News & Updates
Paying For Medicare
Friends and colleagues who are approaching 65 are beginning to ask about Medicare benefits. Not just how to sign up, but what to select from among the various choices. The good news is, 94% of Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and up are satisfied with their quality of care. The not-so-good
What is a Pension? Do You Have One?
The phrase “pension benefits” has come up a lot in recent weeks, especially during the negotiations between the United Auto Workers union and the “big three” automotive manufacturers, narrowly avoiding a strike. But for the majority of private-sector U.S. workers, pensions seem to have disappeared a long time ago. Pensions
Did You Hear?
Did You Hear? According to LIMRA, annuity sales are on the rise yet again this year, after also breaking records last year. Investors building their retirement strategy looking to mitigate some risk have chosen to lock-in annuities–How smart is this choice? Well, there’s definitely a reason they’ve been selling recently. Reach
An Email Scam Going Around
We’ve previously discussed different types of scams you should be looking out for. This week, we wanted to bring yet another one to your attention. You might get an email claiming to be from someone with the Social Security Administration, a message along the lines of “Due to suspicious illegal
An Important Warning
Did you know that the older you are, the more susceptible you are to telephone or internet fraud? One of the most common tricks scammers use is impersonating a child or grandchild, asking you for financial assistance. According to the FBI, Americans lost over $10 billion to scams last year.
When to Buy an Annuity?
The average age at which one buys an annuity is their early 60s, with the majority of annuities purchased by individuals between ages 55–70. According to Oxford Economics, the U.S. population aged 65 and up is expected to grow by more than 8.3 million from 2022 to 2027, and so
Calculating Life Expectancy
We’ve provided some online tools to help estimate life expectancy, a topic we discussed last week. We found three we thought we’d share, each with varying degrees of specificity: Go through one or all three to get an estimate. It may be able to help you with your financial retirement
The Most Important Assumption
One of the most important assumptions you will make when planning for retirement is life expectancy. While we can reasonably estimate each of our retirement income sources and dollar amounts, a crucially important variable we don’t have is how long we’ll live: Therefore, you don’t know how long exactly your
When is the Right Time to Retire?
When is the right time to retire? The answer to this, like every other decision you have to make in retirement, depends on your own personal needs and circumstances. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that “retirement improves both health and life satisfaction” but the age at which you
Key Takeaways
Here are a few factors to consider when you making your retirement income strategy: When it comes to paying taxes on contributions, Roth IRAs and traditional IRAs differ from one another. While both are tax-advantaged accounts, your choice will impact when you pay taxes on the money: With a traditional
What is the Difference?
We sometimes are asked who a fixed indexed annuity might be a good choice for, versus who might be suited to a variable annuity. And to answer that question, our attention was drawn to a very simple article published by the Insurance Information Institute (Which you can read by clicking
Late Boomer’s Retirement
A study from the Center For Retirement Research looked into the decline in wealth for late boomers, and explored what may have contributed to it: “The results show that two factors were at play – a shift in the population towards lower-wealth households and, more importantly, a weakening of the
It Isn’t Just About Savings
When we think of retirement, we often focus on how much money we have in savings. We often forget that retirement doesn’t necessarily mean having to deplete our savings, it means creating a retirement income strategy off of those savings. Call us, we have some ideas that could allow you
Solid
We often look for ways to get a solid financial footing during the decade before retirement. For years, we save diligently and carefully follow a long-term strategy. But as retirement approaches, your priorities may shift. When retirement is on the horizon, pre-retirees may start to question the choices they have
What Can Life Insurance Provide?
According to a recent survey from Forbes (Which you can read about here) a relatively small number of Americans actually view life insurance for all that it can provide. Most have a limited view of what it can be used for, believing it’s only a means of protecting their families
You Only Live Once
You may have heard the adage “you only live once” as it applies to pursuing opportunities and taking risks. But what does this saying really mean? While we agree that “you only live once”, you could also take it to mean that you should think wisely and avoid mistakes. Preparing
Safety is Key
We found an article recently from AARP that might interest you. It referenced a “safety-first” approach, which is something we have always believed in. The idea is to cover all of your essential expenses with guaranteed sources of income, meaning sources like Social Security, pensions, and annuities that pay you
Stash Your Cash
Whether you are approaching retirement age or are decades away, you need to be thinking about what the safest place is to keep your money. Too many times retirees are left empty-handed because they put all of their savings into a risky investment, or failed to ensure they had the