Learn More About the Sweeping Legislation Designed to Fight America’s Retirement Savings Crisis
Wednesday, 08 January 2020
In May 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act, commonly called the SECURE Act. Designed to help tackle our country’s growing retirement savings crisis, the far-reaching legislation spent months tied up in the Senate. On December 19, 2019, it passed the Senate with a 71 to 23 majority.
Let’s take a look at a few standout provisions of the legislation and discuss what they could mean for you.
Practical Tips for the ‘Sandwich Generation’
Thursday, 26 December 2019
A growing group of Americans in their 30s, 40s, and 50s find themselves caring for both growing children and aging parents at the same time. Labeled the “Sandwich Generation,” these caregivers have unique financial planning needs – and they face unique financial stress, too.
Aging parents often have health-related expenses, while minors and college-age children require substantial financial resources as well. At the same time, these caregivers caught in the middle need to be saving for retirement and they may still be paying off debts of their own.
Learn More About a Valuable Measure of Your Financial Health
Tuesday, 03 December 2019
Choosing to leave an inheritance to your children will greatly impact your retirement planning. You will need to adjust the amount you save, which retirement plans you choose and how you’ll take your distributions from them. However, the decision to leave wealth to your heirs requires careful consideration of other factors, too.
1. Your Income Needs
One of the most damaging errors you can make is to give away retirement savings that you’ll actually need for your own income in retirement. While it’s admirable to want to share your nest egg with your children, you need to consider how much personal income you’ll need to live the retirement life you desire. If you’re unsure how to determine this amount, try a retirement calculator like this one from Bankrate. It can help you determine how much to save and how much to withdraw annually once you retire.
How the PATH Act of 2015 Removed the Guessing Game and Created More Flexibility for Retirees
Wednesday, 13 November 2019
An Introduction to the Qualified Charitable Distribution
For years, the rules surrounding the ability to utilize a tax-free Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) directly from your IRA to a non-profit were on-again, off-again. The rules would lapse frequently, then be reinstated by Congress – but only for two years at a time. Finally, with the passage of the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015, the rules allowing for the QCD were made permanent in tax law.
Consequentially, it is now much easier to take proactive steps in your charitable giving strategy so that you can minimize the tax implications of your IRA’s Required Minimum Distribution (RMD). However, you must follow very strict requirements if you want to receive the tax benefits associated with gifting a QCD to a registered charitable organization. These requirements include age limitations, maximum dollar amount limitations, and regulations on the particular types of charities that are eligible.
Six Strategies for Making Good Decisions in Difficult Times
Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Even the most thorough planner among us will sometimes be caught off-guard by life circumstances we simply could not foresee. When this happens, we often find ourselves at the crossroads of a major life transition, and it can be both challenging and stressful to determine the best path forward.
Rather than making a snap decision that is likely to be ineffective or problematic in the long-run, it’s best to pause and reflect on our families, our careers and our money. The strategies offered below provide recommendations for doing just that so that we can arrive at decisions that balance all of the most important variables in our lives.
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
The latest three-month returns in the U.S. and international stock markets can be viewed with two very different attitudes. The first is that many indices (though not all) produced a loss for the quarter, and where there were gains, they tended to be very small. On the other hand, the losses, where they occurred, were too small to wipe out the gains of the previous two quarters, meaning that most investors have still made money so far this year.
Whether that will continue is anyone’s guess, but in today’s uncertain political and economic environment, it’s easy to feel like we all managed to dodge a bullet and are holding onto our gains with gratitude.
So, you’ve decided to hire a financial advisor. Congratulations! Studies show a good financial advisor can increase investor returns by 3.75% annually.
Tuesday, 08 October 2019
A financial advisor can bring knowledge and expertise to financial areas and help you create overall investment strategies. They can help reach your retirement goals, minimize taxes, and help structure your withdrawals in retirement. Financial advisors are also more versed in the long-game of investing and can help assuage any fears and help provide support by providing fact-based advice.
Taking advantage of employer matches and pre-tax savings
Friday, 27 September 2019
Chances are if you are reading this article you are at least thinking about your retirement, or more specifically, your retirement savings. Or lack thereof. What some people don’t realize or take advantage of, especially if they are working in a mid-size to large company is that they are often offered helpful employer benefits. These benefits may be classified in your employee handbook in various ways, such as:
- defined benefit plan
- company pension
- lump-sum payments
- lifetime annuity
- vesting schedule
When any of those words crop up, the next step is delving in to figure out what your employer offers that you could be benefitting from. You may be surprised that 1 in 5 Americans do not take full advantage of their employer match 401(k), resulting in $1.4 billion in unclaimed employer match money annually.
Tuesday, 10 September 2019
It can sometimes be hard to understand just how large the U.S. economy is compared with the other countries of the world. You’ve probably read that California, alone if it were an independent country, would have the world’s fifth-largest economy. But what about the rest of the states?
Thursday, 05 September 2019
Retirement is a time when people can take some time for themselves and travel, spend more time on hobbies and leisure activities, start a side business, volunteer or go back to school. Whatever your goals are in retirement it is also important to keep ongoing retirement planning in mind even after you have blown out those candles.
There can often be the mindset that you’ve done all of your planning and now it’s on autopilot so you can sit back and enjoy the ride. While this is partially true, especially if you have been proactive about your retirement planning for many years, it is important to keep your goals and your plans to achieve them firmly in sight.
As an executive, long deserving of your new promotion, there is much to be celebrated.
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Years of hard work have paid off and you have been recognized for your hard work. Bonus – the pay and benefits have changed for the better…by a lot.
There can be a temptation to make a big purchase, change your lifestyle, and splurge like you weren’t able to before. For some, compensation increases can feel paralyzing, like you aren’t quite sure how to handle the perks. After all, it isn’t just an increase in your paycheck. It’s a change to your retirement benefits, bonuses, and perhaps there may be stock options to deal with and other things that can have an impact on your taxes at present and in the future.
In this article, we will outline some steps you should take when you get a new promotion in order to stay on track toward a bright financial future.
Anybody who reads the headlines knows by now that the markets have had a wild couple of weeks, and the S&P 500 is down two weeks in a row.
Monday, 12 August 2019
Having said that, the S&P 500 is down only 3.54% from it’s all-time high. In the bigger picture, this is a pretty modest drop for a market that is still up over 16% so far this year, and some analysts were surprised it wasn't worse, given the startling way the trade war with China escalated
There seems to be much confusion about how tariffs work. Yes, buyers of imported goods will tend to pay a higher price if the exporting company maintains the same pricing policies that it had in effect before the tariffs were levied. But many exporters will lower the prices they demand in order to offset the effectively higher price in the U.S. market, eating some of the tariff's bite in order to remain competitive.
Chances are that you know that the Social Security trust fund is due to run out of money—or “deplete its reserves” as economists put it—by the year 2035.
Tuesday, 06 August 2019
The actual time frame depends on some forecasts, including economic growth, the number of workers who remain in the workforce and the number who retire—but the clear point is that Congress is going to have to take action in the next few years if it wants to prevent a lot of angry seniors from heading vengefully to the polls.
The best way to get ahead in the world is through hard work, diligence, sweat, and toil. Right?
Wednesday, 17 July 2019
A recent article based on interviews with top-flight athletes shows that the workaholic mindset is generally not a feature of top performers. The article found that working long hours tends to put a strain on your mind and body, and causes you to burn out before you ever achieve success. Instead, a healthy dose of rest and recovery seem to be essential to long term peak performance. Think of training for a marathon rather than a sprint.
Successful people also tend to know their prime work hours and do their most important work during that time. Think of the time of day when you feel most focused, energized and creative, and structure your most important tasks during that time window.
Thursday, 11 July 2019
How to make sense out of the recent market behavior? We experienced a painful decline in the last month of 2018 before the markets took a sharp (and unexpected) about-face and delivered the biggest one-quarter gain since the third quarter of 2009. The surprise upward trend has continued through the second quarter, albeit with more modest gains, despite what would normally be considered warning signs in the economy, the global trade markets, and corporate earnings.
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