Retirement

I’ve mentioned it before, but it surely bears repeating — successful retirement is about re-building your life from the ground up, replacing the structure and sense of purpose that is lost when you leave the workforce. To speed this process along, there are two rules to keep in mind – keep vigilant and stay motivated.

null Getty Are you ready for Medicare’s Open Enrollment? It’s coming soon, running from October 15 through December 7. If you’re age 65 or older and are eligible for Medicare, you have a golden opportunity to choose wisely regarding your coverage or correct any previous mistakes you might have made regarding your Medicare elections. You

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and 2020 presidential candidate, waves at the Des Moines Register Soapbox during the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019. The 2020 Democratic field is gathering © 2019 Bloomberg Finance LP It may seem as if Elizabeth Warren, like Bernie Sanders, has

Energy stocks are en fuego again after a drone strike on a Saudi oil facility. We’re going to (as usual) skip the geopolitical talk and discuss oil dividends that will benefit from this disruption. While “buy and hope” investors ponder basic ways to play the spike, you and I know that about half of energy

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 18: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference after a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on September 18, 2019 in Washington, DC. Getty The Fed cut rates 25 basis points last week. Generally, rate drops are positive for the economy, but the market did not seem

Leveraged loans and CLOs are at record highs. Getty In the last twelve months, I have written almost thirty articles about leveraged loans and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), because these instruments are all too often illiquid and opaque. Moreover, measuring their market, credit, and market liquidity risks is difficult, especially in an economic or market

Today we’re going to dive into some of the proven indicators I use every day to forecast what’s next for the economy. Then I’ll name an off-the-radar fund holding some of the best-known growth stocks in the US. It pays an 8% dividend and is set to gain as the economy does something too few

Your bonds could get killed by rising rates. Here’s where to buy protection. Inflation is tame. Interest rates are low. Perhaps they are destined to go still lower, even into the negative territory you see in Europe. Perhaps not. There is a small but palpable risk that, sometime in the next decade or two, the

Stock exchange collectibles. Old stock share certificates from 1950s-1970s (United States). Vintage scripophily objects (obsolete). Getty So, as it turns out, Elizabeth Warren’s Social Security expansion proposal is not the only one of her plans to affect Americans’ retirement well-being. But the proposal of hers which will affect Americans’ retirement savings, in their 401(k)s and

Getty It’s 7 a.m., and, like clockwork, the Nonpolitical News digital newsletter lands in my email inbox. I’m a subscriber. After slogging through my daily morning news reading — mostly from national media outlets and my Twitter feed — this free newsletter is a breath of fresh air. It’s filled with short, breezy news highlights

null Getty It’s entirely possible that you could live for 25 to 30 years after you retire. Planning to be financially secure for the rest of a potentially long life requires making a series of complex decisions, each with high stakes. And you often won’t have a “do-over.”  If you can avoid making these seven

Retirement planning strategies change throughout our careers. While not on the cusp of retirement, as many Baby Boomers are, members of Generation-X are farther along in their career journeys than Millennials and younger generations. With less time to build their nest eggs, Gen-Xers need to pursue different strategies than workers just starting out or those

Eliminating the racial wealth gap benefits all families as it results in faster economic growth. Getty Racial equality has become a central theme of this presidential election cycle. The racial wealth gap – the massive difference in the wealth that African-Americans and whites own – has gained particular attention, in large measure because it has

Source: Stock.Adobe.com It’s time to start using your “risk-management muscles” again I continue to be astonished about something relating to the stock market, and particularly the S&P 500 Index. Specifically, I am amazed at how much wealth aimed at funding people’s retirement is sitting in vehicles tied to the fate of the broad stock market

Let’s brush aside some financial noise today, as I’d like to show you the best retirement investment you can make. I’m talking about secure dividends that’ll grow every year, fund your regular expenses today, plus grow your capital so you don’t have to ever worry about running out of money. You won’t have to worry

The new Medicare Plan Finder raises some security concerns Getty By now, most who work with the Medicare Plan Finder have had a chance to familiarize themselves with the new version. The most onerous change is that beneficiaries must log into their MyMedicare.gov account to access saved information. If they don’t have an account and they

Marijuana for sale on a cannabis tour organized by L.A.-based Green Tours, January 24, 2019. (Photo credit ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images OK, let’s get past all the jokes about aging Baby Boomers revisiting their youth and getting stoned. As the medical and recreational use of marijuana grows across the country, older adults are increasingly either

Late last July Jason Zweig and Andrea Fuller reported on the front page of The Wall Street Journal how CFP Board has failed at monitoring certificant listings at their LetsMakeAPlan.Org consumer referral website. Zweig and Fuller found certificants whose disclosure histories appeared clean on CFP Board’s site to have, among other causes for criminal felony

null Getty Last week, I promoted, in contrast to Elizabeth Warren’s Social Security plan, a basic retirement income. That’s not a pipe dream. In various other developed countries, it’s a perfectly normal way to provide Social Security benefits. So let’s take some examples from the world of state retirement systems outside the United States, drawing

Credit: Getty Royalty Free Getty During your working career but especially at retirement, you might be offered a deal where you must decide whether to take a lump sum or a series of payments stretched over time. Which is better? For answers, we turn to senior financial planners with the Planning Center—Matthew Sivertsen in Moline,