Retirement

Are you a pre-retiree or retiree who’s nervous about the recent stock market volatility? Worried that it might be the start of a stock market crash, as predicted recently by a few pundits? Unfortunately, “worry” is not a strategy! Instead, you’ll want to plan ahead to survive stock market crashes without knowing when they’ll happen,

Protecting retirement assets through analysis of various topics, such as time horizon, income needs, risk tolerance, and more, is often best discussed with a wealth advisor acting under fiduciary standards. A prudent wealth advisor closely monitors their clients’ normal activities and actions to help safeguard against potential elderly exploitation of assets. Elderly exploitation, commonly referred

Weight-loss drugs have been all the news recently. There are finally medications that can help people lose weight and that is a good thing. In recent years, obesity rates have nearly doubled among older adults in the U.S. Two of every five Americans ages 65 and older are obese. Wegovy is one drug that some

Did you know more people turn 65 each day in America than are born? And by 2030, there will be more people over 60 than those under 18? This generation of “elders” in the developed world is “the longest lived, wealthiest, healthiest, most highly educated, and largest percentage of elder population in history,” says John

When you think about retirement, you might picture sunny Florida with its warm climate and retirement communities. But it’s not the best state to retire, according to a new report from Bankrate, which just issued its annual ranking of the best states to retire in the U.S. To come up with the comprehensive analysis, Bankrate

Until recently, I’ve never been enamored with the notion of living a longer-than-average lifespan. Perhaps this is because my primary observation was that old age didn’t look all that appealing. I’d observed grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and aged family friends face a seemingly hyperbolic hill of discomfort, disease, and, ultimately, death. Sure, I wanted

Former president Donald Trump’s plan to repeal the tax on Social Security benefits would lower taxes for US households by an average of $550, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center. But that tax cut would come with a big price: By reducing Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance (HI) revenues by

Just about any Medicare beneficiary who takes prescription medications has heard about the donut hole. It has had quite an interesting history. When Part D prescription drug coverage began in 2006, those who landed in the donut hole had to pay 100% of the cost for every drug. That’s likely the reason that the official

Conventional wisdom regarding Traditional IRA’s is to not take distributions from your Traditional IRA because you will have to pay tax on it. Let the assets in your Traditional IRA continue to grow tax deferred and take distributions based on the IRS Required Minimum Distribution rules (RMD’S). Another strategy is to convert your Traditional IRA

The dreaded brain disease, Alzheimer’s, is considered difficult to diagnose. For one thing, it comes on gradually in most cases and initially has no physical symptoms like pain or trouble moving around. Doctors usually first hear that a person has some problems with short term memory. Not much happens until that gets worse. Then, they

One of the most commonly quoted pieces of investment advice (or cliché) is you want to buy low and sell high. It’s as simplistic, as it’s unhelpful. Despite the obviousness of the advice, there’s only one proven way to do this consistently: through a tactic called rebalancing. It’s an important wrinkle to remember as the

Retirement accounts are protected from creditors and lawsuits most of the time, but not all the time. You should know the circumstances when an IRA or other retirement account might be vulnerable. In general, qualified retirement accounts are protected from creditors, whether or not bankruptcy is declared, by the federal Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection

Ah, summer vacation – that blissful stretch of freedom we all crave. But what if that vacation never ended? Many people imagine that retirement might be their endless vacation. Picture this: You’re lounging on a beach, sipping a piña colada, thinking, “This must be what retirement feels like.” Hold that thought because we’re about to

If you serve as trustee for a friend or family member, you understand how much work can go into the role. There are meetings with lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors; communications with beneficiaries; and possibly even hard assets like real estate to oversee. That does not include the ongoing headache of the responsibility associated with

Sometimes aging loved ones start out in one state and then move to a different state to retire. They carefully do their estate planning where they live. That may leave trusts or other investments subject to different laws than they ever expected. This is an illustration of a real matter involving such a move and

When considering retirement, many pre-retirees and recent retirees focus on the vacation part, making plans to travel and pursue interests and hobbies. You might also be looking forward to the initial honeymoon phase of retirement, when you don’t have to wake to an alarm clock, quickly wolf down breakfast, and rush out the door to

The pain of loss has an impact on us that is at least twice as powerful as the joy of gain. This potent observation from Daniel Kahneman has implications in nearly every area of our lives, but especially in our finances, where losses and gains are so clearly illuminated numerically. We’ve discussed how financial planning

An increasingly popular way to avoid probate and other estate planning issues is the transfer on death or payable on death account. There can be more to these accounts, which I’ll refer to as TODs, than many people realize. Most financial institutions now have a specific form that is completed to designate an account as

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin N ext month, Matt Palmer, 60, and Lisa Barr, 63, a retired couple from Quincy, Mass., and Penni, their six-year-old retired racing greyhound, are moving to one-half of a two-family house they are renting with a contract to buy in Lucca, Italy, a lively Tuscany town

Fed up with high living expenses and toxic politics, more Americans are looking to move abroad. Here are the top 24 countries, and 96 recommended spots, based on costs, amenities, health care, climate risk, language, crime, and whether they welcome U.S. retirees. By William P. Barrett, Senior Contributor Colleen Kennedy is a child of Southern