One of the biggest areas that gets forgotten in estate planning is your IRA.

On plans like your IRA, or 401 (k) a will has no jurisdiction. In other words if your ex-spouse is named as a beneficiary on your retirement plan account the day you die, they get your plan monies. Even if you wrote your ex out of your will it does not apply to an IRA.

The key is to review your choices periodically, especially after a life altering event. Also, do not leave IRA beneficiary forms blank, If it is blank it will go to probate court for distribution and rules on who gets what vary state by state.

Keep yourself straight and stay up to date.

You hear about Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, but what are the best sites that we, as professional women business owners, can use that will help us get the most exposure at an affordable cost? Here are the latest recommendations from other Entrepreneurs.

1. APSense.com: allows you to develop income by promoting products and sites on your business profile.

2. Biznik: Connect with your local business community through this site and find out about local events and seminars.

3. Linkedin: you can form business groups with Linkedin where you and they can brainstorm for new to increase your marketing efforts and develop a larger database/presence.

4. FastPitchNetworking: Create a profile, blog, product listings and take advantage of email marketing and virtual trade shows.

5. Local associations such as NAWBO (National Association for Women Business Owners) who have blogs and sites where you can contribute/participate in.

Seems like it’s all about technology in order to save costs, increase market share and be seen!

Leaving your job? Roll that 401 (k) into an IRA and take control of your financial future in ways you never have been able to while employed.

With your existing 401 (k) plan, chances are your previous employer who may have made some sort of matching contributions to your 401 (k) plan, did not allow you the opportunity to select your investment and never offered you the control that you now have when you convert from a (k) plan an IRA.

According to Charles Schwab and Company, more than 40% of assets in 401 (k) plans owned by workers who left their jobs were still with their employer a year later. The remaining assets were invested in an IRA, rolled into a new employer’s plan, or cashed out. In order to grow your retirement account to secure a financially free future, you must examine your existing plan to see if this is in your best interest. Your CPA or other trusted advisor should help assess your situation as it will be as unique as you are.

One important step for the newly unemployed is educating themselves on real life options that make sense and are controllable. Isn’t it about time you learned the secrets that successful investors know about self-directed IRA plans, so you too can take advantage of investing in what you know and select not in what others tell you to do?

Want to learn the simple strategies to compounding wealth with investments you know, select and control? Tap into the nation’s largest network of administrators. Since 1981 Entrust has helped educate thousands of investors who insist upon controlling their financial destiny. For more information on how you can join the Entrust family, visit www.theentrustgroup.com

With a truly self-directed IRA, your financial future is in your hands!

Remember that song “Don’t worry, be happy”? With all the blues being sung today it is enough to get us women down. Try these 3 tips daily to help you get happy! After all we only have one life to live, we can either be stuck or be alive!

1. Hang out with happy people. Get rid of the negative people in your life if possible. People who surround themselves with happy people are most likely to become happy themselves. It rubs off!

2. Take a walk, a long walk, listen to some upbeat music and move! You will see a definite increase in energy and attitude. I would not have believed this myself until recently where I discovered that if I take a walk everyday (and I mean really take a walk, until I break into a sweat), I feel so much better the rest of the day.

3. Drink some coffee, (or tea), read the paper, get engrossed in an interesting or upbeat book or movie. Get your mind off your troubles.

Last week I talked about the cash aspect of acquiring real estate investment properties, specifically short sales. Sure, some banks will finance the purchase, especially if it is and owner occupied property and your credit score and debt ratios make sense to the lender.

In the end I did not get either of my offers accepted. I also discovered on one of the offers, it went to a local investor who was well connected with the bank that was the lender on the short sale.

I needed to reassess my thinking and my objective of what my true expectations are as I evaluate my real estate shopping in today’s market.

I do have choices:

1. I can lower my standards of the type of property I want to buy, pay a lot less in different markets, and gain opportunity to maximize my income and cash flow.
2. I can look at other ways to buy the property, with seller financing or OPM/OPI (other people’s money, private loans, or other people’s IRA’s)
3. Or, I could give up and go home.
4. I can practice the “Acres of Diamonds” philosophy of investing, meaning invest in my own back yard.

In the end, I decided to go home and look locally, develop relationships with those investors who having something to sell at the right price, establish local lender connections, and focus on other strategies besides short sales where it may be easier to get my offers accepted and not compromise my investment strategy which is to buy single family homes in neighborhoods where people want to live.

The real moral for me in all of this and a lesson I learned was to not think the market I focus on is on sale; that I can just waltz down to an area on a one time trip and buy whatever I want for the price I expect to pay for it and in the end… nothing is as easy as it appears.

According to a recent Accountemps poll, 77% of workers said that the recession has had at least one positive effect on their jobs including:

- New projects
- More responsibility
- Increased positive challenges to enhance their career
- More interaction with management

So maybe there is a glimmer of light in all of the bad news?

When developing business for your company, do you know the core value of your customer? Many business owners and professionals focus on the baby boomer and the retiree. This is a good market where their fear is not having to work into retirement and having enough cash to last their lives

What about the younger adults, those just starting out with families or careers and building a future? What are their core values?

According to a recent survey at Charles Schwab, 52% of young adults are looking to make better money management choices; 18% want to strengthen family relationships; 11% wish to improve the environment; 10% care about the balance of personal and professional life and 9% want to improve their nutrition and health.

This is an interesting study. All of us who cater to a demographic need to know the “what’s in it for them” as we build our business because without identifying core values of your audience, you won’t have a strong audience from the start.

Whether you sell “widgets” or provide financial services, identifying your audience and knowing what are the most important issues that face them helps you to identify with them. You know the old saying it’s not what you know but who?

People do business with people that know, understand, and can relate to their audience.

Do some research into your customer base and identify the core values your customers have. When you do this, you will see results!

Do you think is it too soon to start planning for the tax changes in 2010 and how it impacts your retirement accounts? Absolutely not.

“Now is the time to start to plan to take advantage of future tax-free funds”, says Hubert Bromma, CEO of the Entrust Group, the nation’s largest administrator of self-directed retirement plans.

The financial darling of 2010 will be the ROTH IRA.

Roth’s have been available since 1998. Unlike a traditional IRA where you pay tax on your distributions, a ROTH IRA is tax-free. Through 2009 you must meet certain income requirements in order to fund a ROTH IRA. However, starting January 1, 2010, the income limit for converting traditional IRA assets to a ROTH – $100,000 a year will be eliminated under a law that was enacted in 2006.

What this means is that no matter what income level you are, you can convert your traditional IRA to a tax-free ROTH IRA. Bear in mind there will be tax on the conversion, however, for those who take advantage of 2010 conversions, you can spread the conversion amount (tax owed) over your 2011 and 2012 tax returns.

The question we should all be asking is “how do we invest our money to get the greatest returns on a tax-free basis?” Many investors, business owners, and consumers are opting to learn about the beauty of self-directing their retirement plan and to focus their financial future on investments they, the IRA owner get to select. If standing up and taking financial control of your future sounds like something you want to do, get to know Entrust by visiting their website at www.theentrustgroup.com.

Whether you decide to stay with your traditional IRA or to convert to a ROTH, learn what you can or cannot do, get good advice and educate yourself on your options.

After all, it’s your money and no one will take as good a care of your money as YOU!

I must have looked at 3-dozen short sales or foreclosures before I found one that I was ready to make an offer on. It turned out to be a property where the borrower was not having taxes and insurance escrowed by the lender so they fell behind on their taxes and insurance…3 years behind.

The county cannot operate without real estate tax funds to pay for services like fire and police. And of course, insurance is mandatory for fire, floods and more. The lien on the taxes (for the last three years) was sold as certificates to an investor and now time was running out. The property needed to sell and the deal closed in early June or else the investor who owned the tax lien certificates would be able to sue for the deed.

The chances that the lender would allow an approximate $15,000 (this is the amount of the last three years of delinquent taxes) to stand in the way of their position were slim to none. The lender needed a sale and a closing. Period.

The asking price on this home was $249K in December 2008. The lender dropped the price to $199K in March. I decided to put in an offer. With the short time available to close it had to be a cash offer in order to get the bank excited.

So I did a cash flow analysis. The property was a 4 bedroom 2 bath in a nice area where people want to live. I researched and determined it would get between $1200-$1500 a month in rent.

I ended up putting in an offer of $130K cash. Of course where I would get the cash I would worry about later, but at least I had an offer in with a deposit that the bank could review.

Well, that was not enough for the bank. They wanted more. They wanted verification of the funds that were to be immediately available sent to them before they would accept the offer. No verification. No acceptance. My next step was to get pre-qualified so I can do cash deals. In other words, I needed to have a financing strategy in place and show the bank the money!

The lesson for this week? Better have the cash or financing in place before you go shopping. With the economy what it is, the banking industry in turmoil, the tightening of all markets, and the average credit score falling to 651 (according to Trans Union, one of the three major credit reporting companies), banks want cash. They just don’t want to be the ones to give it to you!