When it comes to saving for retirement, low-income families can have difficulty finding a suitable program that meets their needs – but it’s especially important that they do find one. Everyday bills and unexpected emergencies can easily push lower-income Americans into difficult financial positions without having a regimented savings program to help with budgeting and
Retirement
Money or sex: which topic causes the most trouble within a relationship? A recently released Money Habits and Confessions Survey, conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of LearnVest, suggests that the answer is… money.
Finances were a greater source of relationship tension than sex, according to 68% of survey respondents. Incompatibility with finances can even
Consider the stereotype of stodgy old codgers, set in their ways. Unable or unwilling to accept changes and handle risk, these overly cautious folks allow opportunities to pass them by. Could this stereotype fit baby boomers in their approach to retirement? Perhaps, given that a new survey from Legg Mason suggests that boomers are falling
If you work in the private sector, you likely have access to a 401(k) plan that allows you to put aside a portion of your paycheck toward a tax-deferred retirement account. However, government and certain non-profit employees have alternative investment opportunities that are unavailable to the general public.
The alternatives for government employees are known
Do you know how much you pay in fees for the handling and management of your investments? If not, how do you know you are getting the best value for your money?
Fees cut into retirement savings more than most people realize, because they are essentially compounded along with your earnings. The Securities and Exchange
Welcome to your 50s! You have reached a milestone – one that seemed far away not that long ago. Where did the time go? Now that you have finally extinguished the flames from your birthday cake, you may want to think one stage ahead and review your retirement plans. Age 50 may have arrived quickly,
Life can get hectic fast and people can easily allow certain tasks to fall through the cracks. Unfortunately, sometimes we never remember to complete those tasks — or even what those tasks were — and it can end up costing you your hard-earned money.
For example, you may forget to leave a forwarding address with
We all have heard the cliché that men never ask for directions. That may or may not be true on the road, but a new survey refutes the stereotype with respect to finances.
A recent survey by Country Financial finds that in a wide range of basic financial topics, men are more likely to ask
Sunday, July 23, is Parents’ Day, which was established when President Clinton signed a Congressional Resolution into law in 1994 to recognize, uplift, and support the role of parents in raising children. At some point when those children are grown, however, it often becomes their responsibility to care for their aging parents. It is an
Retirement represents a new stage in your life. It’s a time of change and opportunity. To make the most of your opportunities, you must make sure that one aspect of your life does not change – your good credit score.
A recent survey by the credit bureau TransUnion found that over 30% of Baby Boomers
Congratulations! At your 60th birthday, you’ve actually entered your seventh decade of living. We hope that you have given some thought to your retirement by now and made significant plans toward meeting your retirement goals. If so, age 60 is a good milestone to trigger a review of your retirement plans. (If not, start planning
It should not come as a surprise that people with lower incomes have lower levels of retirement savings. However, many people with lower incomes have no retirement savings at all – and a recent Federal Reserve report suggests that far too many Americans across all age groups fall into that category.
The Federal Reserve’s Report
Are you on track to meet your retirement goals? If not, now is the time to give your retirement account a little extra boost. Consider these 10 tips to increase your retirement savings and set you on track to a more comfortable retirement.
1. Start Early – If you don’t already have a retirement account,
Even though retiring is the furthest thing from the minds of most twenty-somethings, you need to invest sooner, rather than later for one reason – you have an advantage over everyone else: time. Time to let your money grow exponentially. There is a reason Albert Einstein is credited with calling compound interest “the 8th wonder
It may be impossible to know exactly how much money you need to save for retirement, but it’s a safe bet that if you have little or no retirement savings at all, you are going to have difficulties in your post-working years. Too many Americans currently fit this profile.
According to the Economic Policy Institute
We all want to help our children get the best start in life, and for many that includes helping them avoid excessive debt. That can lead you to co-signing student loans (or other credit sources) to help your children qualify for credit. You can then teach them how to manage debt responsibly. Isn’t that desirable?
Are you a procrastinator who waits until the very last moment to file your taxes? Thanks to Emancipation Day, the filing deadline is April 18, 2017, to file your taxes for the 2016 tax year. That gives you a few more days to consider last-minute ways to lower your taxes.
Start by reviewing your possible
April is National Financial Literacy Month. Why do we dedicate this calendar page to highlighting financial skills and education? The tax deadline? Sound financial decisions are important all year long, but most Americans never learned how to manage money or save for goals, so financial security is a bigger challenge than it needs to be.
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 retirement savings tax credit. Note that
You probably know about potential IRA tax traps related to withdrawals, rollovers, and estate planning that can saddle you with penalties and surprise tax bills. Did you know that the type of investments you hold could also hand you a surprise tax bill and potentially ruin your IRA status?
The most common of the traps
As much fun as it is to hold your tax refund check in your hands and rub them together with glee, direct deposit is a simpler and faster method of receiving your refund. It may be safer as well. Not only will you be spared the possibility of someone stealing your check out of the
It’s never too late or too early to think about your retirement. One of the most common and effective retirement savings options is an individual retirement account, more commonly referred to as an IRA. This article will look at the differences between a traditional IRA and another type of savings account called a Roth IRA.
How much money do you think that you need to retire? There are many assumptions involved in answering that question, but one assumption is the greatest of all: how much money will you need for your health care costs? Fidelity projects that a 65-year old couple who retired in 2016 should expect an average cost
Donald Trump ran a successful Presidential campaign based in part on being unconventional and shaking up the status quo. Those are not properties valued on Wall Street, where predictability and stability are preferred.
While stocks overall have responded positively to Trump’s stated policies, individual stocks have suffered from one of his greatest sources of unpredictability
When picking retirement funds, it’s easy to get confused by the different options available. For many households, saving for the next month is difficult enough, let alone thinking further into the future. To enjoy a happy and financially stable retirement, however, it’s crucial to make the right investments.
Most Americans use a combination of bonds
The end of a year is a time to assess what happened over the past 12 months and look forward to the promise of new opportunities. That is true with most aspects of life, and your financial portfolio should be no exception. Give your holdings a year-end review and consider these strategies as you do
Are lottery tickets a component of your retirement program? Then you sound like an extreme risk-taker when it comes to investing. Do you throw up every time you hear that the stock market dropped? Then odds are you are a conservative investor.
All kidding aside, it is wise to take time to seriously assess your
Many Americans assume that their financial advisor is legally obligated to act in the best interest of the consumer and disclose any conflicts of interest. However, that is only true for those who are held to a fiduciary standard, such as Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) or Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs). Brokers and other agents may
Private-sector pensions are a vanishing breed. Defined-benefit pension plans are being replaced by defined-contribution plans such as 401(k)s, mainly because pension plans are costly for employers to fund and maintain. As a result, employers are beginning to offer lump-sum payout options to their retirees to replace the traditional lifetime monthly payments of a pension.
Once
Retired people are advising millennials to start saving for retirement as soon as possible, to store as much in their nest egg as they can, according to a recent survey. The poll, from Pentegra Retirement Services, asked retirees who are not collecting a pension what they wish they had done differently when it comes to