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Aligning Your Retirement Plan with Your Values
For many folks, planning for retirement is fundamentally a financial matter. The focus is on accumulating the financial resources needed to sustain livelihood during the “golden” years of retirement. But for a segment of future retirees, there is interest in…
A health savings account should be incorporated into your retirement plan
Even with Medicare, health care represents a prominent category of spending for those in retirement. But what if you can tap into another account besides your retirement savings to pay for your various medical costs? A health savings account can…
How to create a written retirement plan
Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies states only one in four workers have taken the simple but essential step of making a written retirement plan. A written retirement plan will let you know how much you need to avoid living a…
The danger of raiding your retirement plan
The CARES Act was passed to provide much needed relief for those individuals that were impacted by COVID-19 pandemic by boosting weekly unemployment benefits, allowed for a one-time stimulus payment, and gave savers the option to tap their 401(k) s…
There are reasons why you may want to consider working later in life
A new survey by TD Ameritrade is reporting 14 percent of Americans have decreased their retirement plan contributions and 15 percent have delayed retirement altogether. Also 51 percent of Americans realize they may now retire with less money than expected…
Millennials Are Making This Risky Move With Their Retirement Savings
Withdrawing or borrowing money from their 401k plans is becoming all too common among Millennials. A recent report from The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found this cohort most likely of any demographic group to tap into their retirement accounts; about one in three have done…
What your 21% cut in Social Security benefits means in detail
As Christy Bieber notes, with an average benefit of just $1,503 per month in 2020, a retiree today barely stays above the poverty level. Deduct $316, which is 21%, and seniors would become paupers practically overnight. But that is the scenario all retirees…
The Only Way That Social Security Pays Retirees Nothing
Brenton Smith, who writes nationally on Social Security issues, reviews a sometimes talked about concept where workers who want out of the Social Security program would be free to leave. He explains this is an impossible choice given how the program…
Social Security ‘Retirement Test’ Gets a Failing Grade
Tom Margenau gives a thorough explanation of the origins, the rationale, and the annual earnings test in practice. It is sometimes called the “retirement test” or as the author puts it, the Social Security earnings penalty, of which he is no…
Half of Retirees Pay Tax on Social Security Benefits
Despite a 2017 tax reform law, half of retirees pay income tax on their Social Security benefits, and that number has been the same for the past several years. The numbers may grow, as the thresholds for when tax kicks…