As many know, you may not need to start taking Social Security at age 62; you can start any time after that until age 70. After 70, there's no point in waiting longer because your Social Security benefits won't increase moving forward. If you don't have an immediate need for the money and you're healthy enough to anticpate a long retirement, waiting will increase the size of the Social Security checks you'll eventually receive. Long-term, you may come out ahead.
Ed Slott and Company Chief Retirement Strategist Jeffrey Levine sat down with The Wall Street Journal's Veronica Dagher to discuss how the presidential candidates - Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Gary Johnson - want to handle Social Security and other retirement planning issues.
In 2006, Alan, a strapping young man who had just turned 50, collapsed and died of a massive heart attack while attending Sunday morning Mass with his wife Karen. Alan and Karen co-owned a business. Alan was a contractor and Karen handled the accounting and billing. Karen was fairly savvy financially. However, because she felt she had to get everything settled “right away” after Alan’s passing, she made several costly mistakes. It's a story you and your clients can learn from.
Last month TransAmerica released its 17th annual Retirement Survey of Workers. This year’s study, entitled Prospectives on Retirement: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, yielded some incredible information. Here are some of the most fascinating takeaways I found as I read through the study.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag looks at several retirement planning complexities, including required minimum distribution (RMD) responsibilities for a non-spouse beneficiary and Social Security benefits for a divorcee.
Dan and Barbara are a couple soon heading into the second half of the retirement game. They had planned, and read, and strategized, and thought they were making sound financial decisions. That's before one meeting discovered they gave away $50,000 in "free" money.
In recent weeks, the Social Security Administration has released a flurry of information, including several “Emergency Messages,” aimed at clarifying some of the changes to the Social Security rules made by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. The guidance addressed a number of critical, previously unanswered questions, and is poised to impact many of those in or approaching retirement. Here is a list of the key updates, followed by a more comprehensive explanation of the guidance.
Let's kick off the holiday festivities with a short list of 10 of the most amazing, surprising and/or illuminating facts about retirement that Jeffrey Levine read in November. Before each fact, you will find Jeff's brief commentary, and after each fact, you will find the original article from which the fact was pulled should you be interested in further reading. Happy Holidays!
Many recent college graduates, those just starting a full-time job or growing their family don't think long term. They push off a retirement savings plan to handle more pressing financial needs. This story illustrates why saving for retirement IS actually one of those pressing needs.
Are you retired? If so, you may think that a Roth IRA is not for you. Before deciding if a Roth IRA will benefit you as a retiree, here are 10 facts that you will want to know.
