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Retirement Planning: It’s a Good Time to Check Your Savings Strategy
One of the best ways to do that is to make certain that you are taking the maximum advantage of the opportunities to built up your future reserves using options available to you. For example, mid-year is a good time…
Thoughts for Those Struggling on Social Security as Their Primary Income Source
The absence of adequate savings to compensate for the shortfalls between Social Security benefits and living expense is a problem widely covered in the media, especially as Social Security’s looming solvency crisis grinds forward. In fact, for the 12% to…
Formula Changes–and an Adjustment–in the Wind for WEP-affected Retirees?
A post today on myfederalretirement.com highlights the reintroduced legislation to reform Social Security’s Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). As the post explains, the bill (H.R. 4260) would provide a $150/month payment to those WEP-affected retirees currently in drawing benefits, and would change the…
On the Issue of Social Security Means Testing…
One of the ideas being explored these days is the thought that Social Security benefits for the ultra-wealthy should be perhaps curtailed or even eliminated. It’s not necessarily a new thought, since it has come up more than once over…
Retirement Planning: Be Aware of How Benefits Are Taxed
It often comes as a surprise to the newly retired to find out that a significant portion of their Social Security benefits are subject to federal income tax. And if their cash flow planning has not taken that into account,…
Subtle Missteps That Can Lead to You Short-Changing Yourself on the Benefits Front
Even today, it’s surprising that many folks still are not fully aware of some of the very basic aspects that govern the amount of benefit they will be able to draw from Social Security. For example, our AMAC Foundation Social…
The On-Going “When to File” Debate…Another Perspective
One of the most persistent questions we receive here at the AMAC Foundation Social Security Advisory Service is deceptively simple: “When should I begin drawing my earned Social Security benefit?” And as frustrating as it may seem to our callers,…
Retirement Thinking: Is A Half-Million Dollars Enough?
To many people, having a half million dollars set aside for retirement sounds like it should be sufficient to ensure a reasonable retirement. But is it? In order to answer that question, there are a number of factors that need…
Some Little-Known Social Security Provisions/Rules That Might Be of Interest
Social Security has a bewildering collection of regulations governing the manner in which benefits can be drawn, but many of them deal with very unique situations. There are a few, however, that are often overlooked in their obscurity even though…
Social Security Benefits and the Divorced: Some Important Facts
With a recent survey by MassMutual noting that a surprising number of Americans are not clear on the rules surrounding Social Security benefits available to divorced spouses, a post by Aman Jain on valuewalk.com can play an informative role in…