As individuals near retirement there may be a need for additional income in order to support their living expenses in retirement. On this blog we have discussed creating income streams in retirement with annuities, Social Security optimization, and withdrawal strategies in qualified accounts. For some individuals these streams of income may not be enough. Another potential vehicle to assist with providing income in retirement is a reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgages are where an individual or couple uses the equity in their home to received monthly income payments. Generally, once the owners pass away or sell the home, the loan is paid off with the remaining equity in the home. There’s also a limit on the amount a homeowner can borrow. The most popular form of a reverse mortgage is the home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) offered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). To qualify, individuals must be […]
May, 2015:
Social Security Earnings Test
When you’re receiving Social Security benefits before your Full Retirement Age (FRA, which is age 66 ranging up to age 67 for folks born in 1960 or later), there is an earnings test which can reduce or eliminate the benefit you are planning to receive. If your earned income* is greater than $15,720 (2015 figure), for every $2 over this limit, $1 will be withheld from your Social Security benefit. So, for example, if you earn $20,000 in 2015, a total of $2,140 in benefits will be withheld – 50% of the over-earned amount of $4,280. If you are receiving a Social Security benefit of $1,070 per month, this means that 2 months’ worth of benefits will be withheld. This can come as a surprise if you’ve been receiving the full benefit and the earnings test is applied at the beginning of the following year, when you don’t receive a […]
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Mandatory Retirement Plans
A few weeks ago I finished a paper arguing for mandatory retirement contributions from both employers and employees. Though arguably the paper will not come close to changing public policy on retirement plans, it did raise some arguments in favor of the United States adopting a mandatory savings plan. In the paper I explained that research has shown that individuals risk not having enough saved for retirement. This could be due to employees not having a retirement plan through work or because employees face an abundance of mutual fund options in the plan that they don’t know where to begin. Some of these employees choose the default option or simply go with what a colleague recommends. Another problem the paper addresses is the declination of defined benefit pensions. Such pensions are employer sponsored and funded, thus removing funding an investment risk from the employee. At retirement the employee receives a […]
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Social Security Survivor Benefit Coordination
If you’re a widow or widower and you are eligible for Social Security Survivor’s Benefits based on your late spouse’s record, you may have some timing decisions to make that could significantly affect your overall benefits. This is especially true if you are also eligible for Social Security benefits based on your own earnings record. Timing the receipt of benefits is, as with most all Social Security benefits, the primary factor that you can control. If you have worked over your lifetime and you have a significant benefit based on your own earnings, it becomes even more important. The decision process is dependent upon the relative size of your own Social Security benefit as compared to the Survivor Benefit based on your late spouse’s record. Own SS Benefit Greater than Survivor Benefit If your own benefit will be greater than the Survivor Benefit, it could be beneficial to you in […]
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Complications with Social Security Filing for Divorcees
Note: with the passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 into law, File & Suspend and Restricted Application have been effectively eliminated for anyone born in 1954 or later. If born before 1954 there are some options still available, but these are limited as well. Please see the article The Death of File & Suspend and Restricted Application for more details. Social Security filing decisions are tough enough – and so is being divorced. Add the two together and you have all sorts of complications. In this article we’ll review one type of complication with Social Security filing for divorcees that can work in your favor and one that can work against you. Let’s start with the provision that may work against you – Deemed Filing. Deemed Filing When you file for benefits prior to Full Retirement Age (FRA, which is 66 for folks born between 1943 and 1954, […]
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Should You Self-Insure?
At some point in our lives the question arises as to whether or not it makes sense to keep some of the insurance we have. Please understand that this post is not about encouraging the reader to drop any insurance coverage, but perhaps give some perspective on whether or not it makes sense to do so. Consider the case of life insurance. Generally, the younger we are the more life insurance makes sense. When we’re young we have many years until retirement and have high human capital; the ability to earn great amount over our working lifetime. Our financial capital is very small; we haven’t accumulated any assets such as retirement savings. As we age, our human capital decreases. Our financial capital increases and is high when we retire. Thus the need for life insurance diminishes. It’s at this point that an individual can consider letting their term insurance policy […]
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Maximum WEP Impact
Rounding out our series of articles about the Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP, I thought we should talk a bit about the maximum impact that WEP can have on you. In other articles we’ve discussed this in part, but it hasn’t necessarily been fleshed out completely. As you may know, the maximum WEP reduction is equal to the lesser of 50% of the first “bend point” for each year or 50% of the amount of the pension from income that was not subject to Social Security taxation. In 2015 this is $413 per month at most. What’s important to know is that this reduction is against your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), not necessarily against your benefit amount. Depending upon when you file relative to your Full Retirement Age, the WEP impact to your benefit could be more or less than that amount. Wait – what? As you may recall, the […]
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File & Suspend vs. Restricted Application
Note: with the passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 into law, File & Suspend and Restricted Application have been effectively eliminated for anyone born in 1954 or later. If born before 1954 there are some options still available, but these are limited as well. Please see the article The Death of File & Suspend and Restricted Application for more details. These provisions in Social Security filing are, without a doubt, the two that cause the most confusion. Being very complicated provisions and also provisions that can be very helpful to folks wishing to maximize benefits, file & suspend and restricted application are often mis-used or completely misunderstood. So at the suggestion of a reader, seeing a comment response I’d given to another reader, I will provide some additional background on just what is the difference between these two, as well as when one is used versus the other. […]
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The Power of Dollar Cost Averaging
If you’re like most investors systematically saving for retirement through their employer or with an IRA chances are you’re taking advantage of dollar cost averaging. Dollar cost averaging is a method of investing a specific dollar amount, generally monthly, no matter how the market is reacting. It’s also a way for an investor to fully fund a retirement account without requiring the maximum amount allowed in one shot. For example, let’s assume that an investor under the age of 50 wants to save to an IRA. The maximum contribution to the IRA for 2015 is $5,500. Should the investor want to save monthly and still invest the maximum allowed for the year, he would simply divide by 12 and invest a sum of $458.33 monthly. The beauty of this strategy is that the investor takes advantage of market swings, whether high or low. If the market is considerably high (as […]
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When Does WEP NOT Impact My Social Security?
Recently we covered the Windfall Elimination Provision a bit more completely, including how to eliminate WEP and how WEP can impact your dependents. This prompted quite a few folks to write to me about their own situations, wondering if WEP would impact them. So today we’ll cover those cases where you might be wondering about this, when WEP does NOT impact your Social Security. First of all, if you have worked all your life in a job where Social Security tax was withheld, WEP does not impact your Social Security at all. This is true even if you worked in a government job – as long as your wages (earnings) were subject to Social Security tax withholding, WEP will not impact you. As well, if you have worked and received substantial earnings from Social Security covered jobs for 30 or more years during your career, and you also have a […]
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How We Can Serve You
I wanted to write a short post this week letting our readers know that even though the majority of them may not be located in the state of Illinois, we are generally still able to help and work with you should you want to use or services. Here are a few ways that we can make your experience working with us as “local” and as professional as possible. We use email – a lot. This is arguably the main way we communicate with clients. It’s not that we’re above using the phone, but with our schedules we are frequently out of the office. Email lets us stay in contact with you regardless of where we’re at. We use video conferencing. Whether we’re in the office or traveling for business we can easily have a face to face conversation with you if you’d like to put a face with the name. […]
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
The latest in our Owner’s Manual series, A 401(k) Owner’s Manual, was published in January 2020 and is available on 
A Medicare Owner’s Manual, is updated with 2020 facts and figures. This manual is available on 
Social Security for the Suddenly Single can be found on Amazon at 
Sterling’s first book, Lose Weight Save Money, can be 
An IRA Owner’s Manual, 2nd Edition is available for purchase on Amazon. Click the link to choose the 
Jim’s book – A Social Security Owner’s Manual, is now available on Amazon. Click this link for the 
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”.