When you retired, you made the transition from being on a company's payroll to paying yourself with your retirement savings. If you were one of many retirees forced back into a job during the recession, don't despair. You survived the work-retirement transition and you can do it again. We provide six tips to help you make the adjustment.

1. Adjust Financial Objectives

Before retiring, you were accumulating and saving in anticipation of a future life of leisure. During retirement you were preserving and spending. If you're going back to work, your income needs may determine whether you need to continue preserving and spending or if you have enough extra money to go back to accumulating and saving.

Your choices for saving change if you're over 72.5 because of the age limits for contributing to your traditional IRA and some annuities. Instead, make contributions to a Roth, which doesn't have an age limit, but does have income limits. For younger workers who retired early, take advantage of your new employer's retirement plan.

2. Check Your Social Security Status

If you are receiving social security benefits and had to go back to work, whether or not your benefits will change depends on your age when you started receiving benefits. In some instances more of your benefits may be taxable due to the additional income. On the positive side, your social security benefits may be recalculated to reflect the additional years of work and could result in a bigger check. Consult the

There's no reason to feel you have to master every market.

Financial planning is more complicated than it seems. Marc Lowlicht of Further Lane Asset Management handles the affairs of high net worth clients and spends a lot more time handling tax, estate and probate issues than he does choosing investment managers. The portfolio, he reminds us, is just one part of the picture.

So how complicated does the portfolio need to be? One consequence of the recent democratization of the markets is that virtually all investments are open to all people. Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds now mimic returns from private equity and hedge fund partnerships that are forbidden to retail investors. Stock options are now available through retail brokerages like TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab. Foreign exchange markets are available through retail Internet platforms and through ETFs. Same with commodities futures.

The idea here isn't to say that you should never do these things. It's just that for most people a core portfolio of stocks, bonds and cash will suffice to generate good returns for retirement, college planning or to build an estate. The fancy stuff can work; it's just not required.

Nobody can master everything and, on Wall Street, few even try. Sure there are go-anywhere savants like Robert Bruce of the Bruce Fund (BRUFX) who seem as comfortable in currencies and debt instruments as they are stocks, but most people on Wall Street tend to specialize in one asset class--the currency analyst, macro-economist and stock analyst might share interests, but they don't usually share jobs. There are myriad skills to master in any one asset class.

The good news is that the typical investor really doesn't need to master them all. There's nothing wrong

Warren Buffett is the world's most successful investor and a self-made billionaire. In 2009, Buffett was ranked the world's second richest man with a personal net worth of $37 billion.
"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
– Warren Buffet

1. "Look at stocks as parts of business. Ask yourself, 'How would I feel if the Stock Exchange was closing tomorrow for the next three years?' If I am happy owning the stock under that circumstance, I am happy with the business. That frame of mind is important to investing."

2. "The market is there to serve you and not to instruct you. It is not telling you whether you are right or wrong. The business results will determine that."

3. "You can't precisely know what a stock is worth, so leave yourself a margin of safety. Only go into things where you could be wrong to some extent and come out OK."

4. "Borrowed money is the most common way that smart guys go broke."

5. "The stock doesn't know you own it. You have feelings about it, but it has no feelings about you. The stock doesn't know what you paid. People shouldn't get emotionally involved with their stocks."

AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Consumer products giant Unilever NV said Friday it has agreed to buy soaps and personal care businesses including the Sanex and Duschdas brands from Sara Lee Corp. for euro1.28 billion ($1.88 billion).

The businesses to be acquired, subject to regulatory approval, include Sara Lee's worldwide body care products business and its European detergents arms. In addition to Sanex -- a cheaper parallel of Unilever's Dove brand -- and Duschdas, a German shower gel maker, Unilever is buying several strong regional brands such as Radox bubble bath and Switzal, a maker of baby shampoo.

Unilever said the businesses it will acquire had sales of euro750 million and operating earnings of euro128 million in the 12 months ending in June.

Unilever, the world's third-largest consumer products company after Procter & Gamble Co. and Nestle SA, says its Dove, Axe and Rexona lines will complement the Sara Lee brands.

"The acquisition will strengthen Unilever's leadership positions overall in Western Europe," the company said in a statement. "In addition, there is significant potential to build these brands in developing and emerging markets, which already generate approximately 15 percent of their annual sales."

Analysts said the deal made sense.

"The positioning of Sara Lee is more mid-market and below the other Unilever brands," said Fernand de Boer of Petercam Bank in a note on the deal. The deal fits into a strategy "to play the entire price

Banks are cutting overdraft fees, but there are other hidden charges.

In the wake of the uproar over bank fees charged to debit card holders--and the looming threat of congressional action--banking giants Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo have announced drastic changes to their overdraft policies.

What banking customers might be missing is that debit card overdraft fees are the tip of the iceberg. Banks nickel and dime their customers in numerous other ways that can easily cost the average person $100 or more per year. Adding insult, many of the fees are poorly disclosed and levied regardless of any action the customer does--or doesn't--take.

"There is a long list of fees that people pay that doesn't require any type of acknowledgment on the part of the consumer," said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. Here are five major areas of hidden bank revenues.

Balance Transfer Fees

Banks commonly mail out ads pitching low interest rates for customers willing to transfer credit card balances from another institution. What many don't advertise is that there is often a balance transfer fee of between 3% and 5% hidden in the fine print.

"If you're transferring a balance from a card with a rate of 15% to a card with a rate or 13%, but you're paying a 3% admission fee, you're not saving any money," McBride said. Moving a balance of $5,000 from

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With the economy on the mend, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it is slowing the pace of a program to lower mortgage rates and prop up the housing market.

The Fed decided to stretch out its goal of buying $1.45 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and debt issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae until the end of the first quarter of 2010. Originally, the central bank intended to complete buying those securities by the end of this year.

It marked the second time since August that the Fed has opted to slow some of its extraordinary support to revive the economy and spur Americans to boost spending. It shows that the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are confident the recovery will take hold.

In a more upbeat assessment, the Fed said: "Economic activity has picked up following its severe downturn." When the Fed last met in August, policymakers declared that economic activity was "leveling out."

The central bank also "expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time."

Even though the Fed will stretch out its purchases of mortgage securities, rates for home loans should remain low "in the 5 percent range" as long as the purchases continue, said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance.

On Wall Street, stocks rose on the Fed's more optimistic outlook. The Dow Jones industrial average, which

It's 12 months later and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is $3 billion richer.

One year ago today, on September 23, 2008, with the financial world still reeling from the collapse of Lehman Brothers just days before, Buffett stunned Wall Street with a massive vote of confidence for Goldman Sachs.

In a late-day news release, Goldman announced a private deal to sell Berkshire $5 billion of perpetual preferred stock. In effect, Berkshire was giving Goldman a massive loan. And you don't loan that kind of money to a firm you think could follow Lehman down the drain.

In that release, Buffett called Goldman "an exceptional institution" with an "unrivaled global franchise, a proven and deep management team and the intellectual and financial capital to continue its track record of outperformance."

The next day, in an interview on CNBC, Buffett said, "The price was right, the terms were right, and the people were right."

Buffett's money, and his endorsement of Goldman, didn't come cheap.

Goldman agreed to pay Berkshire a 10 percent annual dividend on the preferred stock. That's $500 million

Someone with $100 million has nothing to fear, not even fear itself.

But not long ago, a client with such assets called and asked Bruce Bickel, her wealth adviser at PNC Wealth Management, to put her on a budget.

"She said we've never done this before, and we think we should," said Mr. Bickel, managing director of private foundation management services at PNC. "It's all relative. Their loss has put them in a fear response."

That mindset is a direct result of the financial panic that turned one year old last week. At this time last year, Richard Fuld was center stage in the financial crisis; Ken Lewis, chief executive of Bank of America, was being hailed as Merrill Lynch's savior; and Bernard L. Madoff was little known beyond the financial world.

None of that is true today. And even though a year has passed, wealthy investors remain cautious.

The Boston Consulting Group predicted this week that worldwide wealth would not return to 2007 precrisis levels until 2013. It also said it found that the number of millionaires was down 18 percent and that, across the board, clients of wealth management firms had lost trust in their advisers.

"There is a shattered confidence we haven't seen in a long time," said Bruce Holley, senior partner at the firm. "The wealth management business is a very emotional business, and people can react in kind to that."

This explains how someone with more than $100 million in assets can ask her adviser to put her on a

My, how things have changed over such a short period of time. Earlier this year when I ran a simple screen looking for stocks in the S&P 500 that traded below book value, I found that more than 20% of the index was selling below book. When I ran that screen today, I found that only 7.5%, or 37 stocks in the index, currently trade below that level. The rally has pretty much emptied the cookie jar for asset-based value investors like me.

Financials still dominate the list of course. Some of Jim Cramer's favorite regional banks are on there, with Huntington Bancshares trading at 60% of tangible book value and Fifth Third Bancorp at 80%. Jim and I are at odds over the banks, but if you favor his view over mine, I would still suggest staying with those trading below book value to lessen the risk. I think it is too early to enter the sector, but I leave it to readers to decide which viewpoint they favor. Citigroup and Capital One are also below book, but they are at the top of my "not with a gun to my head" list of stocks that I think are just too dangerous to own.

A couple of leading refiners make the cut as well. It has been tough times for the refiners as declining energy demand and high supplies have limited growth opportunities and kept refining spreads pretty tight. The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that gasoline demand in the U.S. will fall by 0.11% in 2009 before rebounding in 2010 by 0.55%. Demand for distillates such as heating oil and diesel fuel is expected to fall 8.35% this year and rise 3.31% in 2010. As a result of this weak demand, refining margins are expected to tighten by 11% this year and widen by just 1% in 2010. With poor refining trends, the stocks are cheap.

In spite of the outlook, I like the refiners below book value. The idea of buying assets that are fairly

Despite the pundits' pronouncements of green-shoots or signs that the economy is on the mend, many investors remain scarred and understandably sensitive to the previously unimagined threats to capital market stability. In many cases, not only have they reduced their equity exposure to levels that will not help them beat inflation, many have pulled out of the publicly-traded markets entirely, and remain on the sidelines.

Return to Investing
If you are planning to retire on the assets you have accumulated or are accumulating, you need to get exposure to the equities markets and you need to do that sooner rather than later. Global equities markets work and you deserve your share of the positive long-term returns generated by them.

Generally, market declines cause panic, to quote a study by DALBAR - a leading developer of measurement systems for intangibles, such as customer behaviors, in the financial services industry. A 2003 study by DALBAR found "motivated by fear and greed, investors pour money into equity funds on market upswings and are quick to sell on downturns." The report goes on to say that in the past 19 years, the average equity investor has earned 2.57% annually compared to 12.22% for the S&P 500 Index. This study clearly illustrates the "reactive" nature of today's investors and just how much it costs them in return. It's important to recognize how much emotions influence investing decisions most often to investors' detriment.

Keys to Excellent Returns
As investors slowly emerge from their fear-induced stupor, it is important to review important principles

After September 18, insurance for money-market mutual funds is gone. Here's why you don't have to worry.

Since they were introduced nearly 40 years ago, money-market mutual funds have served as safe and reasonably high-yielding parking places for cash. And for all those years, there has been an implicit promise that the value of a share would stay at $1.

That promise was broken last September, during the worst of the financial crisis, when the Primary Reserve fund (a fund mainly for institutional investors) lost so much money that it "broke the buck" — its net asset value dropped to 97 cents a share. To forestall a run on money funds' assets by worried shareholders, the Treasury Department created temporary insurance that fund managers could purchase — and on which, all told, funds spent $1 billion. That insurance program ends on September 18.

No Worries

But even though the insurance safety net is gone, "there is a lot of back-end support remaining," says Peter Crane, president of Crane Data, which tracks money funds.

For one thing, about half of the money in money-market funds is invested in government securities and repos, which are overnight loans secured by the government. Bank certificates of deposit — including European bank CDs that are guaranteed by European governments — are also a growing component of money funds' portfolios. In addition, the U.S. government created a loan program to ensure that funds that need to raise cash to meet redemptions will not be forced into selling assets at reduced prices.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering new, stronger regulations to further reduce the

I've had several discussions with friends and associates about banks recently, including with my ambitious and talented young friend Lt. Corban Bates, a recent West Point graduate. Readers may remember the excellent work he has shared with me on net-net stocks in recent months. He, along with several readers, asked me what my criteria were in compiling a list of community and regional banks to buy for the long term.

A caveat or two: All lists and screens are starting points. They are where you should start your research, not end it. Also, I am not ready to buy banks yet. I think there is another shoe to drop, but I will leave it to you to make your own timing call. Naturally, I will sound a trumpet here on RealMoney when I am ready to buy the banks.

First and foremost in my laundry list of bank-stock criteria, the bank has to sell below tangible book value. Just as in any other industry, I want to buy the assets cheaply. Takeovers in the banking industry are usually done at a multiple of book value for a healthy institution. Not only does buying healthy assets at a discount give me a margin of safety, it creates tremendous upside potential because small banks will usually trade up to a small discount to the takeover multiple currently being used. I have seen the multiple of tangible book value get as high as 3 in a merger wave.

Second, the bank must have a tangible equity-to-assets ratio of at least 5%. That is the number Peter Lynch set out years ago in his book, and assuming he is a bit smarter than I am, I use that level to find banks with adequate capital. I have used this number for years, and it has worked very well over time. Higher is better with this number. The more equity relative to assets a particular bank has, the larger my

Gold prices settled Wednesday at their highest point as the dollar slumped and inflation concerns boosted demand for the metal as a hedge against rising prices.

Gold for December delivery, the most active contract, settled at $1,020.20 an ounce, up $13.90 from Tuesday's close of $1,006.30 per ounce.

December gold hit an intraday high of $1023.30 on Wednesday. That's about $10 below the highest intraday price, set on March 18, 2008, when it traded as high as $1,033.90 an ounce.

Mark Hansen, director of trading at commodities research firm CPM Group, said the weak dollar is the "main driver" of Wednesday's gold rally.

The dollar fell to a one-year low against a basket of currencies, as upbeat economic data boosted optimism about the global economic recovery and gave investors an appetite for more risky assets, such as stocks.

At the same time, gold prices are being supported by concerns that government efforts to stimulate the economy could result in a bout of inflation a few years from now. "That has given investors more of an appetite for tangible assets," Hansen said.

The inflation concerns come despite a government report that showed consumer prices remained relatively tame last month.

The Labor Department's Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in August from the month before due to higher

Should you hold off on saving until your nonmortgage debt is paid off?

Simple math suggests it's better to get rid of debt before saving for retirement or an emergency fund. After all, if the savings rate is 1 percent and you have credit card debt at 14 percent interest, money is better spent paying down debt quickly.

But personal finance decisions are rarely so simple, and this method may not be the right choice for everybody.

"Like everything else in life, this decision is one of balance, not of absolutes," says Michael Rubin, president of Portsmouth, N.H.-based Total Candor, a provider of financial education.

Dean Barber agrees. The host of nationally syndicated talk radio program "America's Wealth Management Show" says there are pros and cons to each approach.

"You have to set your priorities ... and understand the consequences to either paying debt first or saving money first," says Barber, who is also president of the Barber Financial Group of Lenexa, Kan.

So which should come first -- paying off debt, or saving?

Paying Debt Before Saving

The notion of saving before paying high-interest debt is hard for some financial advisers to swallow, given

You can almost hear the collective slaps to the head.

This recession has brought to light dumb money management practices, forcing just about all of us to confront our financial foibles.

Maybe, for instance, you're one of the ones who panicked and sold during the market bottom. Or, you believed housing prices were guaranteed to rise.

The federal government is tapping behavioral economists -- experts on why we humans make the money judgments we do -- to help devise regulations so that people don't take on unaffordable mortgages and to help them understand their actual credit card fees.

But these efforts just scratch the surface. Here are four common mistakes that surfaced during this economic turmoil, and fixes that we can put in place to prevent ourselves from making the same costly error again:

Regret 1: I didn't have emergency reserves.

Outsmart yourself: When we're confident about our security, stashing cash can seem like a waste. We'd prefer to put the dollars into a "better" use, whether it be sprucing up our home or going on vacation.

Last year, when the unemployment rate started soaring, so did the savings rate of suddenly scared Americans.

If you were one of those scrambling to build emergency reserves, you may abandon the practice once