If you’re planning for retirement, you’ve almost certainly come across annuities—they’re available through many 401(k) plans and often are recommended by financial advisors. But what...
Retirement Planning
All Retirement Planning Articles
Retirement Planning: Making the Most of the Five Years Before Retirement
If you’re within five years of stopping work, welcome to the Red Zone. “It’s the trickiest and most crucial phase of retirement planning,” says top...
What Is a Continuing Care Retirement Community?
One of the biggest health-care dilemmas for aging seniors and their families is navigating the progression of care from independent living…to an assisted-living facility…to 24/7...
Social Security Fairness Act Payments: What You Need to Know
The Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law in early 2025, increases the Social Security benefits available to millions of public sector retirees. Bottom Line...
Best Retirement Investments
Investing in retirement is different from investing for retirement. One obvious reason: Time horizons—investors who are still decades from retirement can invest their retirement savings...
How To Do a Backdoor Roth IRA
A so-called “Backdoor Roth” is a technique for retirement savers to get the benefits of a Roth IRA even if their income exceeds limits that...
The New 4% Rule
For decades, retirees who worried about running out of money followed the standard retirement-planning advice—withdraw a maximum of 4% of your investments for retirement the...
Social Security Benefits for Children
Social Security benefits typically serve as a source of income during retirement, but some people are eligible for benefits much earlier—during childhood. Some children can...
What Are the Disadvantages of Rolling Over a 401(k) to an IRA?
When an employee changes or loses a job or retires, he/she can opt to roll the money in his former employer’s 401(k) into an IRA...
How Do I Know If I Have 40 Credits for Social Security?
Social Security credits are accumulated by earning income and paying payroll taxes on that income. But if you fail to accumulate at least 40 Social...
Why You Should Take Your 2025 RMDs Now
Conventional wisdom says seniors should wait until the end of December to take their required minimum distribution (RMD)—that’s the minimum amount that tax law requires most...
Is Social Security Taxable? Seven Things You Should Know
Are you wondering, how much Social Security will I get? It’s a good question, but what really matters is how much you’ll get to keep....
