College costs are spiraling to the point where a four-year major college education is approaching or exceeding the cost of your house. Like many Americans, you may not be able to foot the entire cost of a college education, but a prudent savings plan can reduce the amount of aid your child will have to
Investing & Retiring
You can finally see retirement in the horizon – lounging on the beach, jetting around the world, or puttering around in your backyard. Whatever your goals are, you will soon be realizing them, assuming you have saved and invested wisely. How should your investments be rebalanced as you approach your retirement goals? The answer to
Ever since you were a child, you were told to save your money. But as an adult, you are told that saving money, as opposed to investing it, isn’t always the best strategy. What’s the real story?
You should, of course, maintain a liquid safety net and manage your debts wisely. But sitting on a
Saving for your child or grandchild’s higher education is one of the most important investments you can make for his or her future. To make saving for college easier, the 529 plan was created. Named after section 529 of the Internal Revenue code, it is a federal-income-tax-free savings plan to be used for qualified educational
Retirees fear running out of money, and rightly so. This can happen to you in three ways – you fail to accumulate enough retirement assets, unexpected expenses drain your retirement funds, or you outlive your expected lifespan (and therefore, your money). You can reduce the possibility of the last one by purchasing a deferred-income annuity.
Losing weight is hard. You can go for several days with significant progress and then fall victim to the Ben and Jerry’s taunting you from the freezer. Some extra incentive could help you maintain a healthier lifestyle, and for most of us, cash does the job nicely. Imagine that you would have to pay extra
Homeowners who have retired or who are close to retiring and still have a mortgage may have concerns about their finances. While many do pay off their mortgage before retiring, those who purchased a home later in life with a 30-year mortgage or who have had to refinance their home for some reason may find
Whether you believe it is a good trend or a bad one, the number of households that receive benefits from the Federal Government has almost reached the halfway mark.
Welfare Dependence Keeps Growing According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 152.9 million out of 308.9 million total Americans received some form
For most Americans, a prolonged period of unusually low oil prices is a positive. It costs less to fill your tank at the gas station, and lower transportation costs keep the price of goods relatively low. However, there are a few people who are not happy to see low oil prices — led by those
The 80% rule is one of the classic rules of thumb for retirement advice. Financial planners often advise that in order to maintain your current lifestyle in retirement, you should aim to replace 80% of your working income from your retirement resources such as Social Security, investment dividends, and IRA withdrawals. From that point, you
You are struggling just to pay your monthly bills, not to mention dealing with the occasional car breakdown, home maintenance item, or unexpected medical bill. You have had to resort to high-interest short-term payday loans to fill the gap, which puts you even further in debt. How can you even think about saving money in
Financial news is filled with references to the Federal Reserve, especially given the recent interest rate hike and the hundreds of articles on the effect of the Fed’s actions. But do you know what the Fed really is and how it came to be?
The Federal Reserve is the federal government’s central banking system. Created
If you ever wanted to achieve the level of wealth that allows you to hide a large amount of it within the iconic Swiss bank account, you are now officially out of luck. Feel free to target great wealth, but do not expect to be able to evade taxes by parking your assets offshore in
Nobody wants to think about his or her own death,
but you owe it to your loved ones to have a sound plan for your assets to avoid
extra expense and aggravation when you pass away. Let’s take a few minutes to review three of
the biggest mistakes you can make in estate planning.
Disaster planning is a critical exercise for most businesses. The idea is to devise contingency plans for the continued ongoing operation of the company in the event of a major storm, fire, terrorist attack or other natural or man-made disaster.
In the same way, individuals should do some financial disaster planning so they can be
When they hear the term “estate planning,” many people immediately think that this doesn’t apply to them because they aren’t “rich.” But you don’t have to be wealthy to have an estate.
The fact is, if you own anything — a home or other real estate, automobile(s), investments, checking and savings accounts or life insurance,
Classically, a pension is a retirement plan where a company or governmental entity sets aside contributions for its employees’ future retirement needs. These funds are invested to increase the available money pool used to meet those future obligations. But over the past 50 years, the definition of pension has expanded to include retirement plans where
Financial professionals have a greater understanding of the value of social media and are seeing dividends from increased use of social media. That is the essence of the findings from the annual Financial Professionals Social Media Adoption Study from American Century Investments.
The vast majority of financial professionals have at least some experience with social
The U.S. economy has been slowly climbing out of the effects of the Great Recession, but new milestones suggest that we are finally turning the corner toward full recovery. A recent study by The Pew Charitable Trusts noted one such milestone. In a majority of states, inflation-adjusted state tax revenues have topped pre-recession levels.
Using
Your kids are growing fast. Before you know it, they will be entering college and looking to you for financial support. Because of the spiraling costs, it is even more important to start your college savings plans and contributions as early as possible.
State 529 plans have become one of the most popular methods for
If you have children under the age of twelve, you already know that very few of them have saving for college anywhere on the radar. It probably doesn’t crack the top one-hundred in their priority list, and may even rank below cleaning their room. However, as parents, we know how important it is to save
For most people, the death of a spouse is the most traumatic event imaginable. Nevertheless, as bad as the emotional trauma can be, the financial trauma is often equivalent — and can last for much longer — if widows and widowers do not take the right financial steps in the immediate aftermath of their spouse’s
Investing in classic cars is an excellent way to make money if you know what you are doing, and it is an even better way to lose money if you do not.
Recent returns on classic cars are attractive. The Historic Automobile Group Index (HAGI), a tracker of exotic cars, reported a 39% increase in
529 plans are an excellent method to save for a college education. They are state-operated investment accounts that allow anyone to contribute after-tax dollars toward your child’s education. Earnings build up tax free, and remain so if they are used for qualified educational purposes.
However, if funds are withdrawn for non-educational purposes, the earnings portion
“Superfund” is the federal government’s program to clean up the nation’s uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
But superfunding a 529 plan isn’t about waste at all. Ironically, learning about superfunding will help your children to learn.
529 plans are very useful and flexible mechanisms for saving for college. They are state-operated investment accounts that let
What makes a painting worth $100 million or more? It only takes one thing — a buyer who likes it enough to pay that high of a price. The fame of the artist and an alluring backstory play a role, as does an appraisal from experts in the field, but in the end it boils
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a hybrid of stocks and indexed mutual funds. They are purchased through brokers and traded through exchanges just as a stock would be, but they represent a basket of holdings designed to track a particular index or price. The underlying asset could be stocks, bonds, commodity contracts, real estate, precious
Thinking about setting up a trust for your family? Human nature being what it is, you might want to keep your options open by setting up a trust that you can change or cancel at any time. If your formerly sweet granddaughter tells you she is devoting her life to Satan worship, for example, you
Is a will sufficient for your estate, or should you consider a trust? Before addressing this question, let’s review trusts and what they do.
A trust transfers legal title to property to a trustee, who manages the assets of that trust during your lifetime (if it is a living trust) and distributes or manages the
A trust is a legal arrangement where a person or company (the trustee) has the legal title to property for another person. If you set up a trust while you are still alive, this is called a living trust.
The trustee has legal rights of management and is expected to manage the trust assets for