Cops Alive | Police Stress and Health - Career Survival

If you’ve followed my writings for a while, you may have noticed my slant on financial planning for police officers is less about money and more about a rewarding and satisfying life.

Now working as a cop, you’ll remember that in order to buy that thing, you’ll have to spend X amount of hours away from your kids, your spouse, or whatever you enjoy doing, to afford it. You’ll make better buying decisions and get far more pleasure out of life.

I met Robert G. Allen author of “Cash in a Flash: Fast Money in Slow Times” that he co-wrote with Mark Victor Hansen. I was honored to meet Robert because I have read a couple of his books: “Multiple Streams of Income”, “Nothing Down”, “Cracking the Millionaire Code” (also co-written with Mark Victor Hansen) and was very impressed by his books and ideas.

To correctly estimate how much you’re worth per hour as a police officer, you need to first calculate how much time you spend doing things for work that you don’t enjoy or wouldn’t do if you didn’t have to.

how much are you trading your life in law enforcement, for in exchange for your employer’s money? Strange idea, isn’t it? But as cops we should really be doing some financial planning.

Police officers are like most people and have no idea how much they pay for investment, insurance, or retirement advice. A lot of people mistakenly assume they receive free advice. Some advisors do not explain their fees and many consumers do not take the time to ask. People in law enforcement, like most people, are usually shocked when I explain how much they’ve been paying in commissions or fees.

Most employees will receive a $400 ($800 for joint returns) tax credit in tax years 2009 and 2010. You should see this credit almost immediately in the form of reduced taxes withheld from your paycheck throughout the remainder of 2009.

Police officers like most people don’t plan their taxes and then hope for the best. If you get a larger refund than expected, you’re happy, but if you’re forced to pay taxes, you’ll be disappointed. Tax planning gets rid of these surprises and as law enforcement professionals you know we don’t like surprises!

Editors Note: Every police officer knows how ugly divorce can be from the outside looking in, but we are also often faced with it ourselves. Chuck Rylant is a working police officer and a financial planner and this article gives some useful tips that can help other law enforcement professionals avoid more pain than [...]

It is urgent that you “act now.” You need to act now to get the basics of your financial life in order; but not because of state of the economy.