Seven age milestones that will impact your retirement planning As you travel the savings road toward retirement and beyond, certain key dates will pop up. Some of these dates are critically important to your retirement planning efforts. Taking the right retirement planning steps as you reach each of the following age milestones could help [...]
In projecting what you’ll need to save in order to generate enough retirement income, it helps to (1) prepare a realistic household budget and (2) understand what types of expenses you’ll have once you stop earning a regular paycheck. Types of Expenses Fixed Expenses – “Must Haves” Mortgage or rent Taxes (income and property) Car [...]
Here are the facts. Generally speaking, women earn less than men, live longer than men, and often take time out of the workforce to have children and/or to care for an aging parent or sick loved one. The potential consequence of these realities? While most U.S. workers are facing a retirement savings deficit, for women, [...]
A key goal of investing for retirement is making sure you save enough to make your money last throughout your lifetime. On this score, women may need to save more than men. The current life expectancy of a female at birth is roughly 81.3 years, compared with 76.5 years for a male.1 Although five years [...]
About 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 each day. A Baby Boomer is a term that denotes a person who was born between 1946 and 1964. The Baby Boomer represents nearly 20% of the American public. The large numbers of Baby Boomers turning 65 each year could have a direct impact on the future of the [...]
Could you possibly arrange multiple income sources? On average, women receive 23% less Social Security income than men. In 2014 (the most recent year of data available), the average yearly Social Security benefit for a woman 65 or older was $13,150, compared to $17,106 for her male counterpart.1 This is one example of the [...]
Adapting your retirement strategy (and outlook) may be necessary. Involuntary retirement can be emotionally and financially unsettling. Here are some questions to ask yourself if it happens. Do you want to keep working? You may have to rely on your spouse or partner’s income—or your emergency fund—for many months if you look for another full-time [...]
The Social Security Administration has stopped mailing out most yearly statements, but you can estimate your retirement benefit online. With growing uncertainty about the future of Social Security funding, the Social Security Administration (SSA) suspended most mailings of its annual statements. Previously, the SSA had sent all working Americans an annual statement about three months before [...]
Five years before they retire, older workers start focusing seriously on the big changes ahead, says Emily Guy Birkin, in her book, The 5 Years Before You Retire: Retirement Planning When You Need It the Most. In those last few years, you can get a lot done. Here is a countdown of some of the tasks [...]
Recent changes in the tax law could affect your benefits. Laws that were enacted as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 included several new rules that might affect your Social Security and other tax benefits. End to Social Security “file and suspend” option Under the IRS file and suspend option, married couples could [...]
