Retirement

Do you ever feel ovewhelmed in trying to be available for your aging parents while trying to keep your own work/life/family together? You want to be a loving adult child, but some parents can be very demanding. They might expect you to be at their beck and call and you feel gulity if you say

Many estate plans aren’t as solid as the estate owners and their families believe. Key defects are widespread. The imperfect estate plans either won’t deliver the expected results or meeting their goals will cost significantly more than anticipated. Be alert to the possibility that your estate plan has one or more of these gaps. Letting

If retirement is on your radar, you might be wondering if you should retire next year. Your decision when to retire can be life changing and will influence your quality of life for the rest of your life. As such, let’s look at the factors that might influence exactly when you retire. Is 2025 A

Thanksgiving dinner is more than a national and family ritual. It is a check-in of the family Board of Directors. Yes, every family has what is effectively a Board of stakeholders with emotional, physical, and, yes, financial interests in the well-being of older loved ones. So, while you may be passing the squash and cutting

While becoming a millionaire may seem impossible, the good news is anyone can become a 401(k) millionaire if given enough time. According to Fidelity, almost 500,000 401(k) millionaires are on its platform alone. That figure doesn’t include all 401(k) millionaires (those combining assets in retirement accounts). Keep reading as we share the reasonably easy steps

The approaching holidays provide a great opportunity to gain valuable insights that will help you better plan your retirement. Instead of enduring awkward silences or rehashing politics, ask your retired friends and relatives thoughtful questions about their life in retirement. It’s win-win—you’ll avoid tense topics, and your relatives and friends will appreciate the chance to

I’ve been in the financial advisory business for roughly 28 years—and for 28 of those years, I’ve had a challenging relationship with the notion of “business development”—or the shadier moniker by which it is also known, “sales.” This has been such a tenuous relationship because many of us in the industry—and all of the advisors

Congress and the IRS made inheriting an IRA a very complicated, confusing event. Inherited IRAs are accompanied by a host of little-known rules that are traps for the unwary, and that’s before considering the end of the Stretch IRA and the creation of the 10-year rule that were enacted in the Setting Every Community Up

Prepaying income tax on a retirement account might be a good idea. Or it could be a really bad idea. Read this before pulling the trigger. By William Baldwin, Senior Contributor Your financial advisor may be all fired up about prepaying tax on an IRA, converting it into a totally tax-free Roth IRA. Is this

If you’ve never encountered the term “decumulation,” you’re probably asking, “Decumu-what???” For most of your investing life, you’ve been focused on accumulation investing, building wealth over time by maximizing your investment returns for a given level of risk. You’ve had the luxury of longer time horizons and the ability to weather the consequences of short-term

Holidays may bring you into face-to-face contact with your aging parents and other loved ones. Maybe you’ve been meaning to talk with them for future planning. You hesitate because they’re stubborn and resistant to the whole subject. You’ve put it off. Now you may have an opportunity.Perhaps your aging parents are fiercely independent, resistant to

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the 2025 inflation-adjusted amounts for Medicare Parts A, B, and D. The base monthly premium for Part B will be $185.00, an increase of $10.30 (5.9%) from $174.70 in 2024. The premium is adjusted each year so that, based on the projected expenses of Medicare Part

The Inflation Reduction Act is having quite an impact on 2025 Part D prescription drug coverage. One initiative, the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, is similar to an installment payment plan. This allows a drug plan enrollee to spread costs out over the year. You can find examples relevant to you in the Medicare Plan Finder.

Spousal benefits are commonly called family benefits; benefits available to family members. Let’s start with spousal benefits in order to truly understand ex-spousal benefits. Current spouses are eligible to receive 50% of their spouses Primary Insurance Amount at their full retirement age. For spousal benefits to be available to a current spouse, you need to

This year, California took the second of two steps to allow residents with unlimited assets to participate in its Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS) program. Advocates hoped the move would make the program far more widely available. Conservative critics feared it would become a budget-busting open door for the wealthy to take advantage of

Having the option to take an early retirement is a really nice thing to have. But how much money do you need to retire at 55? If you want to retire early, you’ll need a solid plan, control over your expenses, and savings outside of retirement accounts. Here’s how to find out if you can

Many financial advisors and economists with in-depth knowledge of Social Security recommend that people delay claiming their retirement benefits for as long as possible, preferably until age 70 when benefits are maximized. But only 10% of pre-retirees intend to wait until age 70 to claim the maximum monthly benefit. A significant majority won’t even wait

After retirement, people have self-reported that they miss the people more than the position or money. Not only are they more limited in social interaction, but as we get older our circle of friends naturally shrinks because of deaths, moves, or lack of effort. In this Forbes article, I describe the loneliness epidemic and the

Some of the most profound truths are those, once revealed, that seem self-evident. And that may also be the most potent gift possessed by the greatest writers and thinkers—the ability to reveal something we already know with such clarity that we can act on it. One of my favorite contemporary thinkers, Shane Parrish, recently shared

It’s Medicare Open Enrollment Period. As I wrote earlier, Open Enrollment this year is unusually important because of significant changes in Medicare Advantage and Part D prescription drug plans. Medicare is complicated, and most people have numerous options. The big changes this year make it especially important to seek help in evaluating the choices. I