Retirement

As 2021 comes to an end, now is a wonderful time to review some year-end planning strategies. Some of these ideas may apply to you, while others will not. However, it’s worth scanning the below checklist to see if there are any opportunities you’d like to discuss with your financial advisor, accountant, or attorney before

Just about everyone feels the stress about holidays and particularly family gatherings. Maybe it’s about some difficult relationships in your family. Perhaps it’s the host or hostess feeling the pressure to get everything ready for visitors. For many people, travel itself is stressful. For the family elder it may be much more than what gets

Climate change is leading to climate migration. And climate migration is creating an opportunity for global property investors. It used to be that northern California’s long and depressing rainy season started in October and continued until April with little sun in between. Summers were hot but pleasant. Today, winter days in Sacramento are often bright

By Laura Carstensen, Next Avenue Demographers predict that as many as half of the children born in the developed world since 2000 will reach the age of 100 and beyond. Once a rare event, century-long lives will become commonplace by 2050. The near doubling of life expectancy presents a range of challenges — along with yet

By Wes Moss, Next Avenue A recent Next Avenue article and “Friends Talk Money” podcast episode shared one of the principles from my new book “What the Happiest Retirees Know: 10 Habits for a Healthy, Secure, and Joyful Life.” Specifically, they highlighted my discovery that the happiest retirees generally have at least $500,000 in liquid assets

As you approach your retirement years and also soon after you retire, you face a serious of critical decisions that are often more complex, with higher stakes, than the saving and investing decisions you had to make throughout your working years. But by asking questions—of yourself and others with hard-won life experience—you have a better

A recent Tax Court Case, Smaldino V. Commissioner Of Internal Revenue, T.C. Memo. 2021-127, November 10, 2021 has lots of important lessons on how to do an estate plan properly. These lessons are particularly important for those that did planning in a rush in 2020 and 2021 fearing dramatic changes in the tax laws. Even

Roth IRA Contribution Ranges Like a traditional tax-deductible IRA, the maximum Roth IRA contribution for 2022 is $6,000, and the catch-up contribution for those 50 and older is $1,000, for a total maximum contribution of $7,000 for those age 50 or older. Keep in mind that these maximums assume you have earned income at or

Having a pile of money at your fingertips can sometimes lure you into a jungle you best not enter. The problem is that, sooner or later, you’re going to look at your retirement savings account and discover you have a big pile of money. Then, you’re going to have to fight back the urge to

Millions of people have retired during the pandemic, but the option of older workers to retire is not equally shared across population groups. For every worker that has a choice to leave the labor force when job opportunities disappear, many other workers lack that opportunity. It often comes down to having enough savings to supplement

By Richard Eisenberg, Next Avenue Editor For years, the Social Security Administration has done a pretty crummy job telling Americans how much they’ll likely receive in Social Security benefits. But I’m glad to say that the agency just replaced its text-heavy, four-page Social Security Statement with a redesigned, more useful, more visual, two-page version. As a

By Chris Farrell, Next Avenue Career transitions are hard for everyone, but the shift from military to civilian life can be particularly challenging. Soldiers coming back from the Vietnam War were too often treated as damaged goods by employers, according to research by Alair MacLean, sociology professor at Washington State University, it remains to be seen

Suppose that automobiles were marketed like retirement plans. Then the chassis, engine and tires would be marketed by different firms, and the buyer would have to put them together. Yes, this would be absurdly inefficient, yet that is exactly the case with retirement plans. The three major components – financial asset management, annuities and HECM

By Richard Harris, Next Avenue It’s been a little over two years since we lost Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs Roberts to breast cancer at age 75. The story goes that her older brother Tommy couldn’t pronounce Corinne, so he gave her the nickname “Cokie” and it stuck. But when she first came to NPR in

Would you be interested in earning 7.12% annual interest on an investment that’s guaranteed by the U.S. government? And not lock up your money for years? This is not a come-on nor is it a time machine to travel back to the good old days of higher interest rates. You can now buy Series I

The Build Back Better social spending bill the House passed this morning includes a long list of important changes aimed at improving the quality of life of older adults. There is much left to be done, and even this bill may be pared back in the Senate. But following the pandemic catastrophe for older adults,

You’d have to be living in a cave on some uncharted isle to not have heard of Bitcoin. It’s perhaps the most well-known of all the cryptocurrencies. “Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money that is designed to be secure and, in many cases, anonymous,” says Adam Bergman, CEO and Founder of IRA Financial in

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about filing options given the 2022 COLA, when survivor’s benefits can be available and determining the best options for taking spousal benefits. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See more Ask Larry answers here. Have

Private equity firms widely distribute their prospectuses and offering materials to prospective wealthy investors as they trawl globally to raise capital for their costly, high-risk funds. Yet when state and local government pension stakeholders request prospectuses of the funds in which their pensions invest, PE firms claim these very same broadly disseminated documents are “trade

It’s quite amazing to consider that in the United States, half of today’s 5-year-olds can expect to live to age 100. The extra years of life that we’ve gained over the past 100 years is one of humankind’s greatest achievements. However, these gains produce their own challenges—and opportunities. The trouble is, current norms, expectations, employer