Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Annuity advice

I have never invested in an annuity but I am considering doing so. My wife and I sold our home at the beginning of April in Michigan and we moved to Oregon where I found a new job. We are currently renting a home owned by my employer and we may continue to do so long term as opposed to buying a home here. If we do that then I need to somehow invest the money we have from selling our Michigan home. I hate having that much money just sitting in the bank and not earning any money for us. So I might perhaps put that money into an annuity.

I do like having my own home but the prices here for something decent are quite high and it does tend to tie one down. The business where I work is getting sold at the beginning of January and I will likely remain working here but I am not certain of that. Partly will the new owners be good people to work with? Will they be able to increase my wage which is low compared to the industry standard. So I am currently glad that we did not try to buy a home immediately after moving to Oregon.

Anyway I would love to hear some thoughts on what I can do with the proceeds from selling our Michigan home until we might decide to buy a home if ever.

I am guessing that I will retire in about 10 years and hopefully my wife will do the same in about 14 years.

Don’t care much for annuities. Lose too much control of your money. ETF’s are better and I suggest Vanguard.

Advice #1 DON'T buy an annuity for any reason whatsoever.They are the next worst investment next to Whole Life Insurance.Borderline scams.

Get a competent investment firm, and if you don't know or don't want to deal with it, get a managed account. They'll feel you out for your risk tolerance and invest accordingly.

Fees eat some up pretty good.

If I really wanted to make some real money, I'd buy real estate. It is making 100's of times what any annuity or money market, IRA, etc. ever thought about.

If you go with an Annuity do it via low cost providers such as Vanguard, Fidelity and T Rowe Price. Their cost are lower and their terms are far less restrictive.

With the home sale be aware of time limitations on reinvesting if you profited from the sale.

If you don’t have a good CPA, find one.

Don't forget the tax implications of not buying another home.

Shame we hafta check IRS regs before decidin how ta live our lives.

And no one has yet suggested contacting Safari-man !!!

Why not just park the money in a money market mutual fund until you know if the new job is going to work out? I'd never invest in an annuity for a 10 year retirement time frame, but each situation is different. It might be wise to hire a financial advisor, provided you can find one who will keep YOUR best interest in mind. Lots of them are really just salesmen in a nice suit. Best wishes in your new gig. I had 19 degrees this morning here in MI and am still recovering from that big wind storm we had Thursday.

I wouldn't put it in the Total stack market with these prices and your age. There are several ETF's that do not have a lot of growth or tech stocks. Those stocks are way too high and they are starting to shake up the market and that is why it is so volatile lately. I just took out another $3,000 out of the S&P 500 fund and put it in SCHD. It is a higher dividend ETF with stocks that are much more reasonably priced. I am mostly a higher dividend investor cause I am determined to just live off my dividends and never sell a stock. There are several ETF's that did not get the market gains that the total stock market funds did. Here are the ones I have. VYM , Vanguard high dividend large cap ETF pays 2.85% dividends. SCHD , Charles Schwab pays about 3% . SPYD pays about 4% in dividends. This ETF has 81 companies and and does not over weight any stocks HDV pays 4%. It has not done well the last 10 yrs. The reason is , cause everyone invested in fast profit tech and growth the last 10 yrs. and left the "value " older, well established companies behind. If you look at the holdings , you will recognize many of them. Chevron, Exxon Mobil,, Verizon, AT&T, and many others. Many will say these companies got crushed by the growth stocks and they bad mouth these conservative dividend paying ETF's. They are right, however, the tide is turning and many of these companies make real good money. An example , just yesterday the market lost 1.2% and HDV actually went up. Today , investors foolishly went back to the growth stocks, but the growth stocks are way over priced. I would also buy some bonds. They are not wanted right now. I have HYEM, ( Emerging Market corporate (foreign ) ETF) It pays about 5%, pays out monthly and is right on it's 52 week low. I also have HYG and USHY corporate bond ETF and they are American companies. I have also noticed HYD is down quite a bit. It is municipal bond ETF, pays about 3.5%, pays monthly and the dividends are tax free. The other ETF's are taxable , the corporate bond ETFs have a fairly high tax , but the first ones I mentioned have a reduced tax on the divies . Right now, anything can happen. The market may go up a buch yet, but it base been 19 months since we have a 10% correction with only a few 5% drops. This is why I keep my eyes on the safe dividends and dont worry about the irrational ups and downs of the daily stock market.

rufous,

I had some Annuities and I cashed out of them. I found them to be a poor investment. Some say they are safe but they are only as safe as the insurance company that sells them.

Same as every other product. Some people are a great fit and it helps them a lot and some people are a poor fit and it hurts them. The key is knowing the difference and having an honest agent with integrity who will tell you the truth about fees and options.

Been many many years since they were in general, a bad idea. Now they can be the difference between running out of money or not.

Be informed.

CPA and/or financial adviser. Id would definitely avoid putting in annuities. Too many good funds out there as mentioned vanguard, I use fidelity. you can self manage. I like dividend stocks too diversify obviously

My mom almost doubled her money in a few years while completely safe from loss, and is guaranteed cash flow for her lifetime and can still access her money fee-free.

Sound like a ripoff? It's not. But if she had not been a good fit I would have told her and we would have gone a different direction.

I am sure some guys with no experience or knowledge will come running to offer their opinions.

This is solid advice. I would not buy an annuity, period.

Get a good financial advisor. If he advises annuities, get another one. A decent index fund through Vanguard or someone else, is what you need if you are middle age.

No on the annuity. I'm also wondering why you sold your home to move to Oregon to take a lower paying (in the field) job? Also, are you going to be able to keep living in the house when the company is sold?

Asking for financial advice on an internet chat room is like getting brain surgery at a drug store, isn't it?

I was a stockbroker and licensed life insurance agent for about 10 years. I sold very few annuities over the course of my career (only 3 that I can think of now) because they didn't make sense for most people and their situation. Given the little info you have provided, I would say look elsewhere. A good mix of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and cash should give you a better return, more control and cost you less in the long run.

An annuity is the purchase of a contract agreement. It's not an investment. You can't get it back to invest elsewhere if you're not satisfied.

Also, they can be a good deal if a nation has a stable dollar, but we don't. Our dollar steadily loses purchasing power, and at the rate at which its purchasing power is declining lately, this would be a really bad time to buy an annuity, IMO.

Probably. Depends on age and health and needs but yes, I would hesitate to offer an annuity right now.