Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
In the last year mentioning the word "retirement" often generates a pause or a snigger; it might even seem like you've made a sick joke. As in, "What retirement? My 401k has blown up, my job gone, and along with that my retirement dreams."
{GOOGLE_AD}True enough, millions upon millions of baby boomers are asking hard questions about their retirements. Sadly for many of us, the new reality is here - we won't have enough to retire on comfortably. For others the day of reckoning is all too close; they never saved enough. Even if there hadn't been a global economic meltdown, they were never going to retire in the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed.
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Published on July 6, 2009
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Update: October 15, 2010 - It's official - no social security increase in 2010 - $250 payment pushed.
It will be the first time in 3 decades, but there will be no cost-of-living increase for social security recipients in 2010. Following a formula set by law to counter the effects of inflation, beneficiaries can usually count on getting a "raise" every year. Thanks to the economic slowdown, inflation is not a problem at the moment, hence the formula indicates no increase next year.
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According to the AARP, beneficiaries have received automatic cost-of-living every year since 1975. The increase in 2009 was 5.8%. Controlling inflation should be a good thing for retirees because it means the prices they pay for goods and services are not increasing.
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Published on May 8, 2009
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Oh baby boomers, what a mess we're in now. Not only have our investment portfolios been hammered, but our real estate investments are hurting too. A recent study from the Council for Economic Research points out that both add up to grim news for baby boomers - particularly for those who planned on moving to start their retirement.
“The collapse of the housing bubble, which led to the current recession, has already destroyed almost $6 trillion dollars in housing wealth for homeowners,” said report co-author Dean Baker. “This reality is compounded by the recent collapse of the stock market. The result is that many baby boomers will only have Social Security and Medicare to rely on in their retirement."
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Published on March 15, 2009
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Ask any 4 people when they intend to start taking social security benefits and you might get 4 different answers. Ditto with how long should you keep working and how that work will impact your social security benefits (short answer: working longer is usually a good thing for your benefits).
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Published on February 1, 2009
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
---By now you have probably received your November 401k statements, and maybe you even had the courage to open them. If you haven't lost 40% of your portfolio since last year, cheer up - you're a winner!
This article will explore strategies for how you can weather the depressing economic turmoil that has engulfed us in late 2008. We would love to hear what you are doing and thinking about it too. Just go to our Forum and join the thread on "Retirement and the Economic Mess".
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Published on November 11, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Understatement: People nearing retirement have had good reason to be concerned in the last few weeks.
Our friend who likes to check on his stocks everyday has suddenly developed other interests. And who wouldn't blame him. It's no fund getting whipsawed - down in the depths one day, brought back to euphoria the next - only to have all hope snuffed out the following morning. Better to take up macrame.
Which leads so many folks to wondering what is a safe investment these days. Precious metals were red hot last week - for a while. Ditto for commodities. Stocks - only the bravest went there. Even staid money market funds, last refuge for the faint of heart, took big hits with net outflows of $173 billion for the week. The Primary Fund "broke the buck" - going below a net asset value of $1. Fortunately the Treasury Department announced a new insurance program like the FDIC for money market funds, helping bring stability back to that market.
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Published on September 24, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Want to know how much you will receive from Social Security when you retire? How much will your check will be if you start taking benefits at 62, 66, or "full" retirement age (70). The Social Security Administration has just unleashed a powerful tool, The Retirement Estimator, that will give you these figures in less than a minute.
It's a great retirement calculator that has many uses. We've been doing some work with retirees lately and it is truly sad to see how many people are not financially prepared.
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Published on August 19, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 28 -- Are you the type of person who has a certain "magic number" in mind? The magic number being the amount of savings you think you need to quit the working world and retire. It's always been an interesting exercise, with the problem that all too often these numbers tend to be unscientific, often relying on shaky assumptions about spending and income.
Finding the magic number is an essential step in every baby boomer's preparations for a worry-free retirement. Nowadays there are any number of retirement calculators available on the internet. These nifty web pages take the mystery out of the process.
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Published on July 28, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Thousands of retirees are having to postpone their planned moves to retirement communities – a different kind of housing crunch victim. Many have selected the active adult community or CCRC of their dreams, only to find a big catch – they can’t sell their primary residence, which is how they…
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Published on June 3, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Probably you get a lot of newsletters from your financial advisors. We confess we don’t pay too careful attention to most of them, but recently a newsletter came in from Vanguard that we thought was particularly helpful. Although the focus of this site is primarily to help you choose the…
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Published on May 20, 2008
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