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Are you feeling as if your life is financially stuck in a land of depressive small figures? You keep working and making an income, but it keeps running away from you not to find its way into your savings or retirement accounts. You know that you want to achieve success financially and emotionally; after all one affects the other. For those in need of speeding up their retirement and who own a home that has substantially moved up in value, it is imperative that you look into the following.                         

1. Look at your financial situation (what you have vs. what you owe) – cut down expenses!

2. Make up your mind that you are willing to make a change in your life TODAY.

3. If you need to get a better paying job, then refurbish your resume, personal look and attitude toward life and GO FOR IT!

4. Find out how much your home is worth in the market today. Take note that nobody knows for how long you will be able to sell your home at these high prices.

Ok, so you are wondering what your home has to do with anything! Here is the deal. And before you run out and make a decision, I suggest you consult your financial advisor and your realtor. Check out www.fidelity.com for financial services in relation to annuities. This article will be short, but it may give you one of the best solutions for speeding up your retirement. I will present my idea to you in number format.  

1. Jot down what your home is now worth.

2. Make up your mind that you are willing to downgrade. In other words; you need to purchase a smaller place in an area you like or get a similar place in a less expensive area. Have your realtor help you out with this: you may contact my friend Lourdes at lluaces@archrealty.com . The main goal here is to instantly create a large enough profit after selling your current home and then purchasing a new one. Note: Make sure your new monthly payments are less than before. What is the new total of your principal, interest, taxes, insurance and association fee, if any? Remember the “formula” PITIA

3. Set up an investment pie where a set amount of money will be allocated for specific purposes based on the PROFIT you gained.

4. Place the largest part of your profit into a fixed income no-load annuity where you will receive a set amount of money guaranteed on a monthly basis for the rest of your life!
    http://personal.fidelity.com/products/annuities/intro.shtml.cvsr?refhp=pr                                              (Guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company)

An income annuity is a financial product that you buy with a single lump sum of your savings. Like Social Security and company pensions. It provides you with a regular stream of income payments that continue for the rest of your life, or if you prefer, for a specific period of time. Given that it's the only product you can buy that provides a stream of retirement income for life, an income annuity can be an important component of an effective retirement income plan.
– Extracted from www.Fidelity.com – Fixed Annuity

Remember that rates are still low on the 30 year mortgages at around 5.55% (as of October 13, 2005). Visit www.bankrate.com . This offers you the opportunity to obtain a loan at a fairly good rate!

Also, check out their savings calculator. For whatever type of savings goal you may have, this savings calculator will help you figure out how much you must save every month in order to achieve you goal! http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/savegoal.asp . Compare CD rates across the country, (for now, during a time of rate increases), it may be wiser for you to invest some money into a shorter term CD (like 1 year or less) http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/high_home.asp

For a Forbe's award winning bank that offers high yielding CD rates visit www.EverBank.com and under HOME, click on OUR RATES. Their toll free number is
1-888-882-EVER (3837).    

Profit! Take your profit and invest it in you, your emergency fund,
your retirement and more real estate; which can be used for rental income.

Sample Case Study: You purchased a three room home that is now worth $350,000. You have $100,000 left to pay on your mortgage. Your realtor helped you shop around for a new home based on the idea of having a minimum of $100,000 in profit. You decide to downgrade to a somewhat large one bedroom apartment in a nice area because it will only cost you $150,000. After placing a down payment of $50M and mortgaging the rest, you find out that after all expenses you end up with approximately $190,000. From this Profit you create your investment pie. Remember that the profit from the sale of a home is tax free up to a certain amount depending on your filing status (single, married, etc.) Here is some info from the www.irs.gov site. For more tax details, consult your tax advisor. 

If you meet the ownership and use tests, you will generally only need to report the sale of your home if your gain is more than $250,000 ($500,000 if married filing a joint return). This means that during the 5-year period ending on the date of the sale, you must have:

• Owned the home for at least 2 years (the ownership test), and

• Lived in the home as your main home for at least 2 years (the use test).

If you owned and lived in the property as your main home for less than 2 years, you may still be able to claim exclusion in some cases. The maximum amount you can exclude will be reduced. If you are required or choose to report a gain, it is reported on Form 1040, Schedule D (PDF), Capital Gains and Losses.