However much you desire retirement, you cant walk into it with your eyes wide shut. There are things to put in place that will make that time of your life worth living. Be sure you get them installed; otherwise, you’d be a very unhappy person.

You want to plan for your retirement; you dont want that time of your life to come upon you suddenly and you are still laying bricks, so to speak, depending on a lot of people to help you out. That simply does not speak well of someone who has just spent the past 65 years working for their nation. However did things get so bad?

retirement investing is more difficult than ever this day. Its hard to trust bank managers and fund managers in light of current financial crisis. investing for income need very careful study as money is integral to a happy retirement.

You dont want to be a retiree depending on the government to pay you way through the rest of life. There are programs like that, but why depend on the government when you can se self adequate?

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A portfolio loan is held permanently by the lending institution that extends it. Since the loan is never sold on the secondary market, it does not need to be investment grade. This affects the loan terms, risks and costs.

Loan Terms

Generally, portfolio loans have more flexible terms than investment grade loans. These may include a low down payment, multiple cash-out options and highly variable interest rates.

Risks

While the loan terms above may sound enticing to a borrower having difficulty getting a loan, this type of loan is actually highly risky. The loan does not need to meet market standards. This means the lender can extend loans even if there is a high possibility of default or if the lender has reason to believe the borrower cannot afford the loan.

Costs

Anytime a loan is highly risky, the cost will go up. Portfolio loans tend to have higher interest rates.

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Did you ever stop to wonder what the most expensive building in the world was?  If you have seen a base jumping James Bond, you don’t need to wonder about one of them.  The Hong Kong Bank financial center is one of the most well photographed buildings in the world.  It was one of the tallest buildings in the world, and the first outside the USA to top 1,000 feet.

Banks and Financial centers are not the only buildings getting in on the act: hotels, sporting arenas, and now even private residences are coming up with billion dollar price tags.

It is not surprising that the US should house several of these billion dollar projects.  Sure the US is a finical giant, globally speaking, and companies don’t like to spare expense.  What might be surprising is that three out of four of these most expensive buildings world-wide which have US soil under their foundations are located in the same city: none other than Sin City Las Vegas, Nevada.

In fact, the Wynn hotel, which opened in 2005, tops the list of the world’s most expensive building.

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Sometimes I’m introduced as “the woman who literally wrote the book about credit scoring.” (It’s called “Your Credit Score,” and you can find it on Amazon and wherever else fine books are sold.) My FICO scores are typically in the high 700s to low 800s. My credit record is so clean it sparkles.

And yet I’ve known the sting of being turned down for a credit card.

Beverly Blair Herzog has written a nice two-part piece for Credit.com (it starts HERE) about what you should do if you get that dreaded rejection notice. She focuses on the most likely reason you’ll get denied, which is that your credit scores aren’t up to the issuer’s standards. For example, if you have decent but not great scores, you may not be able to win some of cards that have the richest rewards programs.

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