Filed under: Borrowing, Budgets, Credit, Insurance, Retire
Ever wish you could find one place to go for basic financial information about anything? If that’s your wish, you’ll find all that you need at the government’s newly launched MyMoney.gov website, which was developed with financial information from 12 Federal agencies, departments and bureaus that make up the Financial Literacy and Education Commission.
Filed under: Budgets, Retire, Retirement Advice
Dad probably has two sources of retirement income – a pension and Social Security. Sure, he has a savings account, but chances are, he’s like my mother-in-law. All of that money is in certificates of deposit and U.S. savings bonds and he hasn’t spent any of it in years.
Filed under: Retire, Saving Money, Tax, Wealth
Who would have thought that it was going to be Social Security instead of the commune or the millions we made in real estate supporting us Baby Boomers in our old age?
Filed under: Retire, Retirement Advice
How old will you be when you retire? Will you be 55 or 60? Will you be 65 or 70? And is the number you’ve settled on today larger than the one you might have picked a year or three ago?
The market may have come roaring back — as I write this, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is over 11,000, 68% higher than its March 2009 low. And many people who have continued to contribute to their retirement accounts have seen a return to 2007 levels. But the number of people who are planning to postpone retirement is up 24% in the past year, according to the Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefits Research Institute. The top two reasons? The poor economy (29%) and a change in employment (22%).
Filed under: Retire
Checking out “best places to retire” lists is like taking a cross country road trip to obscure American towns: Lubbock, Tex. Manhattan, Kansas. State College, Penn. Why would anyone want to live out their golden years in a seemingly random town? And in the first place, why are there so many lists?
“First off, everybody knows that lists and ratings are popular. People just love that stuff,” says Mike Alfred, the CEO of BrightScope, a 401k rankings and research company. “There are so many people in this country who won’t be able to retire where they spent their working career. A lot of people have to consider if they can ever retire if they continue to live in Manhattan or San Diego.”
Filed under: Insurance, Retire, Health
Yesterday, I heard gerontologist Ken Dychtwald talk about relying on family to take care of you when you’re old. He was reporting on a survey for long-term care insurer Genworth, confirming what I would have guessed — most people would rather die than be dependent on a family member to wipe their butt in their old age.
Filed under: Retire, Recession, Restaurant Deals & Coupons
Business Week ranked Portland, Ore. the unhappiest city in the U.S. due to the number of suicides, sales of antidepressants, high unemployment (still in the double digits) and 222 cloudy days. Likewise, MainStreet.com ranked Oregon dead last in its Happiness Index (although I’m suspicious because Nebraska is number one and who wants to live in Nebraska?).
Filed under: Retire, Saving Money, Recession, Retirement Advice
Boomers facing retirement in an uncertain economy, with your investments shrunken by the stock market decline, take heart: there are ways to make ends meet. From jettisoning a car to not spoiling the grandkids rotten, retirement does not have to suck — or sound like one great sucking noise.
Filed under: Insurance, Retire, Health, Investing
A new survey of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender baby boomers shows they are less likely to be in a relationship than non-gay boomers and more likely to be concerned about caring for themselves as they age. Yet, the survey of 2,400 adults age 45 to 64 — half of them heterosexual — found that two-thirds of the non-straight people do have a “chosen family” of friends to support them.
Filed under: Retire, Investing, Retirement Advice
Given the choice, should a soon-to-be-retiree take the monthly company pension or the whole pension amount at once – known as “the lump?”