Choosing the most efficient tax-favored retirement savings strategy can be challenging. Here’s how to get it right in 3 simple steps.
Retirement
Imagine No Electricity Bills: The Rise of ‘Net-Zero’ Homes
If done properly, a smartly built green home featuring solar power, energy-efficient appliances, and proper insulation can result in the owner facing monthly electricity bills amounting to $0, or thereabouts. Now, one homebuilder …
Drug Prices Up — or Not? Either Way, Treatments Will Chew Up Retirement Savings
A report on rising drug prices set off alarms among retirement planners. Pharmaceutical companies dispute the findings. But either way retirees must plan on an ever increasing outlay for health care.
With a Pension Shortfall, Companies Want to Kick in Even Less
Just a decade ago pension plans were flush. Today there is a $400 billion shortfall and companies want to do what? That’s right — cut their pension contributions.
Universities Retool and Boomers Flock Back to Campus
Adults are going back to college to restart their career, switch jobs, launch a second act, or just to have fun learning. But as you might expect, it’s expensive. Here are seven ways one expert says will make going back to campus …
How a Digital Picture of Your Future Self Can Change Your Saving Habits
A realistic vision of what you’ll look like years from now prompts workers to boost their savings rate. Here’s why company HR departments will soon have employees coming face to face with their future self.
Living to 100: As It Becomes Common, Money Regrets Follow
We’re on track for a population with 600,000 folks over the age of 100 by 2050. Yet almost nobody is planning for it financially.
Retirement Buster: It’s Your House, Not Your Portfolio
Retirement portfolios held up surprisingly well through the Great Recession. But housing declines made for the worst period in several generations for pre-retirees, a study finds.
Why You’re Supposed to Be Extra Focused on Saving Money This Week
If you’re been splurging and throwing money around lately, perhaps you didn’t get the memo: February 19 to 26 is officially dubbed “America Saves Week.” Feel free to go back to your freespending ways starting February 27.
Don’t Look Now — But You’ve Already Been Enrolled in an IRA Savings Plan
Automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans has been such a success that a lot of people want to duplicate it with IRAs. Proposals that would require employers to establish automatic payroll deductions for IRAs have been kicking around …
Door Opens to Tax on IRA and 401(k) Gains
From the beginning, questions have swirled around the future tax standing of retirement savings. In an age of soaring deficits, would Congress really be able to keep its hands off hundreds of billions of dollars of tax-advantaged …
3 Ways to Know If You Can Retire
The concept of a practice retirement has been around for many years, and it has been especially topical since the Great Recession took a toll on so many nest eggs. But practicing retirement before you take the plunge isn’t just …