had padded his experience in emergency management prior to his appointment. It's likely, of course, that he may have been on the way out anyway, despite his infamous presidential endorsement.

Sometimes, though, it simply doesn't take years for indiscretions to come to light. Notre Dame football coach George O'Leary resigned just five days after his appointment in 2001, over academic discrepancies.

Source: Aol.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis News Articles - Good job, big plans - no savings

Fred Harteis News Articles - Let's face it: With our buy-now, pay-later society doesn't exactly encourage saving. There are infinitely more mail promotions for credit cards than for IRAs and 529 plans. And saving when you're just getting started isn't easy.

"When you're 24 years old, you're focused on more immediate goals: getting that special job and having the right apartment, paying the student loans," says Loretta Abrams, vice president of consumer affairs at banking giant HSBC.

But more of us are extending that postgrad period. "People are less willing to defer gratification. They want to live like Mom and Dad," says Abrams. "They get overextended early on."

Skimpy savings are increasingly common among those in their middle years. In a 2007 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, about a half of workers ages 35 to 44 said they had salted away less than $25,000 for retirement.

Unfortunately, those early-adult years offer the richest potential for growth: Invest $10,000 at age 30, and by retirement it will grow to more than $100,000, assuming a 7 percent annual rate of return. Wait 10 years and you'll have only half as much.

To amass what you need means jumping off the spending rail and scrambling onto the savings track. Delaying the move compounds only your problems and debts, not your interest. You'll be in even worse shape 10 years from now if you don't change your ways. And once you begin saving, you'll find that you can easily adapt to living on less. Here's how to get started:

Make saving job No. 1

If you're an undersaver, you probably look at savings as leftovers. You figure that you'll set aside whatever you have after you've paid all the bills. As your Uncle Jack, your home economics teacher or any financial planner would tell you, such thinking is just plain wrong. Usually nothing's left over. To succeed you have to turn your philosophy inside out and put money aside before you pay any other bill. The rule - pay yourself first - is as old-fashioned as any around, but following it works. Without that extra money to spend, a budget falls in line.

Put it in the right places

Your first savings should go to an emergency fund, three to six months' worth of household expenses that can be used to get you through a job loss, an uncovered medical expense or some other unforeseen event. The money should go into a bank savings account or money-market mutual fund where you can get your hands on the cash quickly.

Give it a boost

Getting your savings up to a respectable amount can seem like an insurmountable feat, especially when you're setting aside small amounts each month. So vow to ramp them up with portions of any windfalls that come your way, such as annual bonuses or a tax refund.

If you receive a raise or realize a large savings by, say, finally outgrowing your full-time babysitter, add those amounts (or a portion) to your regular 401(k) contribution.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business Quotes

Fred Harteis Business News – Most people in this world run and hide from responsibility, it terrifies them. There comes a time in life when we must realize that we are responsible for our futures. The future is ours, what we make of it.

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

Winston Churchill

Fred Harteis and Linda Harteis are members of IBOAI

Business Owner Trade Association Facts:

IBO Association, IBOAI., is the trade association serving and protecting the business interests of independent business owners, Quixtar IBOs.   Jim Janz, Don Wilson, Randy Haugen, Billy Florence and Jody Victor serve on the trade association board. Fred Harteis is the former president of the association.

Keywords: Harteis, Harties International, Veterans Day,  Quixtar IBO,

© 2007 Fred Harteis Quixtar IBO permission to Fred Harteis site.

Fred Harteis News Articles - Piggyback can lift your credit score

Fred Harteis News Articles - It's called piggybacking, and like the childhood playground game, it involves getting a lift. Only with this piggyback ride, it's your credit score that gets a boost.

Critics claim it's lenders who are being taken for a ride.

Piggybacking works like this: After paying a fee, you are listed as an authorized user on someone else's credit card, someone with a healthy credit rating. You don't actually get to use the card, but the credit history of that card appears on your credit report, making it more attractive.

Internet sites that make these connections claim that this ride on someone else's credit history can raise your credit score almost instantly. Higher credit scores mean better deals and lower interest rates on loans.

You will, of course, pay for the privilege -- often thousands of dollars.

And why would the credit card holder allow you to piggyback on his or her lofty credit rating? Simple, they get paid, usually around $200 per user per month.

Critics say these sites are gaming the system and call it fraud, claiming it violates federal laws and supports identify theft. They say the credit card holders who make their credit available are putting themselves at risk too.

The "piggyback" sites disagree. It's legal, they say, claiming that not only are they protected by the law but they are also supported by organizations within the credit industry.

The technique

Most of these Internet sites offer a line of revolving credit, typically credit cards, for $1,000. Add a few extra thousand dollars and as many as five additional credit lines can be purchased. Can't shell out the cash? Payment plans are offered.

These credit lines have a history of from two years to three decades of timely payments with credit limits as high as $50,000. Wait one to two months and the line of credit should impact your credit score. It will stay for a few months, in some cases longer, before the user is removed from the card.

Some companies offer money-back guarantees and a few are affiliated with mortgage and finance businesses that customize loan programs for the "piggyback" clients.

Consumers who do decide to try piggybacking read the fine print, find out if there's a money-back guarantee, frequently pull their credit report to make sure the account was reported, ask for names and contact information for previous customers of the service and don't assume that everything you read on the Web site is true.

Source: Bankrate.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis , “Hello Freedom Man”

Fred Harteis, “ The message and meaning of the American serviceman was a message of freedom and hope. Presodient Regan captured the spirit of this in his farewell address,”

Fred Harteis and Linda Harteis Regan Wisdom

I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one - a small story about a big ship, and a refugee and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck and stood up and called out to him. He yelled, "Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man."

A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980s. We stood, again, for freedom.

A Fred Harteis great American moment favorite is Ronald Reagan, January 11, 1989, Farewell Speech

© 2007 Fred Harteis on Esource to iboupdates web blog.

Fred Harteis News - Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine

Fred Harteis News - THESE days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere. It takes pictures of your house from outer space, and tries to undercut Microsoft’s software dominance.

But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world’s largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye.

Yet however easy it is to wax poetic about the modern-day miracle of Google, the site is also among the world’s biggest teases. Millions of times a day, users click away from Google, disappointed that they couldn’t find the hotel, the recipe or the background of that hot guy. Google often finds what users want, but it doesn’t always.

That’s why Amit Singhal and hundreds of other Google engineers are constantly tweaking the company’s search engine in an elusive quest to close the gap between often and always.

Mr. Singhal is the master of what Google calls its “ranking algorithm” — the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer each user’s question. It is a crucial part of Google’s inner sanctum, a department called “search quality” that the company treats like a state secret. Google rarely allows outsiders to visit the unit, and it has been cautious about allowing Mr. Singhal to speak

with the news media about the magical, mathematical brew inside the millions of black boxes that power its search engine.

To read this complete Fred Harteis News Article visit our news partner at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html?ex=1338523200&en=f003a2b328ec0a72&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Source: NyTimes.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.