Retirement

A Therapy Dog tag isolated on white. Clipping path available. Getty On a snowy afternoon a week before Christmas, a therapy dog named Koko brought the gift of her presence to a New Jersey nursing home. The beautiful Koko, four years old, fleetingly touched the lives of about 30 residents of a 70-bed nursing facility

Getty Many of the best retirement saving strategies use employer-sponsored retirement plans like a 401(k), or individual plans like an IRA or Roth IRA. These retirement savings vehicles provide credit protections, preferential tax treatment to the investments, and in some cases, sizable tax deductions for contributions.  For instance, when you save in a 401(k), you

As a bond provides a contractual right to a series of future payments received at specified points of time, the price for a bond is simply the present discounted value of the future cash flows. The face value of a bond will be repaid at maturity. A zero-coupon bond provides only a bond’s face value,

Happy senior couple during the meeting with agent or financial consultant, signing some agreement in … [+] the comfortable office Getty The Secure Act may delay the impact of Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) primarily for Traditional IRA holders approaching retirement. RMDs function as you might expect. Essentially, they require you to take a withdrawal from

Getty The SECURE Act, which will become effective January 1, 2020, could more appropriately be called the Extreme Death-Tax for IRA and Retirement Plan Owners Act. IRA and retirement plan owners should take action to protect their financial legacy, preferably before year-end.     Why The Death Of The Stretch IRA Is Important The ticking time

Introduction and Action Steps The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, called the “SECURE Act” makes significant changes to how IRAs and certain retirement benefits must be treated post-death. Rules Committee Print 116–44 Text of the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment To H.R. 1865, December 16, 2019, the “Further Consolidated Appropriations

Before we can discuss bonds in depth, it is important that we establish a common understanding of what bonds are and how they work. As a starting point, a bond is a contractual obligation to make a series of specific payments on specific dates. Typically, this includes interest payments made on a semiannual basis until

By Carol Hymowitz, Next Avenue Contributor Getty As lifespans lengthen around the world, men and women are: delaying when they marry and have children; returning to school as adults to gain skills and working beyond traditional retirement age. In countries as dissimilar as Japan and Morocco, they’re marrying five to 10 years later on average

By Grant Easterbrook, Next Avenue Contributor Getty Recently, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and E*Trade eliminated trading commissions on stocks and Exchange Traded Funds. Can you expect to see $0 fees and commissions coming soon for other financial products and services? Below is a look into the crystal ball for such prospects when you go to

By Holly Lawrence, Next Avenue Contributor Getty Two of America’s most influential advocates for caregivers, Maria Shriver and Ai-jen Poo, recently partnered on a poll that examines the state of caregiving in our country. One of the poll’s most significant findings, according to Shriver and Poo: We are a nation of caregivers in crisis, unified

Getty So much about retirement planning is about making smart money decisions to get you to the time when you’ll retire. But what about managing your money after you retire? The latest Friends Talk Money podcast episode, which you can hear wherever you get podcasts, has some advice on just that. Full disclosure: I’m one

Roth IRA strategies will be much more attractive under the new SECURE Act. Getty It’s not a surprise to find that there are several advantages to a Roth IRA: they can grow tax-free, they are not subject to Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), and they can pass tax-free to a spouse or heir. The new SECURE

shot of word retirement plan Getty The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, which passed the House in a sweeping 417-3 vote, was incorporated into an end-of-year spending bill and was signed by the President on December 20, 2019. SECURE will vastly change the way savers think about saving for

For a naturally frugal person, the decision to pursue a lifestyle that embraces financial independence retire early (FIRE) tactics isn’t necessarily a tough choice. The hard part comes with figuring out what tactics to use as you start. There are very few easy to digest guides as you adjust your savings rate to 25% or

By Donna Freedman, Next Avenue Contributor Getty “Have a side hustle” is common advice for people who want to ensure their financial survival in case their full-time job goes away, survive unemployment or help boost retirement savings. About 28% of workers have one, according to the new Gallup Great Jobs Survey. One way to launch

Senior man reading online news on smartphone outdoors. Getty Today we’re going to look ahead to 2020—and specific sectors to target for rising profits (and dividends!) in both stocks and 7%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs). We’re also going to look inside a worrisome piece of news you might have heard about 2019—that analysts expect corporate

©Nitr – stock.adobe.com How To Get The Same Return With 1/3 Less Risk…Sometimes The original commercials for Miller Lite Beer started in the 1970s. Sports stars like Mickey Mantle, entertainers like Rodney Dangerfield and others took part. One of the key lines in many of those commercials went something like this: “…and it has 1/3

Young couple is checking their finances with a smile on a face. Man is using smartphone, while woman … [+] is writing down. Getty Are you worried about a market meltdown in 2020? Fair enough–stocks went straight up for an entire decade, making a pullback more than due as we head into the 20s. Now,

Especially at Christmastime many people are inspired to do good for others. What is most impressive is when people dedicate their lives to helping those less fortunate. This story in my Great Entrepreneur Series is about an executive who found a calling and built something truly important.   Pete Brady and the Handy Dandy Handyman

This article is part of a series; click here to read Part 1. The safety-first school of thought was originally derived from academic models of how people allocate their resources over a lifetime to maximize lifetime satisfaction. Academics have studied these models since the 1920s to figure out how rational people make optimal decisions. In