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Should you start Social Security benefits early? There are reasons you should.
Most financial advisors extol the virtues of delaying your Social Security benefit until at least your full retirement age – 66 or 67 depending on when you were born. Many also recommend waiting even later because your benefit amount continues…
How do you secretly feel about your retirement?
What your retirement looks like to others may not be what you’re feeling inside. Can you really afford to retire? Will you or do you have enough money to last? Are you retired but feeling bored and unchallenged? You might be…
Retirement reality check: Here’s what you need to know.
So much has been written about how to plan for retirement, and especially how much money you should have saved, that it’s hard to boil it down to those few crucial things to focus on. Some pundits suggest you should…
A crucial planning question: What will your lifestyle be like in retirement?
With so much emphasis on the financial aspects of retirement planning, we often forget to ask ourselves how we will live our lives after working. Many of us have worked more or less our entire adult lives, and coming to…
How to fine-tune your retirement plan.
Your car needs an occasional tuneup, and so does your retirement plan. Now is the time to fine-tune your retirement plan by taking a holistic approach, looking at both your financial and retirement lifestyle needs, to lead you to a more comfortable…
Social Security – History and Future
COLA increases in the early years were from 8% to 14%, compared to recent years which have seen relatively meager, or even zero, increases. And even with today’s increased life expectancy, many people won’t receive as much in total benefits as…
Retirement savings goals can seem unreachable, but don’t despair.
There are all sorts of financial advice columns and tools that will tell you to save 10%,15%, 20% or more for your future retirement. But the needs of everyday life when you’re in your working years can often make those numbers…
New to Medicare or thinking of changing your coverage? Avoid these “traps”.
Medicare’s Open Enrollment period started on October 15th and runs through December 7th. This is the time for anyone enrolled in Medicare to evaluate their existing coverage and consider if they need to change. But there are pitfalls that many new enrollees…
Will Congress act to hold down Medicare premiums?
Without Congressional action in this year’s “lame duck” session, Medicare Part B premiums could soar for about 15 million people not protected by Social Security’s hold harmless provision. These are the people who will be enrolling in Medicare for the first…
Here’s how to be financially secure in retirement.
Maintaining your financial security in retirement is a matter of planning and sticking to that plan. That means doing detailed analyses of both your income and your expenses, managing your investments, and knowing your limitations. This US News article by…