Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
---By now you have probably received your November 401k statements, and maybe you even had the courage to open them. If you haven't lost 40% of your portfolio since last year, cheer up - you're a winner!
This article will explore strategies for how you can weather the depressing economic turmoil that has engulfed us in late 2008. We would love to hear what you are doing and thinking about it too. Just go to our Forum and join the thread on "Retirement and the Economic Mess".
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Published on November 11, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Understatement: People nearing retirement have had good reason to be concerned in the last few weeks.
Our friend who likes to check on his stocks everyday has suddenly developed other interests. And who wouldn't blame him. It's no fund getting whipsawed - down in the depths one day, brought back to euphoria the next - only to have all hope snuffed out the following morning. Better to take up macrame.
Which leads so many folks to wondering what is a safe investment these days. Precious metals were red hot last week - for a while. Ditto for commodities. Stocks - only the bravest went there. Even staid money market funds, last refuge for the faint of heart, took big hits with net outflows of $173 billion for the week. The Primary Fund "broke the buck" - going below a net asset value of $1. Fortunately the Treasury Department announced a new insurance program like the FDIC for money market funds, helping bring stability back to that market.
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Published on September 24, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Want to know how much you will receive from Social Security when you retire? How much will your check will be if you start taking benefits at 62, 66, or "full" retirement age (70). The Social Security Administration has just unleashed a powerful tool, The Retirement Estimator, that will give you these figures in less than a minute.
It's a great retirement calculator that has many uses. We've been doing some work with retirees lately and it is truly sad to see how many people are not financially prepared.
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Published on August 19, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 28 -- Are you the type of person who has a certain "magic number" in mind? The magic number being the amount of savings you think you need to quit the working world and retire. It's always been an interesting exercise, with the problem that all too often these numbers tend to be unscientific, often relying on shaky assumptions about spending and income.
Finding the magic number is an essential step in every baby boomer's preparations for a worry-free retirement. Nowadays there are any number of retirement calculators available on the internet. These nifty web pages take the mystery out of the process.
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Published on July 28, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Thousands of retirees are having to postpone their planned moves to retirement communities – a different kind of housing crunch victim. Many have selected the active adult community or CCRC of their dreams, only to find a big catch – they can’t sell their primary residence, which is how they…
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Published on June 3, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Probably you get a lot of newsletters from your financial advisors. We confess we don’t pay too careful attention to most of them, but recently a newsletter came in from Vanguard that we thought was particularly helpful. Although the focus of this site is primarily to help you choose the…
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Published on May 20, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
February 20 - You've heard it before, Americans don't save enough. Unfortunately, failure to follow this sage advice is going to mean a bleak retirement for many baby boomers, unless they get very busy. The Motley Fool's recent article, "Prepare for a Gruesome Retirement", shows just how pathetic those savings are. Of boomers aged 55+, 42% have saved less than $25,000, and only 50% have saved more than $50,000.
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Published on February 20, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 30, 2008 -- Florida -- In a crushing 64% to 36% vote Florida voters overwhelmingly brought in a new wave of property tax reform in their state, passing Amendment 1. The amendment would lower property taxes. It increases the homestead exemption by $15,000, saving voters an average of $240. It also provides "portability" of protected assessed values for Florida residents, meaning that if they sell their homes and move to a new one they can continue to have a 3% cap on the assessed value for their "protected" amounts.
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Published on January 30, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 16 -- It's a very exciting day for John Brady, owner of Topretirements.com: his Op-Ed feature on the need for Property Tax Reform, Time to Retire the Property Tax, was featured as an Op-Ed in the Connecticut section of today's Times.
The thesis in his Op-Ed is that archaic property tax laws are not only unfair, but that they also hurt education budgets.
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Published on December 17, 2007
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
November 18, 2007 (Updated April 2012) -- You guessed it: The most popular question asked at the Social Security Administration is "How much can I earn and still receive Social Security benefits". Fortunately the SSA has the answers to this question and many others at www.ssa.gov.
This question is an important one because many people living in retirement communities either need to or want to work in retirement. This question pertains to what is called the earning test. If you are under Full Retirement Age (FRA) when you start getting your Social Security payments (for example, you start taking benefits at 62), $1 in benefits will be deducted for each $2 you earn above the annual limit. For 2012 that limit is $14,640.
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Published on November 17, 2007
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