retirement

Beating the system never felt so good, especially when there is money involved. Don't worry: these financial hacks suggested by LearnVest are perfectly legal!

Just before the Enron scandal broke, the company's CEO immediately put his money into annuities — in his wife's name.

Why? Because those assets are creditor-protected, so they can't be seized (in this case, by the government).

Related: What Does It Mean to Be "Rich"? Depends on Your Age

This is just one example of many — remember the 14% tax rate Mitt Romney paid on his $13 million income? — illustrating how extremely wealthy people get the most from their money. And most of them do it legally.

Much of their success comes from knowing where to find loopholes in the financial system — "hacks," if you will. While we would never recommend any illegal or dishonest money moves (seriously, don't break the law!), there are a handful of legal personal finance hacks that are available to all of us — like these seven incredibly useful, low-profile tricks.

Hack #1: Borrow Against Your Home's Equity

This hack is for homeowners, but it's good for everyone to know about, should you ever decide to buy a home.

How It Works: Instead of having the bank front you the money you need through a personal loan, you borrow against your home's equity. (As a reminder, equity is the difference between the total of your mortgage and the appraised value of your home.)

The benefit here is two-fold: Since you've already been approved for a mortgage, the process will be less involved for this loan. You'll need to get your home appraised, but your lender should be able to walk you through the process. Second, interest payments on home equity loans are typically tax-deductible, unlike interest on personal loans.

Lenders probably won't give you an amount equivalent to the entire equity — you'll get more like 75 percent, at most. But if you have equity of $100,000, that's $75,000 you may be able to borrow. This is a great option if A) you're planning to stay in your home for a while and B) your home is worth more than what you paid for it.

Read on for more.

Find out if you're on the right track with this guide from LearnVest that tells you the money and career tasks you need to do in each decade of your life.

For many of us, January is littered with a motley assortment of resolutions.

Instead of willing yourself to give up chocolate, while saving an extra $500 a month and finally learning Chinese, try whittling down the list to what really matters.

We've come up with some of the most important things that will keep you on track for a bright fiscal future. In other words, these are tasks that will set you up to have a great 2013 straight through to 2025.

Related: How the $0 Day Can Help You Reach Your Financial Goals

And since our readers are all unique and in different life stages, we took the theme of "years" to a whole new level: Here are the top five things you should do in each decade of your life, from your 20s to your 60s and beyond.

5 Things to Do in Your 20s . . .

1. Build an Emergency Fund

When you're young, saving up for a huge financial safety net can feel daunting, but emergencies, like job loss, can also be daunting. We recommend that you save at least six months' net income in a high-yield savings account that's reserved just for true emergencies. Once you've saved that amount, you're done. So make it happen!

2. Pay Off Your Credit Card Debt

We know how easy it is to get into credit card debt, but make it a goal to be debt-free by the time you hit 30. Not only does credit card debt seriously weigh down your credit score, but it also compounds continuously, so it just builds and builds. Need help? Try LearnVest's Get Out of Debt Bootcamp.

3. Take the Job You Love

We don't want to make any assumptions about what your family structure looks like in your 20s, but if there's ever a time to follow your passion and take the job of your dreams, it's when you're young and don't yet have a ton of financial obligations. Will that make you feel financially insecure? That's why you need that emergency fund!

Read on for more.

Retirement might be a long-term financial responsibility, but it should not be overlooked. LearnVest warns us about these lies we tell ourselves when it comes to saving for the future.

Retirement is one of our biggest financial challenges for three reasons:

1. The sum we have to save for retirement is bigger than for any other financial goal.

2. When we prioritize our desires, retirement never wins on urgency, making it easy to keep putting off.

3. Saving for retirement is the financial equivalent of an ultramarathon. (Any of you run an ultramarathon, recently?) When saving to buy a house or to pay for your child’s college education, you might save for five or 15 years, but for retirement, you have to save decade over decade.

RELATED: Why Retirement Is Harder For Women

If just reading that list is making you sweat, we understand.

According to a nationwide survey conducted by LearnVest and Chase Blueprint, Americans’ number one financial worry is whether or not we’ll be able to save enough for retirement. About one-third of men and women cite that as their top concern over, for instance, paying down debt, having enough money to live comfortably and having enough to provide for their children.

Read on for more.

The first step to being ready for retirement is to start young. Kiplinger shares some steps you should take when you turn 30.

At last, you've gotten your career on course and are ready for your next big moves -- perhaps starting a family and buying a home. Before you get too far down that road, map out a long-term plan, says Jim Oliver, a certified financial planner in San Antonio, Tex. "Most people live the lifestyle they want without putting away enough to meet the goals they want later on. It's like having a budget for a trip and not allocating it. Before the trip is over, they run out of money."

Prepare for contingencies. If you haven't done so already, fuel an emergency fund with enough to cover at least six months' worth of basic expenses. That cushion can prevent you from raiding your retirement accounts after a layoff or keep you from borrowing your way out of a crisis. "Debt is the number-one problem that sabotages most couples," says Deborah Fox, of Fox Financial Planning Network, in San Diego.

Before you have children, contribute as much as you can to your 401(k), but don't neglect the Roth IRA, says Barry Korb, of Lighthouse Financial Planning. "It's costing you in taxes now, but down the road, that money is tax-free. Do it while you can afford it." Keep contributing at least 15% of your gross income toward retirement savings, says Nicholas Yrizarry, of Wealth Management Group, in Laguna Beach, Cal. Once the kids arrive, you'll likely have to pull back if one spouse leaves the workforce or to pay for child-care costs. Either way, "the reality is you can't do 15% of gross income because it's not there anymore."

Read on for more.

Retirement is something to look forward to in life, but the financial aspect is something to be aware of. Our friends at Kiplinger share some tips on retirement for women.

For women heading toward retirement, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is they’re likely to be blessed with long life. The bad news: they may not be able to afford it.

That, in effect, is the conclusion of a recent study by the US General Accounting Office. Despite the increase in women’s workforce-participation rates over the past two decades, the poverty rate in 2010 for women 65 and older was nine percent — nearly twice the rate for men, at five percent. And while six percent of widowers lived in poverty, 12 percent of widows were poor.

According to the GAO report, women have a tougher time saving for retirement in part because they take time out from the workforce to care for family members, and when they do work, they have lower earnings than men. Other studies bear this out: women who are 50 to 69 have about 20 percent less in retirement savings than men in that age group, according to a recent report by the ING Retirement Research Institute. Another report notes that while half of baby-boomer men have retirement savings of at least $200,000, only 35 percent of female boomers have that level of savings.

Women who are five to 10 years from retirement can take some steps to improve their financial readiness. Many of these moves can apply to women of all ages.

Read on for more.

Ever wonder if moving will help your circumstances? LearnVest sheds a light on why one family is leaving the US for a better life.

What does the "American Dream" mean to you?

For most people, it means if you work hard, you can raise a beautiful family, own a comfortable home, send your children to college, and eventually retire.

But with the economy still reeling from the recent recession, that dream has been shaken for many — especially those who saw their retirement investments plummet in the stock market.

Once the American Dream fails you, what's the next step?

For one woman, the answer is a little unconventional: she's moving to Ecuador. Why would a 58-year-old woman and her husband leave their five grown children behind in the US for a small South American country? For starters . . . it's a lot cheaper.

RELATED: How to Budget When You Have a Low-Paying Job

Check out our Q&A with Denise Toepel to found out why she's packing her bags in October 2013:

You say you can't afford the American Dream anymore. What do you mean?
Denise Toepel: Two years ago, I was laid off from my position in client services and quality control at an insurance company. My job was given to the person I trained, who was willing to work for half of what I was paid.

Losing this source of income has made my life with my husband in Denver, CO, increasingly unaffordable. During the recession, we lost around 70 percent of our 401(k)s, or around half a million dollars. And now that we're nearing retirement age (I'm 58 and my husband's 55), my loss of income — I was making around $60,000 a year — has made retirement in the US seem like an impossible dream.

I've been applying for jobs in my field since getting laid off, but nothing's come of it. I've hired a career consultant, who's helped send out résumés, but no bites. I guess it makes more sense to hire younger workers who can afford to earn less money at their age. Now I do odd jobs — I work for Warner Bros. doing audience testing for upcoming movies, and I sell clothing on Etsy — but these barely make any money at all.

Read on for more.

Be savvy about your retirement. Kiplinger gives eight compelling reasons for getting a Roth IRA account now.

Smart young savers know to participate in their companies' 401(k)s as soon as they join the workforce to benefit from as many years of saving and compounding as possible (see Why You Need a 401(k) Right Away). But really smart young savers — including all of you who read Starting Out, obviously — should know to save via a Roth IRA, too.

In fact, the Roth IRA is such an important retirement investment tool that it now has its own holiday. On March 27, Jeff Rose, financial planner and GoodFinancialCents.com blogger, hosted an online event, the Roth IRA Movement, which he plans to make an annual celebration. He rallied 145 other personal-finance writers to spread the good word about the star savings account and inspire rookie investors to open their own accounts. "Overall, the turnout was awesome," says Rose. "Several people have already e-mailed me and said that someone they know opened a Roth IRA because of reading a post about it."

Here are some of our favorite lessons to take away from the inaugural Roth IRA Movement:

1. You can open a Roth no matter how young you are, as long as you have earned income. Peter Anderson points out in his Roth IRA Movement contribution, 10 Reasons Why I Love the Roth IRA (And Why You Should Too): "There isn't an age limit to have a Roth IRA, so even your children can have one!" They can, that is, as soon as they make money working, whether it be babysitting, lawn mowing, working retail or whatever.

And it's super-easy to open a Roth through your bank. Or you can try one of Kiplinger's favorite online brokers. TD Ameritrade requires no minimum initial investment and charges no maintenance fees. For your application, you'll just need your Social Security number, your employer's name and address, your checking or savings account number and bank routing number (if you want to fund the Roth IRA electronically), and your beneficiary's address and Social Security number.

Read on for more.

We all face different money issues at every life stage, so figure out what you need to save for with this helpful Wise Bread guide.

The recession has pushed almost all of us, regardless of age, a decade behind in building personal wealth. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re in your 20s and haven’t paid off student loans, or in your late 30s or early 40s and still paying off debt or saving up for a down payment. If your retirement account isn’t where you’d like it to be in your 50s, do the best you can to build it up. What matters is doing the best you can to make sound financial decisions so you can enjoy the important things in life without worrying too much about money. Here are few tips for women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s on saving and building wealth.

RELATED: 37 Savings Changes You Can Make Today

In Your 20s

I can’t stress this enough — start saving early. Even if you think you’re broke, give up lattes twice a week and put the $25 a month you save into a retirement account. The hilarious truth of the matter is that the earlier you start saving, when you can least afford it, the harder that money works for you to earn interest. Investing just five percent of a $40,000 salary annually from age 25 to 65 can pay off big in the long run. Assuming a six percent rate of return, at age 65, you’d have $479,241 in your 401(k), thanks to the magic of compound interest. Invest 10 percent of a $40,000 salary, and that number grows to $830,678 by age 65.

On to credit card debt, especially important in your 20s. I know about this one first hand. I thought I had a great handle on my credit card spending in my early 20s. So great, in fact, that over the next several years I didn’t bat an eyelash at charging multiple plane tickets to Europe, rounds of drinks with friends, and several pairs of new shoes.

Several years later, I was still paying it off. The only way I dug myself out of debt was to get a second job in addition to my full-time job while I was finishing school. That meant a 60-plus-hour workweek, no social life, no excess spending, little sleep, and a lot of headaches for over a year. Trust me, you do not want to put yourself through the stress that excess debt causes. Before you whip out the credit card to travel or go out or buy a new gadget, ask yourself if you really need it. Force yourself to spend responsibly. If you want to travel, set aside 10 percent of your earnings and take one great trip a year.

Read on to find out more.

Does the topic of retirement make you scratch your head? LearnVest breaks it down for you in simple terms.

You know what’s awesome?

Retirement.

No, really. Imagine it: Waking up every day to head to your favorite yoga/art/synchronized swimming class. Catching up with friends daily. Starting (and finishing) every book or movie that catches your eye.

It’s the ultimate extended vacation, and the best part is, by the time you get there, you’ve already paid for it. You know how that happened? You started today.

No, really, today. There’s an important deadline you need to know: April 17th. This year, it’s the deadline to contribute money to a Roth or traditional IRA for 2011—in other words, if you didn’t get around to saving the maximum you could for retirement last year, you still have this window to do so. (The maximum contribution for 2011 is $5,000—unless you’re over age 50, in which case you may contribute up to $6,000.)

RELATED: What’s the Difference Between an IRA and a 401(k)?

Now that you know that, want to make sure you’re on the right track for retirement? Don’t worry, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know, right here and now.

So go ahead, start stocking up on sketchbooks.

Your Options

To set the stage, let’s refresh our memories about the main types of retirement accounts available to us. There are three: the 401(k), the traditional IRA and the Roth IRA.

401(k)

A 401(k) is a free retirement account you can only get through an employer, and it holds money taken directly from your paycheck. Sometimes, said employer also contributes money to your retirement fund—that’s called “matching.” Traditional 401(k) plans grow tax-deferred, meaning that you’ll pay taxes when you take the money out, not when you put the money in.

Read on for more.