People often look for ways to ensure that both they and their parents or senior loved ones that they are caring for will all continue to live a comfortable life as they age. Many caregivers often manage complicated finances alone without realizing there is help out there for them. We spoke with Greg Smith at Transamerica, who recommends that caregivers use the following four tips to begin financial planning for their family.

4 Steps to Take towards Better Financial Planning

• If you haven’t started, start now.

Smith says the best advice anyone can give is to tell you to start early. Many of his ideas all boils down to starting as soon as possible. He said, “The earlier you start saving and making plans for your financial future, the better”. But if you haven’t started yet don’t feel disheartened. Just by thinking about it, you’re ahead of much of the population. Says Smith, “there’s a lot of industry research where a lot of people are either apathetic or in denial about their financial situation. Having that level of awareness is a good first step.”

• Meet with a financial planner with your family.

There is lots of information difficult to grapple with when you think about all the different categories and factors that go into financial planning and some of them include estate planning, social security benefits, taxes and so on. Smith explained that all of these can be done as an individual but often, analogy of working on your car is given; doing it alone can be difficult.
Get your whole family together and go talk to a financial advisor about your goals and needs. Your situation is distinct and no article or resource online will speak to it directly as well as a knowledgeable individual who has the chance to analyze your particular situation.

• Understand your options.

“As we’ve ventured into the caregiving market… one of the biggest things that we’ve seen is there’s a lack of understanding of everything from government entitlement programs to long-term care insurance to how you qualify for certain benefits,” Smith explains. Of course, there is. Financial options and resources are complicated. You don’t want to miss out on benefits you’re entitled to, and you don’t want to assume you’ll be getting more after you retire than you do.
Says Smith, “a lot of people [going into retirement] have plans for health care expenses, their home and traveling, but that reality of not just the first day of your retirement, but once you get into it and unexpected things come up – it’s a very big reality check for a lot of folks.” Don’t let reality take you by surprise.

• Why consider Transamerica?

As much as you can find lots of businesses in the financial services field, SeniorAdvisor.com works with Transamerica because apart from the fact that they have been around for quite a while to know their stuff, they are also making an effort to focus on the needs of caregivers and people who are retired.
They have the understanding of the fact that good financial planning always means taking the full family into account. Financial planning isn't just about you – it’s about parents who are facing the difficult decision of what type of senior living community to choose, and it’s about you, who will deserve the same comfort you seek to provide your family members and loved ones with now.
Proactive planning is one of the core tenets of Transamerica’s message and they’re values we can all benefit from.

There are different shapes, sizes and specialists when it comes to residential care homes. There are several care options available to seniors in most communities and this care options recognizes variety of needs, personalities and values of those seeking a new retirement home. The hope to provide a new living space that meets the particular needs of the residents is the main thing they have in common while still feeling like home.

Finding the right residential care home for you or a parent or senior loved one is a big step and one you don’t want to rush into. To help you identify the best possible care option available in your area, we recommend you take it step by step:

Step 1: Consider what you need (and what you want).
Take enough time to decide the most important need of your family before you start looking for residential care home. You need to be able to answer the question of what aspect of your daily activity and lifestyle do you most want to maintain? What values do you have that you hope fellow residents would share? Is there a particular type of medical care you need?
What you need is crucial, but what you want matters too. The rest home you choose will have a lot to do with what your life looks like in the coming years. You don’t want to settle on a place that means giving up any part of your life that’s important to you.

Step 2: Research the residential care options located nearby.
Finding out the options of residential care homes available to you is the next thing after you must have clarified for yourself the most important features you need to consider in your search. By searching SeniorAdvisor.com, you will have access to a list of the residential care homes in the geographical region you aim to live in. you will also have access to helpful snapshots of what these residential care homes offer, what they cost and what other residents have thought of them.
Spend some time browsing these options to see how they match up with what you’re looking for. But you haven’t made it this far in life without knowing that a good match on paper doesn’t always tell the whole story. Use this step to narrow down your options, but avoid making any final decisions until you’ve completed step three.

Step 3: Take the time to visit all your options.
Schedule a visit to each of the residential care homes your research suggests should be in the running. Try to pay attention to all the little things while you’re there. It’s easy enough to check off all the big boxes of what’s important to you, but the little stuff plays at least as big of a role in how much you’ll enjoy life each day. Do the residents seem to laugh much? Is the atmosphere comfortable and clean?

Step 4: Visit your new home and move in.
You will be able to make your final decision with the information given to you when you visit the residential care home. Was there one place on the list that felt the most like home to you? If more than one was promising, was there anything from the checklist and your notes to make one stand out above the others?
In terms of what each rest home has to offer and make your decision; consider what matters most to you. You should have no problem feeling comfortable and at home once you move in after much careful consideration.

Step 5: Write a review to help out other families.
After settling in to your new residential care home, you can help the next person make the same decision you made by leaving a review on this article. This will let people know what they can and should expect if they are interested in considering your new home. Begin your search today.

Scammers & Senior Targets

The computer dependent world was paralyzed on May 12, 2017 as a result of a malware called WannaCry attacked more than 230,000 Microsoft operating system computers in 150 countries. This attack crippled business transactions immediately, hospitals, and transportation and communication systems. One of the recent tech scams to cause worldwide panic is WannaCry. It encrypts internet user’s computer data and demands ransom money to give it back. Until four days, the cyber-attack could not be contained from its outbreak. Microsoft President and legal adviser Brad Smith explained that the company has issued a security patch for system protection two months before the attack.

However, he was disappointed that few users updated their computer systems. He added that cyber criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated so Microsoft users should always update their systems. Even owners of older operating systems of Microsoft should update for protection against malware attacks and other tech scams. Software technology advances and so does hackers. Every time software companies come up with new and seemingly unhackable system defenses, hackers will come up with new means to penetrate those defenses. In total, 19 cyber-attack was recorded in 2016 alone and it affected companies such as Citibank, Yahoo.com, Banner health and other government institutions such as the U.S. Department of Treasury was not left out. The major people vulnerable to scammers are older adults as everybody else when it comes to tech scams. According to the Federal
Trade Commission data; computer scams rank fourth to the fraud complaints from seniors in 2016.

How to Avoid Senior Scams

1. Watch out for signs that tell your personal information have been compromised. American Senior Communities (ASC) received an email from an ASC executive requesting copies of employees’ W-2s in January 2017. W-2 is a form which contains Social Security number, names, address and other information of an employee. The e-mail looked authentic so the payroll processor forwarded the W-2's as requested. Not until employees reported that the tax collecting agency rejected their tax returns did ASC figured out they've been scammed. The authorities and ASC got the report of the incident and they are currently paying for credit monitoring of their former and present employees.
2. Do not reply to malicious emails or click email attachments. Emails which doesn't address you by name, email with masked hyperlinks and attachments which are non-executable files are common signs of a malicious email. Double check emails which are requesting for personal information even if the sender is someone you know. Call the sender directly to confirm the authenticity of the email. Ignore calls or pop-up messages claiming they have found a virus on your PC and are offering to fix it. These tech scammers usually use names of big companies like Microsoft and claim to have found a virus or a malware on your computer. The posing technician will then install software to fix your PC and will later charge several hundred dollars through credit card or online payment. The software installed and the service they have provided are unnecessary because there is actually nothing wrong with your computer. The worst part is this tech scammers go as far as threaten victims that they will destroy their computer if they refuse the service being rendered.
3. Always make sure that your security patches have the latest updates. Keeping your security patches up to date blocks hackers from using software vulnerabilities to penetrate your computer system. Recent Microsoft security patches can be set to update automatically so you don't have to worry that you haven't installed updates for your computer. This is not a 100% guarantee of safety against tech scams but it will make it harder for attackers to break into your system, therefore pushing less-determined hackers to lok for other vulnerable systems to penetrate.