Category: Eldercare
January 24, 2017 -- Earlier this month we wrote about "The Retirement Wrecker You Never Considered", which turned out to be about adult children that fail to fledge. Today we will tackle the other half of the sandwich that often squeezes baby boomers; what happens when elderly parents and relatives need help that interferes with your retirement plans. We are certainly not saying that having elderly parents is a "problem", it is a blessing if you get to enjoy your parents and relatives as they age. Unfortunately for some adult children, they experience challenges with their parents that can turn into a problem for their retirement plans. We know many of you have had experience dealing with this sometimes difficult issue, and hope you will contribute your knowledge and experience in the Comments section below.
To get started we have 11 tips to offer when it looks like your elders need more help but don't seem to want to get it. After that we have re-posted some comments on this same topic from the past. Obviously there is a range of
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Published on January 24, 2017
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
January 22, 2017 -- The AARP is a solid defender of Medicare and Social Security, as you might imagine. In their most recent Special Report the organization highlights some of the issues and dangers that Medicare faces as the Trump administration and Republican controlled Congress take over. We recommend reading the entire AARP Special Medicare Report - it raises important issues that every retiree, and every American, needs to be informed on. We certainly know the issue resonates with Topretirements members, who from our surveys say they like Medicare.
Conflict between the new President and conservative Republicans - and surprising potential allies
Trump promised on the campaign trail in New Hampshire that he would protect Medicare: "Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security. They want to do it on Medicare. They want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that. It’s not fair to the people who have been paying in for years.”
With the inauguration behind us the battle lines are a bit murkier. Speaker of the House Ryan has proposed that Medicare as we know it would be replaced by fixed payments with which beneficiaries would be able to buy
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Published on January 21, 2017
Comments 79
Category: Retirement Planning
January 15, 2017 -- Not everybody wants to retire, even if that is the popular expectation. Many more people, even though they are old enough, aren't ready to retire yet. This article will help you determine if retirement is right for you, and if this is a good time to do it.
Retirement is a big step and one that is hard to reverse.
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Published on January 14, 2017
Comments 16
Category: Retirement Real Estate
January 13, 2017 — The average size of newly built homes decreased in 2016 – a sign that builders are preparing for the coming wave of first-time buyers as Millennials begin to dip their toes into the market. At least that is the conclusion reached by the National Association of…
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Published on January 12, 2017
Comments 42
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 11, 2017 — Over the years our Members have told us how important it is for them to find great places to retire that are also affordable. So at this point we have quite a collection of articles with specifics on at least 50 such towns. This article has…
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Published on January 10, 2017
Comments 23
Category: Retirement Planning
Editor’s note: Over a period of years we watched our friends Jeff and Paulette get ready for retirement. They thought about it a lot, made field trips, and discussed it thoroughly. Not without a little trepidation, their careful plans to retire to Greenville, SC came to pass this last summer.
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Published on January 5, 2017
Comments 14
Category: Family and Retirement
Editor’s note: The family we described in this article are not real, they are hypothetical. However the kinds of problems they experienced are real and painful. For a variety of reasons, more and more Americans are living in multi-generational households – 31% of those aged 25- to 29 in 2014…
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Published on January 3, 2017
Comments 66
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 2, 2017 — Just as millions of baby boomers start to enjoy their Social Security retirement or disability checks comes a new worry. The problem arises for the folks who, for whatever reason, did not pay off all of their student loan debts. Many non-payers thought that after the…
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Published on January 1, 2017
Comments 10
Category: Retirement Real Estate
December 30, 2016 — Real estate in the last 15 years has been like an rollercoaster – cozy ups, terrifying downs, and hairpin turns. But like a great ‘coaster, the ride feels different depending on where you sit – those on the ends get the big thrills while middle riders…
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Published on December 29, 2016
Comments 12
Category: General Retirement Issues
December 27, 2016 — In many ways 2016 was one of the craziest years we can remember. Fortunately Topretirements’ 10th year was interesting, but not full of upheaval. As an annual tradition we like to see which articles grabbed the attention of the Topretirements.com community during the year. As always,…
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Published on December 27, 2016
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