If you happen to be in one of those jobs (there can only be a handful left at this point, right?) that has a traditional pension plan, you may be faced with an important decision. When you’re ready to retire (did I just hear angels singing?) – you have to decide if you’ll take annuitized [...]
Posts under ‘financial planning’
Principles of Pollex – Saving 10% of Income
(In case you are confused by the headline: a principle is a rule, and pollex is an obscure term for thumb. Therefore, we’re talking about Rules of Thumb.) I like rules of thumb, as a rule of thumb… I think we all want for most difficult issues in our lives to be boiled down to [...]
IRAs and Blended Families
In today’s society, the historically “traditional” family is becoming less and less commonplace – apparently as many as 50% of all children under age 13 are currently living with one biological parent and that parent’s current partner who is not a biological parent of the child. Often as well, there is a significant age differential [...]
Coordinating Social Security Spousal Benefits – An Illustrated Example
We’ve talked about the concept of Spousal Social Security benefits in other articles, but there still may be some confusion about the best way to coordinate these benefits to the maximum potential. This article will follow a typical couple through the process using a couple of different tracks, so that you can see the potential [...]
Economic Indicators – What’s Important to Watch?
You see them on the news, in the newspaper, on the internet. Not every day, but certainly it seems like a new one every week: Key Economic Indicators. There’s the CPI, GDP, and Unemployment. There’s also the Consumer Confidence Index and Leading Economic Index. What’s this all about? What do these numbers mean? And most [...]
Problems With Naming a Minor Your IRA Beneficiary
We’ve discussed the fantastic benefits that can be realized over time by naming a very young person as the beneficiary of your IRA (see “How To Turn $5,000 A Year Into a $33 Million Legacy” for details). This makes for a very elegant, clean tax-planning exercise; but in reality, a minor cannot legally hold assets [...]
The Healthcare Plan – A Review
I haven’t had time to delve very deeply into the new Healthcare plan that the President signed recently. Somehow the pile of tax returns keeps getting in the way… Never fear though, a colleague of mine, Curtis Smith, CFP®, of Sugarland, Texas, recently posted a couple of blog articles reviewing the major tenets of the [...]
IRA Options for a Surviving Spouse Under Age 59 1/2
As a follow-up to an earlier article on Options For a Spousal Inherited IRA, I wanted to address the specific situation that occurs if you have inherited an IRA from your spouse and you’re under age 59½. There are a couple of choices available to you – which can pose a dilemma. As we have [...]
Advisor or Salesman?
Recently I came across an article in the New York Times blogs section by Andrew Ross Sorkin that once again underscores the scary situation that many consumers of financial services face. As I have mentioned here on several occasions, it’s important to know the source of any “advice” you might receive. This particular article includes [...]
Real Estate Investing in Your IRA
From time to time this question comes up: why can’t I use my IRA account to purchase a retirement home? After all, for many folks, the IRA represents a pretty large account, possibly even enough to purchase a retirement home outright – so why not? No Personal Use This is a thorny question, because there [...]
And if you've come here to learn about queuing waterfowl, I apologize for the confusion. You may want to discuss your question with Lester, my loyal watchduck and self-proclaimed "advisor's advisor".
