We’ve spent our whole lives working, spending the money we earn and hopefully saving a little too. When we retire, everything we have ever experienced about managing our own finances gets turned upside down. We no longer earn as much or any money from work. We have to figure out how to make do with and…
Retirement Savings and Investments News, Information and Guidance
If you do not entirely know what is an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)… it may be well worth your while to find out. ETFs have become very popular investment vehicles and they can be a good place for retirement savings. In a nutshell, ETFs can be a low cost way to insure adequate diversification for…
Bond, James Bond. The mere mention of the name makes you think of cool confidence and absolute competence. Wouldn’t you like to feel that way about your retirement investments? You perhaps can, assuming you can figure out the best asset allocation strategy for your retirement. What Exactly is Asset Allocation Anyway? Asset allocation refers to…
Tax deferred? Tax free? Tax advantaged? It might sometimes feel a bit taxing to think about the tax implications of a Roth conversion. However, it is probably worth your brain power because a Roth conversion can be tremendously beneficial in the right circumstances. What is a Roth Account? A Roth account is a type of…
Bonds can be a core low risk component of retirement portfolios, but they do come with one significant risk factor: if interest rates go up, the bonds you already own will plummet in value. A bond ladder strategy can be a way to reduce that particular risk. First things first, what is a bond? A…
Last week it was broadly reported that the credit reporting agency Equifax suffered a major cybersecurity breach that put us all at a greater risk of financial fraud. Experts estimate that hackers stole the data — Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, credit card information and more — of 143 million people….
Most of us are pretty stressed by the need to give our savings a big boost as we approach retirement. Guess what? There is actually a relatively little known retirement savings strategy that can really help: Catch up contributions. Catch up contributions are the IRS’s way of making it easier for savers age 50 and…
If index fund investing is good enough for the most famously successful American investor, then maybe it should be good enough for your retirement. Warren Buffet, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the richest men and most successful investors in the world, recommends that people buy index funds. He often touts index funds in his…
There are two kinds of people: those who follow the rules and those who believe rules are made to be broken. If you fall into the first camp, the following list may cause you a bit of anxiety. Personal finance is full of rules. While some are helpful, others can work against you if they…
Here is a guide for how to find lost money — a lost 401k or other unclaimed retirement benefits. The Big Takeaways… Each year, it’s estimated that more than 900,000 401(k) accounts go unclaimed, in addition to $300M in unclaimed pensions. The simplest ways to find your lost 401(k) is by contacting your previous employer,…
“As the major stock indexes have, one-by-one, broken through their previous record highs in recent months, it has been interesting to observe that the dominant reaction among many investors has not been one of celebration but, rather, anxiety.” While the above may sound like current events, it’s actually an excerpt from an April 2013 client letter….
Saving for retirement is hard. However, when you are still working, creating a retirement investment plan can be comparatively straightforward. The goal is to simply grow the money. But watch out! When you retire, your investment goals become multi faceted, layered and — let’s face it — down right complicated. You still want your money…
Retirement savings advice often revolves around the long term: save small amounts on a regular basis over many years, and you will be able to save a sizeable nest egg. But what if you need to make up for lost time? What if you find yourself nearing retirement and just want to give that nest…
Of all the tactics you can use to achieve a secure retirement, one of the easiest things you can do is to invest your money and earn returns on that investment. Doing this requires virtually no sacrifice, compromise or a lot of work. However, a new study from BlackRock finds that Americans hold 58% of…
A retirement target date fund is a kind of mutual fund that is professionally managed and strategically reallocated over time to achieve both growth and security for your assets. The key goal for a target date fund is that your money will be available for withdrawal on a certain future targeted retirement date and beyond. So,…
Get the best retirement advice from retirees who really know something. Retirement advice and how it is implemented can have a profound impact on your retirement lifestyle and the estate you might leave behind. Here Henry K. “Bud” Hebeler outlines concepts that helped him not only achieve a secure retirement but also be better off…
The following on 2017 economic outlook comes to us from Mr. Henry K. “Bud” Hebeler. Bud has been working with retirees for many years, developed special material for their use, and given numerous seminars on retirement. His current focus is dissemination of sound financial planning information that applies to a wide range of personal investment,…
Could a retirement bucket strategy make it easier to manage savings after you retire? If you think that managing retirement investments is difficult when you are working, we have some bad news: it gets much harder when you actually retire. Once retired, your investments need to not only grow but also fund your lifestyle and…
If you have company stock in a 401(k), you will want to learn about Net Unrealized Appreciation (NUA) and how to minimize taxes when you rollover these funds to an IRA. Should You Rollover? Once you leave a job, or reach age 59 ½ you have the option to move your 401(k) into an Individual…
For those approaching retirement or already there, the question of how to invest our money to maximize returns while minimizing risk is at the heart of many of our financial concerns. With so much out of our control and so few clear answers, retirement investment questions can keep you up at night. Here are a…
You’ve spent your entire working career saving and investing for retirement. Now it’s time to develop a retirement withdrawals strategy. Retirement withdrawals: break into the bank, but manage spending so your money lasts as long as you do… So, what’s the best way to go about withdrawing money from your retirement accounts to ensure that…
We have A LOT of choices for where to invest our money — both before and after retirement. Some options are clearly bad investments. Others seem like a good bet, but probably aren’t. While we would all like to find a shortcut to massive wealth, the steady approach is probably the best route to a…
A lot has been written about saving and accumulating enough for retirement. But that’s only half the battle. Once you reach retirement it is important that you manage your retirement withdrawals from various accounts as tax-efficiently as possible. Taxes will likely be one of your biggest expenses in retirement. A tax-efficient withdrawal strategy can be…
The transition to retirement is exciting and scary. Like all big events — graduations, relocations, marriage, childbirth and more — life will never be the same again. To make your planning for this transformation easier, here is advice from retirement and personal finance experts. Go for Risk and Reward You have a lot of choices…
“The most important thing you can do for your retirement is have a plan — specifically a retirement income plan. A plan covers far more than what investments to pick. Investments are the last part of the plan; the icing on the cake. They should come only after you have the main meal menu in…
