Source: Atalantic Sosnoff; ASC Company Research.
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
The most widely used indicator of the overall condition of the stock market, a price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks, primarily industrials. The 30 stocks are chosen by the editors of The Wall Street Journal (which is published by Dow Jones &Company), a practice that dates back to the beginning of the century. The Dow was officially started by Charles Dow in 1896, at which time it consisted of only 11 stocks. The Dow is computed using a price-weighted indexing system, rather than the more common market-cap-weighted indexing system. Simply put, the editors at WSJ add up the prices of all the stocks and then divide by the number of stocks in the index. (In actuality, the divisor is much higher today in order to account for stock splits that have occurred in the past.)
S&P 500:
Widely regarded as the best single gauge of the U.S. equities market, this world-renowned index includes a representative sample of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy. Although the S&P 500 focuses on the large-cap segment of the market, with over 80% coverage of U.S. equities, it is also an ideal proxy for the total market. Performance results are derived from the return of the S&P 500 Index including the reinvestment of dividends and interest and does not include a reduction of fees.
Information courtesy of
Joe Kelly
Financial Advisor,
MorganStanley SmithBarney
250 S. Park Avenue
Suite 500
Winter Park, FL 32789
 407 740-4972
Oakmont Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
For more information on Oakmonte Village please call 407.732.5800.
Master the Household Paper Chase
Now that tax time has passed, what to do with that foot-high stack of last year’s statements? And how about those “vital documents” you had drafted, only to throw them in your bottom desk drawer?While you may be tempted to box everything up and condemn it to a basement shelf, you know better. Consider the following means of neatly and securely organizing essential papers—and lessening the chances of your last will and testament being sold at your next garage sale along with that perfect set of National Geographic magazines.
Category #1: Keep It Forever
Documents in this group include birth and death certificates, marriage licenses and divorce decrees, vehicle titles, the deed to your home, and your Social Security card. They’re best stored in a fireproof box.
Category #2: Put a Time Stamp on It
These documents are difficult—if not impossible—to recreate. Chief among them: your last seven years of state and federal tax returns, plus their supporting documents. Lest this portion of your papers balloon out of control, make it a rule to always let go of those Year 8 documents as you make room for the current set. Headed for the shredder this season: 2003.
Other papers in this category include receipts for major purchases (especially those under warranty) and home improvement records, which you’ll need when you sell your house. It’s also wise to hold on to annual brokerage and retirement account statements for at least the past three years.
Category #3: Shred It Now
Good news: utility bills, credit card statements and even monthly bank statements are great shredder fodder once paid or reconciled (unless you’re tracking home-office expenses or other tax-related transactions). In addition, shred credit card offers and any other mail containing personal information.
Though a paperless household is still really the stuff of science fiction, these categories can at least get your files out of sight and into logical order.
To help you get your household records in order, ask us for a complimentary Family Records Organizer. The three-ring binder can help you and your family gather and store important documents, including account statements, tax information, insurance policies, legal documents and other records.
Courtesy of
Joe Kelly
Financial Advisor
MorganStanley SmithBarney
250 S. Park Avenue
Suite 500
Winter Park, FL 32789
407 740-4972
Oakmont Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
For more information call 407.732.5800 or visit our website at www.oakmontevillage.com
Social Security’s Retirement Estimator is now available for people who have signed up for Medicare but have not yet signed up for Social Security because they are delaying retirement. The popular calculator allows you to project what your monthly Social Security benefit will be based on your actual work record. Previously, “Medicare only” beneficiaries could not use the estimator and had to contact a Social Security office to get an estimate of their retirement benefits.
While the calculator requires inputting personal information like your Social Security number, date of birth and mother’s maiden name, it is tied to your actual Social Security earnings record, so you don’t need to manually input years of earnings records. Once your information is input, you can compare different retirement options and see how additional work might affect your benefits.
Because more and more people are delaying retirement, the Social Security Administration decided to expand the calculator to those individuals. It is also planning on making the estimator available in Spanish later this year. You cannot use the calculator if you do not have enough Social Security credits at this time to qualify for benefits or you are already receiving Social Security benefits.
For more information on the calculator, click here. To access the Retirement Estimator, click here.
For more information on Social Security, click here.
Give your loved one the lifestyle they need and deserve. Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenence – at a price more affordable than remaining at home. Our active lifestyle is backed by rehabilitative services and home care as well as a continuum of care through our future assisted living and memory care community. Oakmonte Village offers all inclusive services with no buy-in demand. Call us at 407.732.5800 to schedule dinner and a tour.
Searching for Security
How to tell whether a continuing-care community will be able to keep its financial promises
By KELLY GREENE, The Wall Street Journal
For years, the primary selling point of continuing-care retirement communities has been security: the knowledge that a person or couple could settle—and remain—in a development, whatever the changes to their health.
The Journal Report
See the complete Encore report.
Today, though, with parts of the continuing-care market in financial trouble, residents and would-be residents are grappling with a fundamental question: Can continuing-care developments keep their promise?
The picture currently isn’t pretty. As the economic downturn has made it tougher for potential new residents to sell their existing homes and move in, a number of individual communities and one of the country’s largest developers of such facilities, Erickson Retirement Communities, have sought bankruptcy protection.
Some projects have been abandoned mid-construction. Others are trimming staff, reducing the number of meals served or delaying the opening of assisted-living or skilled-nursing units.
Would-be residents, meanwhile, are discovering the difficulties in looking beyond the amenities that make many continuing-care developments so attractive at first glance—upscale housing, fine dining, fitness centers—and digging into a community’s finances.
“One should be careful, as with any investment, to know the fine print,” says Nan Rideout, age 65, a state-government retiree in Chapel Hill, N.C., who with her husband has been scrutinizing continuing-care communities and their finances up and down the East Coast.
For instance, “CCRCs will advertise that they will guarantee you life occupancy even if your financial circumstances change,” Ms. Rideout says. But “the fine print [says] they can go after your estate when you’re dead to recoup money they advanced on your behalf. How would that be calculated? How much interest are they going to charge your estate for that? Those details I’ve never seen spelled out.”
If you’re considering a move to one of these communities—and are trying to determine how the finances work and whether a development will remain solvent for as long as you might need it—here’s what to look for.
A good first stop is two industry groups that have developed dozens of questions to help with your research. At carf.org, the Web site for the group that accredits continuing-care communities, you can download the “Consumer Guide to Understanding Financial Performance and Reporting in Continuing Care Retirement Communities” by clicking on “Free Publications” and scrolling down to “Special reports.” The site also has a more general section titled, “How to select a continuing care retirement community,” which you can find by clicking “Consumer Services” and then “Choosing a provider.”
To get another free guide, “The Continuing Care Retirement Community: A Guidebook for Consumers,” go to aahsa.org, the Web site for the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, and click on “Consumers.” Scroll down to “Choosing Services,” and click on “The Continuing Care Retirement Community: A Guidebook for Consumers.”
Next, get a copy of the facility’s audited financial statements. If you get any resistance at all when you make this request, it should serve as a big red flag, says Susanne Matthiesen, managing director of aging services for Carf International, which oversees the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission.
Look for the facility’s “days of cash on hand,” which reflects how long it could operate with no additional revenue—a good indication of financial stability. The community should be able to provide the figure, but to calculate it yourself, add together these two lines from the report to get the numerator: “unrestricted current cash and investments” plus “unrestricted noncurrent cash and investments.” To get the denominator, find “operating expenses,” then subtract “depreciation” and “amortization,” then divide the result by 365. Finally, divide the numerator by the denominator.
The result is the number of days the facility could operate with the cash it has at its disposal. Accredited communities with one campus or development average 306 days of cash on hand; those with multiple sites average 281 days.
There are other numbers to consider, including the facility’s cash-to-debt ratio, which should be about 35%, says Jill Collins, chief operating officer of Pacific Retirement Services in Medford, Ore., which runs 11 continuing-care communities.
She encourages people considering a facility to ask for its ratio calculations, along with how it stacks up against other places. Those doing well are in the 75th percentile or higher nationally, she says.
Other things to watch out for, according to Ms. Collins, include facilities that rely heavily on investment income, donations or entry fees, which may be a signal that the facility can’t support itself with income from operations, she says.
Even if you aren’t comfortable reading financial statements, you should ask for them anyway. “Give them to your tax guy if you’re not very financially savvy,” Ms. Collins says. “They should be able to give you any financial information you’re looking for. I hate to get into what we’re paying for lettuce, but we have benchmarks.”
You can also ask for any bond covenants—and whether the facility is meeting them. Typically, banks require 300 days of cash on hand and a minimum of 25% cash to debt, Ms. Collins adds.
Also keep in mind that if the facility you’re considering is part of a group, it’s worth asking about the financial health of the group’s other communities and whether your investment could be used to prop them up, Ms. Collins says.
If a community’s marketing staff can’t answer your questions about the facility’s financial condition, ask to speak to the chief financial officer, executive director or chief executive officer, Ms. Matthiesen says. Another option: Most facilities have a residents’ finance committee, so you could ask to speak to members of that group to get the information you need.
The ways in which residents buy into continuing-care developments also can affect a community’s finances.
In the so-called life-care model, residents pay a large upfront deposit (usually at least a few hundred thousand dollars) plus a monthly fee that generally stays the same no matter how much care they need. Typically, residents forfeit their deposit after living at the community a certain number of years.
With such a model, it’s particularly important to ask for actuarial analysis that shows “how there’s enough money in the kitty if everyone needs care 20 years from now,” says John Endicott, a resident of a life-care facility in Pomona, Calif., who helped write the accreditation commission’s consumer guide.
With the increasingly common “Type B” model, residents pay a smaller upfront deposit, some of which may be refundable if they move out or die, and pay larger monthly fees if they need to use assisted-living or skilled nursing care. With that model, you’ll need to consider whether you could afford higher monthly fees and whether you hold—or should obtain—long-term-care insurance that could help cover them.
Another potentially thorny issue: How would you, or your heirs, get your deposit back? Many places make you wait until the unit is resold, and you may have to pay a monthly fee until that happens. Ms. Rideout worries that this requirement creates a “disincentive for the [community] to use all available efforts to resell a unit”—particularly if it’s also marketing new units at the same time.
In addition, find out what happens if you run out of money. Many continuing-care communities have created a benevolence fund specifically to help residents who find themselves in that situation. But the contract’s fine print sometimes gives the facility the right to recoup any unpaid fees from your estate.
Ms. Greene is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s New York bureau. She can be reached at
encore@wsj.com
Give your loved one the lifestyle they need and deserve. Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenence – at a price more affordable than remaining at home. Our active lifestyle is backed by rehabilitative services and home care as well as a continuum of care through our future assisted living and memory care community. Oakmonte Village offers all inclusive services with no buy-in demand. Call us at 407.732.5800 to schedule dinner and a tour.
The Jewish holiday of Passover Starts Tuesday, the 30th of March & continues until Monday, the 5th of April. The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish Holiday of Passover. The Seder is a ritual performed by a community of multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Seder customs include drinking four cups of wine, eating matza and partaking of symbolic food placed on the Passover Seder Plate. For more information on the tradition behind the Passover Seder click here.
The residents at Oakmonte Village celebrated the Passover Seder with residents, guests, and staff. Each table was beautifully prepared with Sedar Plates, candles and traditional wine. Chef Rolf served a lovely dinner of Matzoh Ball soup, Briskit, Roasted Chicken, and all traditional accompaniments. Traditional prayers, singing and much laughter made the evening enjoyable for all.
Oakmonte Village is a new 25 acre luxury senior living community that is located with in minutes of down town Orlando. Click here to contact us.
The Jewish holiday of Passover Starts Tuesday, the 30th of March & continues until Monday, the 5th of April. The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish Holiday of Passover. The Seder is a ritual performed by a community of multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Seder customs include drinking four cups of wine, eating matza and partaking of symbolic food placed on the Passover Seder Plate.
The residents at Oakmonte Village celebrated the Passover Seder with residents, guests, and staff. Each table was beautifully prepared with Sedar Plates, candles and traditional wine. Chef Rolf served a lovely dinner of Matzoh Ball soup, Briskit, Roasted Chicken, and all traditional accompaniments. Traditional prayers, singing and much laughter made the evening enjoyable for all.
Oakmonte Village is a new 25 acre luxury senior living community that is located with in minutes of down town Orlando. Click here to contact us.
Generations Online in 2009
by Sydney Jones, Research Assistant and Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project
January 28, 2009
Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the “Net Generation,” internet users in their twenties do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).
Internet use and email
The web continues to be populated largely by younger generations, as more than half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past and they are doing more activities online, according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project surveys taken from 2006-2008. The biggest increase in internet use since 2005 can be seen in the 70-75 year-old age group.
While just over one-fourth (26%) of 70-75 year olds were online in 2005, 45% of that age group is currently online. Much as we watch demographic and age groups move up in “degrees of access” on our “thermometers,” we can probably expect to see these bars become more level as time goes on. For now, though, young people dominate the online population.
Instant messaging, social networking, and blogging have gained ground as communications tools, but email remains the most popular online activity, particularly among older internet users. Fully 74% of internet users age 64 and older send and receive email, making email the most popular online activity for this age group. At the same time, email has lost some ground among teens; whereas 89% of teens said they used email in 2004, just 73% currently say they do.
Older generations use the internet as a tool for research, shopping and banking
Compared with teens and Generation Y, older generations use the internet less for socializing and entertainment and more as a tool for information searches, emailing, and buying products. In particular, older internet users are significantly more likely than younger generations to look online for health information. Health questions drive internet users age 73 and older to the internet just as frequently as they drive Generation Y users, outpacing teens by a significant margin.
Researching health information is the third most popular online activity with the most senior age group, after email and online search.
Internet users ages 33-72 are also significantly more likely than younger users to look online for religious information and they are more likely to visit government websites in search of information. Generation X (internet users ages 33-44) continues to lead in online shopping. Fully 80% of Generation X internet users buy products online, compared with 71% of internet users ages 18-32. Interest in online shopping is significantly lower among the youngest and oldest groups; 38% of online teens buy products online, as do 56% of internet users ages 64-72 and 47% of internet users age 73 and older.
Generation X internet users have also maintained their edge in online banking, as they are significantly more likely than any other generation to do their banking online (67%). As Generation Y users grow older, however, they have become much more likely to bank online as well: The percentage of online Generation Y who does banking online rose from 38% in 2005 to 57% in 2008. There has been no significant growth among older generations when it comes to banking online.
Video downloads, online travel reservations and work-related research are now pursued more equally by young and old
A few online activities previously dominated by either older generations or younger generations are now being done more equally across all generations under 73 years old. One such activity is downloading videos, an activity that in 2005 was significantly more popular with teens and Generation Y than with any other generation. Generation X is catching up, as 31% of that generation claim to download videos as of 2007, compared with 38% of Generation Y.
Generations on the oldest end of the spectrum also became significantly more likely than they had been two years before to download videos. Some 13% of G.I. Generation internet users (age 73+) reported downloading videos, up from 1% in 2005, and another 13% of the online Silent Generation (ages 64-72) says they download videos, up from 8% in 2005. Perhaps less surprisingly, Generation Y is also gaining significant ground in some activities previously dominated by Generation X and older. In addition to becoming more likely to do banking online, Generation Y has also grown more likely to make travel reservations online. In 2005, half (50%) of Generation Y internet users had booked travel arrangements online and in 2008 that number rose to 65%. During the same period, the percentages of Generation X and older generations to make online travel reservations remained about the same.
The workplace online network is expanding to include more Generation Y users.5 Internet users 18-32 are going online more than ever to do research for their jobs. In 2007, 51% said they used the internet for their jobs other than for email, compared with 44% of the same group in 2005.
For the complete article visit: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1093/generations-online
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre Orlando luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more. For more information on our Senior Living Community contact us today.
Julie Fernandez, Director of Marketing
Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary
407.732.5800
www.oakmontevillage.com
The United States 2010 Census has hit mailboxes everywhere in Orlando and surrounding cities. We encourage everyone to be sure to fill out the Census. Here are 5 Reasons to Fill Out the Census. (link to: http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/Five-reasons-to-fill-out-census-form) .
If you are unable to read your Census, ask a friend, neighbor, or family member to read the questions to you and fill out the form. Remember, it is required by law to fill out and submit your 2010 Census. For more information, click here (ttp://oakmontevillage.com/orlando-senior-living/oakmonte-village-encourages-seniors-to-participate-in-2010-census/)
The United States 2010 Census has hit mailboxes everywhere in Orlando and surrounding cities. We encourage everyone to be sure to fill out the Census. Here are 5 Reasons to Fill Out the Census.
If you are unable to read your Census, ask a friend, neighbor, or family member to read the questions to you and fill out the form. Remember, it is required by law to fill out and submit your 2010 Census. For more information, click here.
Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary participated in in the Great Purim Baking Day that was coordinated by the Jewish Pavilion. Residents from Oakmonte Village shared their experience and expertise by demonstrating and assisting with proper technique for the perfect shape. Click here to view the FULL STORY.
The Senior Intervention Group (SIG) is a grass roots effort which began to accommodate seniors throughout the Lake Mary community who cannot perform basic tasks and chores. These are often urgent, but not life-threatening needs. The local police department was determined to fulfill the need and is working to link area churches and local businesses to designate volunteers, and donate discounted products or services. Immediate assistance provided to seniors includes: basic home or vehicle repair, transportation, short-term financial assistance, yard work, elder abuse/neglect prevention, food delivery, furniture moving, pet care, home health, safety equipment, health education. As word spreads about SIG, more elderly residents call, confirming the need for greater outreach and funds, as not all needs can be met through volunteers. Unlike some government programs, SIG is meeting needs without the waiting list. Our vision is to grow program outreach, at least county-wide.
CALL TO ACTION!
PLEASE HELP US WITH THE PEPSI GRANT. We need your vote! The Senior Intervention Group (SIG) started about a year ago, and community need is rapidly growing. SIG Would like to expand its volunteer base and funding to help seniors throughout Seminole County, and this grant opportunity makes it so easy for you to help.
Just log on to the link below and register, then you can vote for this idea once a day until 3/31/10 (please!). If our idea is one of the top 10 with the most votes this month-we win the grant! Forward this information to everyone you know. If you have Facebook, Twitter or many other social media sources, you can help spread the word too!
http://www.refresheverything.com/sigoutreach
Please tell everyone you know to log on and vote for the SENIOR INTERVENTION GROUP grant request. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!
Information on SIG provideed by:
Stacey M. Burton, M.Ed., CDMS, CMC
Geriatric Care Manager
407-353-8491
http://www.agscares.com/
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more. For more information on our Senior Living community contact us today.
Julie Fernandez, Director of Marketing
407.732.5800
www.oakmontevillage.com
Retirement living men who are married may be healthier, study suggests.
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| Thursday, 25 February 2010 18:04 |
| Retirement livingmen who eat a balanced diet, get plenty of exercise and follow doctor’s orders are likely to be enhancing their overall well-being. Happily, studies show that being married can also reduce a man’s risk of having a fatal stroke.
The findings are based on the Israeli Ischemic Heart Disease Study, which began in 1963.  Researchers have found that 8.4 percent of men who were single at the start of the study died of a fatal stroke, compared to 7.1 percent of men who were married, according to TheHindu.com.
The study followed over 10,000 men, and the data gathered has been used to draw a variety of conclusions about men’s health.
Uri Goldbourt, a professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at Tel Aviv University, presented the findings on the correlation between marriage and a reduced risk of stroke at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference, WebMD.com reports.
Though men are more likely to have a stroke than their spouses, retirement living women can reduce their risk by controlling their blood pressure, reducing their exposure to cigarette smoke and eating a healthy diet, according to the American Heart |
Read more: http://www.retirementhomes.com/library/senior-living/retirement-living/retirement-living-men-who-are-married-may-be-healthier,-study-suggests-201002251075.html#ixzz0geOtaDxS
The best opportunity to find your way to a healthier, worry-free lifestyle can be found at Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary. Oakmonte Village offers restaurant quality dining, a fitness center, walking trails, on-site home health care as well as a variety of ways to meet up with your friends for a movie in our state of the art theatre or for wine at the daily social hour!
There is no time like today to stop by Oakmonte and see how the personal Concierge service and exceptional amenities will improve your quality of life!
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, shopping, restaurants, and more. For more information on our Senior Living community contact us today.
Julie Fernandez, Director of Marketing
407.732.5800
www.oakmontevillage.com
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Orlando Senior Living | Oakmonte Village April 23, 2010 | 
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