Your credit score may not be good enough to allow you to qualify for a home at a reasonable interest rate, but can a less-than-stellar credit score also keep you from finding a good place to rent?
“Credit scores aren’t just about mortgages,” says Rod Griffin, Director of Public Education at the credit bureau Experian.
Investing & Retiring
Are you financially literate? How about your kids? MoneyTips can help, but there may be something special soon going on in your neighborhood to help you learn more about personal finance.
Money Smart Week®, a public awareness campaign designed to help consumers better manage their personal finances, will take place April 21-28, 2018. The effort,
By Eric Olsen Executive Director, HELPS Nonprofit Law Firm
According to the Kaiser Foundation, almost half (21 million) of American seniors have incomes below 200% of the poverty line. Many have debt they can’t afford to pay. When debt is not paid, collectors call, send demand letters, and sometimes file a lawsuit. Being served legal
America’s collective readiness for retirement is improving, according to Fidelity’s latest Retirement Savings Assessment study. The study distills America’s retirement readiness into a single score representing the percentage of estimated retirement income that the average saver will require.
According to the current study, America’s combined retirement score is 80 – meaning that the average American
How many times in life do you have to worry about removing too little money from a financial account? Before retirement, there are few such concerns – but, for most retirement plans, once you reach age 70½, you must take a required minimum distribution (RMD) every year from your plan. (Roth IRAs are excluded –
What’s in your savings account? If you’re a millennial, there’s a decent chance that there’s nothing in your account but IOUs and promises.
A 2017 survey by GoBankingRates found that 46% of millennials aged 18-24 have $0 in their savings account – a sharp increase over the 2016 survey where 31% of millennials reported empty
Should you invest in a Roth IRA instead of a traditional IRA? If you have earned income for the year, your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is less than $135,000 as a single filer and $199,000 for married filing jointly, a Roth IRA is a valid option for you.
If your MAGI is less than
Contributing to a retirement account can be difficult for lower income households, but one can argue that it is even more important for those families to take advantage of all the retirement savings options that are possible. One of the lesser-known options applies directly to lower-income families – the credit for qualified retirement savings contributions,
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you should receive 1095 forms along with the W-2, 1099, and other tax forms that you receive from employers and financial institutions. The 1095 forms verify your health care insurance status for tax purposes. 1095-A forms debuted in 2015, while taxpayers received 1095-B or 1095-C forms for the
By Roshni Chowdhry, innovation & product development lead at SafetyNet
The idea of being rich appeals to most of us. What’s not to like about a world where your only money trouble is how to spend it? Plus, in a world where money is plentiful, you’re free to do all kinds of exciting things most
The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) gave most Americans a break on their upcoming taxes – but you don’t need legislation to cut your taxes even further with sound investment strategies that focus on tax optimization.
Here are a few ways to help yourself at Uncle Sam’s expense.
1. Shift Toward Capital
In 1996, the Small Business Job Protection Act created 529 savings plans: state-administered programs designed to help parents save for their children’s future college costs. In a 529 plan, deposited funds are allowed to grow free of federal and state taxes and growth remains tax-free as long as the money is used for qualified educational
If you have planned properly, retirement can open up a wide set of new possibilities. You can take up new pastimes, travel to foreign lands – and perhaps even retire there. There are many countries with reasonable costs of living, expat communities that would be happy to welcome you, and friendly locals if you want
If you have done your homework leading into retirement, you probably already know that Social Security benefits may be subject to federal taxes under certain circumstances. Did you know that some states also impose taxes on Social Security?
Currently there are thirteen states that impose at least some tax on the benefits of Social Security
The average retirement age in the United States has ticked up over the past decade. As you can see in the chart below, as of 2014, the average retirement age increased to 62 and the expected age of retirement is now at 66.
If you look at the state of retirement savings these days, the
According to Collegedata.com, the average annual cost of tuition and fees for the 2017-2018 school year was $9,970 at an average public college for in-state residents. Out-of-state collegians paid an average of $25,620, while those attending private colleges saw average bills of $34,740.
Throw in a typical $10,000-$12,000 for housing and meals, another $1,200 for
In many facets of life, experience is the best instructor. So, MoneyTips asked retirees for advice to give to people planning their future retirement.
In an exclusive MoneyTips online survey, we asked 258 retirees:
From the choices provided them, the most popular answer was “Start planning today” (36.8%), followed by “Save more than you think
1. Lead by example – Great leaders operate with humility and a “Do as I do” rather than a “Do as I say” mentality. They never ask anyone to do anything they are not willing to do themselves.
2. Use the 7 P’s – In the military, I learned that
Proper
Prior
Planning
Prevents
Pitifully
Retiring without the worry of running out of money is a major goal for many of us. But what is the best way to ensure that you never run out of money in retirement?
It used to be that many retirees lived off of a pension, interest income, Social Security, or all three. This made
You Can’t Decide Without Facts When should you claim your Social Security benefits? Should you claim them on your own work record or on your spouse’s work record? Those relatively simple questions can become very complex in certain cases.
Fortunately, there are Social Security Administration (SSA) offices throughout the nation with staff waiting to help.
For eight years in my 20’s, I was working 80-90 hours a week, fixated on chasing the all-powerful dollar. I barely saw my wife and first-born child, and I was miserable. I made a lot of money, but had no balance. At 30, when we found out my wife was pregnant with our second child,
War is coming. This one will not be a traditional type of war. This conflict will be fought inside the borders of the United States, between foes of different birth-years armed with little more than outrage and hyperbole. The point of this war isn’t land or power. The purpose of this battle is to affix
Early retirement sounds delightful. Who wouldn’t want to give up their desk for a deck chair, 9-to-5 for a 9-iron, or board meetings for surfboards and snowboards? According to our recent survey, many people are retiring earlier than they planned. However, this often results in less savings than intended to be spent over a longer
Excessive Borrowing – Bad for Countries As Well As People? If you continue to run a balance on your credit card every month, eventually your overspending will catch up with you. Collective interest charges will send you into a debt spiral – where you can’t even pay off the accrued interest, much less the debt
You’ve been presented with a free trial offer for a product or service that you find interesting. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of it? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns you to proceed with caution, because some free trial offers can be misleading and cost you significant money in the long run.
Legitimate free trials
How much money will you need to retire? Financial advisors have frequently recommended a $1 million nest egg for a comfortable retirement, but there’s no one-size-fits-all magic number. Have you ever figured out how much money you’ll need? According to our new survey, you haven’t.
How much money will you get when you start collecting
By Mark Fidelman
If cryptocurrency history is written by the winners, then this is the year for Monero (XMR), the anonymous crypto coin, to add its name to the ledger. As of this week, Monero has a market cap of $4.5 billion, trading at $287 and is the 13th largest cryptocurrency in the world.
Released
No matter if you’re starting your career or approaching its end, you should be thinking about retirement. How am I getting ready? How much should I save? How should I invest? Am I being too aggressive, or too passive?
But perhaps a bigger question is, “Am I thinking about retirement at all?” In an exclusive
By Kelly Hartog “…I think it says a lot about the cryptocurrency space in general that a currency with a dog on it which hasn’t released a software update in over 2 years has a $1B (billion) market cap.” That was written by Jackson Palmer, the co-creator of Dogecoin, a parody cryptocurrency — named for
In today’s gig economy, very few workers enjoy pensions or defined-benefit plans. When it comes to saving for retirement, many Americans are forced to fend for themselves. Enjoying our ever-lengthening lifespans means that we need even more money to sustain us during our golden years.
“We are living longer, and we all know it,” says
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