I bet you have seen some cool marketing about great “guaranteed income” retirement products. Conversely, I will also suppose that you have seen a few marketing messages that talk about annuities being the spawn of the devil and that nobody should ever own an annuity. Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised when …
Life Savings
What’s keeping me from retiring?
If you are asking this question, you are not alone. A new survey from PWC, a global tax and business services firm, shows that baby boomers want to retire soon, but many have doubts about how to make that happen. Almost 60 percent of survey respondents say they want to retire in the next five …
Tax savings for 2018
The new federal tax law takes effect for tax year 2018. One of the biggest changes is a near doubling of the standard deduction to $12,000 on single returns, $18,000 for head-of-household filers and $24,000 on joint returns. That’s up from $6,350, $9,350 and $12,700 in 2017. Individuals age 65 or older and blind people …
What is Financial Risk?
Risk is a topic that gets a lot of attention in the financial planning business. But it’s a term that’s not really well understood. There are many technical definitions of financial planning risk. And there is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of risk: 1. The possibility of loss or injury. 2. The chance that an …
Hate thinking about money? Here’s why it’s still important.
From time to time, I hear people say something like, “Thinking about financial goals gives me a bellyache. Why would I pay somebody to talk about them?” If that’s how you feel, you’re not alone. Most Americans experience some level of anxiety, insecurity or fear about financial issues, according to the Northwestern Mutual 2018 Planning …
Hate thinking about money? Here’s why it’s still important.Read More
What You Should Know About Your Life Savings
Lately, I’ve been hearing some confusion on the part of folks I’ve been talking to about their financial goals. For example, a person said to me, “I’m not sure I want to save money into my IRA this year because I think the stock market will fall soon and I don’t want to lose my …