Retirement Articles
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Writing Family Love Letters for Estate Planning
The typical result of an Estate Planning strategy is a collection of legal documents with sterile discussions of trusts and property distributions. It need not be that way. Your estate planning and your legacy can be enhanced by adding to your plan documents that are more personalized and speak directly to your loved ones. Certainly […]
Social Security – The Issue They Won’t Discuss
You won’t hear many politicians discussing Social Security these days, and probably even fewer will next year. But changes are occurring in the program. Not long ago, the trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund were projecting that tax revenue would exceed benefit payments for some years to come. Things have changed. According to The […]
IRA, 401(k) Sponsors Can Offer Investment Advice
The Department of Labor issued new regulations last week that allow fiduciaries of 401(k) plans and IRAs to offer investment advice under some circumstances. The law prohibits such advice, but the DOL carved out some exceptions. Fiduciaries may offer advice, beginning Dec. 27, if their compensation doesn’t depend on the investment recommendations or they use […]
Why Many Personal Finance Decisions are Wrong
I regularly encourage Retirement Watch readers to fight their intuition when making personal finance decisions. The actions that people are most comfortable with and that are instinctive often are bad decisions. I know that from seeing the decisions people make and from conducting detailed, independent research before making a recommendation in the newsletter or web […]
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New Estate Tax Rules
The 2010 tax deal created some new estate and gift tax rules, for at least two years through the end of 2012. One of the innovations is the portability of the estate tax credit. When a married person dies and his or her estate does not use his full $5 million estate tax exemption equivalent, […]
Reviewing the “Buckets Investing Strategy”
There are many ways to manage your money during retirement. Only a few of them work. One that I’ve recommended for some time and that seems to work for some of my readers is known as “the buckets strartegy.” You can read about it in some detail here, but here’s a summary. You divide your […]
Risk Management Wins Again
September, and the third quarter, mercifully are behind us. You’ve probably seen the data, so I won’t repeat them in detail. Stocks had their worst month and quarter since the financial crisis. Investors generally fared poorly. But our Retirement Watch recommended portfolios held up well. Thefour portfolios’ returns for September ranged from negative 0.45% to […]
Pitfalls in Retirement Calculators
One of the first steps for anyone trying to plan for retirement is to use a retirement calculator. Often one of the many free calculators available on the web is used, though there are several available that charge modest fees. Of course, some people have a financial planner prepare the calculations using a software calculator […]
