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During your working years, you know where your income is coming from because you’re working. But once you retire, you’ll have to identify your income sources, know how much you can expect from them and know how to manage them to help support a retirement that could last two or three decades. So, where will your retirement income come from? And what decisions will you need to make about these income sources? Consider the following: • Retirement accounts – If you’ve regularly contributed to an IRA and a 401(k) or similar employer-sponsored retire...
As we transition from summer to autumn, change is all around us — leaves are taking on new colors, temperatures are dropping, and the days are getting shorter. But you can also experience different seasons in various aspects of your life — including when you invest. What are the seasons of an investor’s life? And how should you respond to them? The first such season may happen when you are in your 20s and just starting out in the working world. At this stage in your life, it’s especially important to prioritize your financial goals. At the top...
The school year will soon be here. And if you have young children, you’re one year closer to the day when they may be headed off to college. When that day arrives, will you be financially prepared? College isn’t cheap. For the 2023–24 academic year, the average cost — including tuition, fees, housing, food, books, transportation and other expenses — was nearly $29,000 for in-state students at four-year public colleges and universities, and about $60,000 for private schools, according to the College Board. Most students do get some type of f...
Do you worry about running out of money during your retirement years? If so, how can you help prevent this from happening? In the first place, if you have this type of fear, you’re far from alone. Consider this: 58 percent of retirement savers from all age groups, including current retirees, say that outliving their assets is their greatest retirement fear, according to a study by Cerulli Associates, a financial services research organization. This type of fear can certainly affect your quality of life when you retire. Still, there’s no nee...
The movement of the financial markets can seem mysterious — and yet, if we look back over long periods, we can see definite patterns that consistently repeat themselves. As an investor, how should you respond to these market cycles? To begin with, it’s useful to know something about the nature of a market cycle and its connection to the business or economic cycle, which describes the fluctuations of the economy between periods of growth and contraction. Issues such as employment, consumer spending, interest rates and inflation can determine the...
Like most Americans, you will probably take on debt at some point in your life. And by managing debt wisely, you can potentially improve your saving and spending habits – and even your ability to invest for the future. Let’s look at some of the common options available for borrowing and using credit: • Credit card – When used carefully – and not over-used – a credit card can be a valuable tool, especially if you travel frequently. Many people tend to stick with the same credit card without exploring what else is out there. Try to find a card...
When drawing up your estate plans, you might find it useful to create a revocable or irrevocable trust, either of which can help your estate avoid probate court and give you significant control over how and when your assets are distributed. But who should oversee your trust? As the person who established the trust — known as the “grantor” or “settlor” — you can also namea yourself as trustee. However, this may not be the best move, particularly if the trust is irrevocable. An irrevocable trust protects the assets in the trust from creditors a...
You can’t predict financial emergencies — but you can prepare for them. To do that, you can build an emergency fund to pay for unexpected expenses, some of which may be sizable. Without one, you might be forced to dip into your investments, possibly including your retirement accounts, such as your IRA or 401(k). If this happens, you might have to pay taxes and penalties, and you’d be withdrawing dollars that could otherwise be growing over time to help pay for your retirement. In thinking about such a fund, consider these questions: • How muc...
If you’ve retired, you may have thought you closed the book on one chapter of your life. But what happens if you need to “reverse” your retirement? Due to higher inflation and rising interest rates, many retirees are taking out more money from their retirement accounts than they had originally anticipated. As a result, some are headed back to the workforce. If you’re thinking of joining them, you’ll need to consider some factors that may affect your finances. First, if you’ve been taking Social Security, be aware that you could lose some o...
By the time you reach retirement age, you may have accumulated a 401(k), IRA and other investment accounts, along with insurance policies and physical properties. You’ll use some of these assets to support your retirement, but the rest may end up in your estate — which is why an estate plan is so important. So, to leave a legacy for your family and those philanthropic groups you support, you need a comprehensive estate plan — and you need to avoid making mistakes. Here are some of the most common ones: • Procrastinating – Estate planning,...
Losing a spouse is one of the most painful experiences anyone can have. Unfortunately, widows and widowers have to deal with more than just the emotional trauma — they also must consider a range of financial issues. If you’ve recently been widowed, what financial moves should you consider? For starters, don’t rush into any major decisions. If you’re still in the grieving process, you are unlikely to be in the best shape to make significant choices affecting your finances and your life. But once you feel ready to look at your situation objecti...
Summertime is almost here — and for many people that means it’s time to hit the road. But even if you decide to take a vacation, you’ll want other areas of your life to keep working — especially your investments. So, how can you prevent your investments, and your overall financial strategy, from going on “vacation”? Here are a few suggestions: • Check your progress. You want your investments to be working hard for you, so you’ll need to check on their performance periodically — but be careful about how you evaluate results. Don’t compare you...
If you own a business and you offer a 401(k) or similar retirement plan to your employees, you’ll want to stay current on the various changes affecting these types of accounts. And in 2024, you may find some interesting new developments to consider. These changes are part of the SECURE 2.0 Act, enacted at the end of 2022. And while some parts of the law went into effect in 2023 — such as the new tax credit for employer contributions to start-up retirement plans with 100 or fewer employees —others were only enacted this year. Here are some...
Once you’re retired, you will likely need to draw on several types of income for your living expenses. You’ll need to know where these funds are coming from and how much you can count on, but you should also be aware of how this money is taxed — because this knowledge can help you plan and budget for your retirement years. Here’s the basic tax information on some key sources of retirement income: • Social Security – Many people don’t realize they may have to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits. Whether your benefits will be taxed depe...
When you’re creating your estate plan and thinking of where you want your assets to go, you also may be thinking about how to be fair to your loved ones — but is that the same as treating everyone equally? In estate planning, “equal” doesn’t always mean “fair.” If you have grown children with different financial needs, you might think it’s unfair to leave them the same amounts. Or if you have a family business, and one of your children is ready to assume control, you might want to leave the business to that child and compensate the other sibli...
Here’s a sobering statistic: 72 percent of retirees say one of their biggest fears is becoming a burden on their families, according to a study by Edward Jones and the consulting firm Age Wave. If you are near retirement, how can you prepare yourself to become financially free, so you won’t have to depend on grown children or other family members? Here are a few suggestions to consider: • Keep adding to retirement savings. Today, with a greater awareness of healthy lifestyles, many people are spending two, or even three, decades in an activ...
If you’re a younger worker just starting out in your career, you’ve got tremendous personal and professional opportunities ahead of you. But this is also when you will need to make some key decisions — especially about your financial priorities. When considering your priorities, you may find it helpful to look at these three areas: • Paying off debts – If you’re like many young working people, one of your biggest debts may be your student loans — and paying these down is, by necessity, a priority, because falling behind on your student loan...
If you’ve been thinking about life insurance, especially if you have family, loved ones, or anyone who depends on you financially, you might be curious about the different kinds of policies available. Which type is right for you? Essentially, you can look at two main categories of life insurance: term and permanent. Term insurance is a pay-as-you-go option that covers a specific amount of time, usually 20 years or fewer. Term insurance benefits are paid to your beneficiaries free of federal income taxes if you pass away during the coverage p...
April is National Financial Literacy Month — a good reminder that all of us can benefit from boosting our financial knowledge. But what is financial literacy? There’s no one single definition, but the term certainly covers these areas: • Saving – Most of us would probably agree that saving money is important, but actually doing it can be challenging given all the expenses of modern living. Still, techniques are available that everyone can follow, such as having money automatically moved each month from a checking or savings account to a finan...
We all hope to remain healthy and independent throughout our lives – but life can be unpredictable. If you were ever to need some type of long-term care, would you be financially prepared? Long-term care encompasses everything from the services of a home health aide to a stay in an assisted living facility to a long residence in a nursing home. You may never need any of these kinds of care, but the odds aren’t necessarily in your favor: Someone turning age 65 today has almost a 70 percent chance of needing some type of long-term care ser...
You’ve probably heard stories about fortunate investors who “get in the ground floor” of a new, hot company and quickly make a fortune. But while these things may happen, they are exceedingly rare and often depend on hard-to-duplicate circumstances — and they really don’t represent a viable way of investing for one’s goals. A far more tried-and-true approach is the “slow-and-steady” method. To follow this strategy, consider these suggestions: • Start small — and add more when you can. When you’re first starting out in the working world, you ma...
One of your important sources of retirement income will likely be Social Security — but when should you start taking it? You can start collecting Social Security benefits at 62, but your checks will be considerably bigger if you wait until your full retirement age, which is likely between 66 and 67. You could even wait until you’re 70, at which point the payments will max out, except for yearly cost-of-living adjustments. But if you need the money, you need the money, even if you’re just 62 or any age before full retirement age. However, if yo...
Spring is almost here, which means it’s time for some spring cleaning. This year, in addition to tidying your home and surroundings, you might want to consider sprucing up your financial environment, as well. Here are some suggestions for doing just that: • Improve your vision. Once the days are warmer and longer, you may want to get outside and clean all the winter grime and smudges from your windows, allowing you to see the world more clearly. And you may want to bring more focus to your financial vision by asking some key questions: Is my...
If you have student loans, you likely received a “payment vacation” over the past few years, due to legislation related to COVID-19. But if you’re like millions of other borrowers, you may have recently been required to resume your payments. How will this affect your overall financial situation? Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the effect on your monthly cash flow. But the amount of pressure you feel will depend on your income and the size of the required payments. If these payments do represent a real challenge, you may need...
When many people think about investing, the first thing that comes to mind is the stock market. And that’s not surprising, as the rise and fall of stock prices is constantly in the news. But if you’re going to achieve your financial goals, you may well need to look beyond stocks and include fixed-income investments in your portfolio. Fixed-income investments offer three important benefits: • Income – When you invest in fixed-income vehicles, such as bonds, Treasury securities and certificates of deposit (CDs), you receive regular income...