Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 29, 2025 -- Everybody's talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Governments are fretting about how to control it, employees worry it will take away their jobs, and a lot of other folks don't really care. The reality is that it is going to get even more important, and about to change our world profoundly. On the plus side, your imagination is the only limit to the many ways you can use it to help with your daily life.. Here's one very specific use - how to predict when you can retire, and how much it will take to do that comfortably.
Start by logging into a free AI service
We've been using ChatGBT (OpenAI), but there are plenty of others to choose from. Those include Google's Gemini for creative tasks and Claude. Microsoft's Copilot is another good one. You will probably have to create a login. They are usually free to start with, but if you use them a lot you will have to pay a relatively modest fee.
So When can I retire?
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Published on July 28, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 23, 2025 -- Almost two thirds of Americans have this understandable fear- that they will live longer than their money lasts. According to the Morningstar Center for Retirement & Policy Studies, 45% of Americans who retire at 65 have an increased risk of running out of retirement savings before they die.
The basic problem is that most people haven't saved enough for a comfortable retirement. Just over half of baby boomers have saved less than $250,000. Another problem, even for retirees who do have significant retirement savings, is that most do not have a systematic approach to withdrawing those funds. One study by IRALogix found that only 22% of retirees have some kind of plan for taking down their savings. This article will try to provide some help on that score.
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Published on July 23, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 23, 2025 – There is crazy and there is cruel, and both themes are running rampant at the U.S. Department of Labor these days. For cruelty, the Labor Department has just proposed eliminating some safety standards at factories and mines, as well as to limit the government’s ability to…
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Published on July 22, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
June 25, 2026 -- You can probably guess the states that are the most expensive to retire. Yep - Hawaii, Alaska, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York are almost always atop those lists. But to find the states where your retirement savings go the furthest - that is not always that easy.
A recent study from GOBankingRates looked at the annual cost of living and annual expenditures after Social Security to come up with how much savings you need to retire in all 50 states. Some of the states on the list where savings go the furthest were surprising.
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Published on June 24, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
June 17, 2025 -- Many Americans are stumped when it comes to understanding important financial and retirement issues. Asked questions related to Social Security benefits, Medicare coverage, employment-based retirement savings, most respondents in a recent study bombed. On average, they only answered two of the six questions on these issues correctly.
We're including the quiz below so you can see how you would do!
The bad news comes in a new report from the TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center at the George Washington University School of Business. There were six questions in the 2025 survey used to gauge basic retirement fluency. Those included knowledge promoting financial well-being in retirement. Each question covered a distinct subject: Social Security benefits, Medicare coverage of healthcare expenses, employment-based retirement savings, ensuring lifetime income, likelihood of needing long-term care at older ages, and life expectancy in retirement.
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Published on June 16, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
May 31, 2025 — It’s one of those questions that seems so obvious. Of course you ought to be happy – $6 Million dollars! But the answer is, many of us have a hard time with it. Maybe we are afraid you will spend it too fast. The bottom will…
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Published on May 31, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
April 23, 2025 – More than state income taxes, those levied on your property can be one of the most problematic for retirees. That’s because they carry no direct relation to one’s ability to pay – you might have a valuable home,but little savings and income. Property taxes still have…
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Published on April 23, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
April 10, 2025 — Many people in or near retirement got nervous last week as nearly every stock plummeted. Who knows where the market will ultimately go in the wake of Trump’s disrupting tariff moves, but the initial reaction was bad. The S&P 500 experienced a significant decline last week,…
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Published on April 6, 2025
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
March 21, 2025 — Finding a tax-friendly location to retire is very important for a significant percentage of retirees. High income individuals often find a state with no income or sales tax very attractive. But other taxes, like those on property or pension and Social Security, can be very important considerations, and should not be overlooked. LIkewise, if your retirement income is low, state income taxes will be a minor consideration.
Just because a state has no income tax doesn't mean that it might be the best one for your tax situation. Some states, for example, offer generous tax exemptions for military retirees or public servants, making them equally attractive. Others tax other kinds of income like pensions in very friendly ways. Some have generous deductions based on your age. Considerations like your desired lifestyle, where your family and friends live, or a climate where you can pursue your favorite activities, might be a lot more important to your retirement happiness than saving a few dollars on taxes. States like Texas tend to have high property taxes, which can neutralize its not having an income tax.
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Published on March 20, 2025
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Category: Active adult communities
March 10, 2025 — The 2021 Surfside Towers collapse near Miami killed 98 people and injured many more. The Florida legislature’s response was swift and strict. Now, as those laws go into effect, backlash from the hardships they created is leading to efforts to soften the regs.
Already burdened by exploding insurance premiums, condo owners now also face huge assessments to catch up on their new reserve requirements. Added to those woes, newly required building inspections have discovered costly building repairs that need to be made. All of these combined factors have led to special assessments and/or significant dues increases. The result is a spate of homeowners who are unable to pay. Many have no choice but sell and and then find a new, more affordable place to spend the remainder of their retirement years.
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Published on March 9, 2025
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