The Advantages of a Charitable Remainder Unitrust

By Hank Brock

A Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT) was created to provide an income to a non-charitable beneficiary while simultaneously transferring the remainder interest to a qualified charity.

The donor would irreversibly transfer securities or property to a trustee. The trustee would then pay the donor (or other income beneficiary) income from the property for life.

The donor could also provide that if he or she predeceased a spouse, the spouse in turn would receive income from the donated property for life. The donor would receive payments based on a fixed percentage of the fair market value of the assets placed in trust. The assets would be revalued each year.

Additional Contributions

Unlike the Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust (CRAT), however, the CRUT may continue to receive assets in later years. The CRUT also differs from a CRAT since the stream paid out by the CRUT trust must be at least 5% of the annual reappraised value of the corpus.

Consequently the CRUT, depending on the reappraised value of the corpus and accumulated income, can allocate greater or lesser amounts of income while the CRAT pays a set sum of income that never fluctuates in amount.

Appreciation

If the value of the corpus and income continues to appreciate, the amount of the payment to the non-charitable beneficiary may increase with each succeeding year. This makes the CRUT an effective means of fighting inflation. If, however, the value of the assets continues to depreciate over a period of years, the CRUT may actually pay less income to the non-charitable beneficiary than was originally intended.

If a grantor requests to guarantee a yearly increase in the value of the income payment to the non-charitable beneficiary, the grantor should finance the corpus of such a trust with assets that pay a guaranteed rate of return. - 23196

About the Author:

Hank Brock is president of Brock and Associates, LLC, a firm specializing in financial planning, retirement, estate, and tax planning. Visit him online for further information on CRUTs, CRATs, and other financial planning topics.

Tips for Saving Money

By Joe James

Budgeting is an easy thing to do but like all easy things, it is something people have the hardest time doing. It's easy to spend money. It can go easy with a few dollars here and a few dollars there. Yet with just a few simple changes to how you live, you can save lots of money and have much better budget, which is important in this economy.

Cut your credit card into four pieces and throw it into the trash. This plastic money has created havoc in the lives of people. The way it lured people to swipe and get wiped has left many people in financial mess. Actually we end up buying things which we dont need just because of credit cards. Buy avoiding to use credit cards, you won't be tempted to always pay for things with plastic.

One of the best ways to save money is to track your expenses. You don't know what expenses you cut and where you can save money unless you know what you are spending money on. Write down a list of everything you spend money on. Circle the essentials that you have to pay (bills) and then cut the other expenses. You'll be amazed at all the stuff you waste money on.

Before going grocery shopping, check online at your neighborhood stores as to what the rates are. Utility items like meats, poultry, veggies, fruits have an expiry date within a week. Go on the last day to buy. You are sure to get these items at half the price. Also look out for sale and discounts. Nowadays online stores offer many discounts.

Reduce your outings and eating at restaurants. This is another major expense that we can do without. Going to a cinema hall is very expensive. Instead wait for the DVD to come out. You can watch the same movie at less the cost. Making your food is much more rewarding than eating out all the time and learning to cook is a skill that will last you a lifetime.

Saving money is something everyone wants to do but everyone has a hard time doing. In this consumerist society, it is really easy to spend money all the time. In order to save money, you need to really look at your budget and cut out the fat. This will ensure that you save a lot of money in case of an emergency and to go out and travel and retire early. - 23196

About the Author:

Joe James gives financial advice for a living. He resides in the southwest of the United States and is a retirement specialist. You can find out more information at his website about financial advice.

Forex Tutorial: Currency Pairs and Forex Quotes

By Bart Icles

If you are new to the forex market, you might find forex quotes confusing. Do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed with forex quotes. In fact, reading forex quotes can be quite easy.

In reading forex quotes or currency pairs, there are two important things that you must keep in mind. First is that the currency being quoted first is what we refer to as the base currency. Second is that the value of base currency always equals to 1.

The centerpiece or focus of the forex market is the US Dollar. It is also often quoted as the base currency for a lot of pairs. A currency pair that has the US Dollar as the base currency is what we call "major". Examples of major currency pairs are USD/JPY, USD/CAD, and USD/CHF. In major currency pairs, quoted currencies are expressed as the US Dollar, specifically, one (1) US Dollar for every, or a fraction of the, unit of the second currency quoted in the pair.

As an example, let us take the US Dollar and the Swiss Franc. In the currency pair USD/CHF, the base currency is the US Dollar. In the quote USD/CHF = 1.0806, one unit of the US Dollar is equivalent to 1.0806 units of Swiss Francs.

If a currency goes up, you must take note of the base currency. In the aforementioned pair, the US Dollar is the base currency. If the quote goes up, it simply means the value of the US Dollar has increased compared with the value of the Swiss Franc. If the quote goes down, then one can easily conclude that the value of the US Dollar has depreciated to a certain degree.

There are cases when the US Dollar is not the base currency. We often see the US Dollar as the quoted currency when it is paired with the Australian Dollar (AUD), British Pound (GBP), and Euro (EUR). Let us take the AUD/USD currency pair quoted at 0.8044. This shows that one unit of Australian Dollar is equivalent to 0.8044 or less than one unit of US Dollar. One can conclude that the Australian Dollar is weaker than the US Dollar. If the quote goes up, then it means that the US Dollar has weakened against the Australian Dollar.

Currency pairs do not always involve the US Dollar. These currency pairs are referred to as cross currencies. Examples of which are EUR/AUD, EUR/JPY, CHF/JPY, and EUR/SGD. Let us take the currency EUR/SGD pair quoted at 2.0373. This shows that one unit of Euro is equivalent to more than two units of Singapore Dollar or 2.0373 Singapore dollars. - 23196

About the Author:

Forex and tricks are powerful when coupled with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Learning for forex takes dedication and a good teacher. But once you learn how to trade and do so successfully your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.

How Americans Are Getting Creative With Their Money

By Chuck R Stewart

The past 18 monthshave proven to be one of the worst years for the stock market. It has hit all time lows and has most people that had invested in stocks losing money on their investments this past year. Because of that, a lot of people are not wanting to invest in the stock market and just saving their money in traditional savings accounts which typically do not earn muchmoney. For many people, losing half of the money they saved for their retirement or for college has scared them into not wanting to buy stocks again. This is understandable but people should not be nervous to once again invest in the market.

The stock market has crashed many times before always rebounding so if people are just patient, it will get better over time. Another great option is to think out of the box with your money. One example is to use a DO, which is a direct offering. This is a method to invest in a smaller company that has not gone public yet but is about to, they just need to raise capital in order to get there. By becoming one of the investors in that smaller company, you can choose to really know a lot of things about the company first.

Where do you discover a direct offering? As someone who is deciding on if they should invest in a DO, you can find out about these smaller companies from a financial advisor or even by a search on the world wide web. Once you have found a small company that is available, make sure you research that it is a legitimate company and not something that is simply trying to take your money and run. Once that is determined to be a good choice, you will be notified when the company's shares willbe resold to the public. You can invest a large amount or a more conservative amount, that all depends on how comfortable you are with taking risks. As with several opportunities that could be lucrative, there is a risk involved and the possibility that your money will be lost. This however, offers those that are scared to go with larger companies that have already lost them money in the market a new unique way to possibly make some money in an unusual way.

As we all have seen, all large companies that end up successful have to start out small in the beginning and this is your opportunity to do just that. By choosing the direct offering idea, you also get rid ofthe middle man which couldaid with your end result also.

With the difficult economy currently, people wanting to be wise|smart] with their money are looking for other optionson how to invest. This is just another way of how to do that and hopefully own shares of a company that once going publicwill continue to grow and therefore make you money unlike larger companies that arefailing. - 23196

About the Author:

Chuck Stewart made a presentation to a group of investors who were looking to expand their ability to find great small companies to invest in. He recently reviewed the most economical method to raise capital for a start up company.

To Learn Technical Analysis Means Understanding the Inside Bar

By Chris Blanchet

Many investors who are just learning technical analysis will make short-term investment decisions based on reliable, longer-term patterns such as the head and shoulders top discussed elsewhere in this series. The difficulty with such a strategy is that short-term trades based on long-term patterns will typically not yield the desired gains.

One of short-term patterns that investors seek is a two-bar pattern known as the inside bar. This pattern reflects a short-term change in investor sentiment, so that if a pattern has been driven downward, the possibility is that the short-term prices will turn around and head the other way.

Identifying an Inside Bar

For investors who are learning technical analysis, identifying the inside bar might be a little more difficult. It involves a taller bar one day, followed a smaller bar the next. The smaller bar consists of a trading range within the preceding day's taller bar.

Confirm The Pattern

When it comes to using the inside bar to commit to a trade, investors should seek additional confirmation through additional analysis. This step is often overlooked when investors start learning technical analysis. Other analysis includes fundamental data for the security, sector and market, as well as technical data such as support and resistance levels and momentum.

As far as the reliability of the inside bar pattern, investors will find greater success when the bar takes shape following a steeper inbound trend. In terms of the bars themselves, investors will want to see a longer first bar (which suggests that stronger momentum has dissipated and reversal is imminent) and a shorter second bar, which suggests a more dramatic reversal to come.

Lastly, investors should notice that volume on the smaller bar is lighter. This suggests a more balanced trading activity.

For investors learning technical analysis, please remember that no single indicator should be used in isolation. Confirmation is highly recommended from other tools. For investors who would prefer a hands-off approach, there are trading software programs that will simply make buy or sell calls. - 23196

About the Author:

Chris Blanchet has more than 16 years of experience as a Financial Advisor at one of the world's largest banks by market capitalization. To learn technical analysis free visit Online Trader Today.com where Chris writes about Technical Analysis and Options trading. Chris also maintains a debt-free blog at How To Repay Debt.com