According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, there are approximately 25 million orphaned retirement accounts – i.e. accounts left with former employers – in existence today. If one (or more) of these accounts belongs to you, what’s the best way of handling these abandoned funds? Today’s article looks at the pros and cons of three options – keeping the 401(k) with…
Retirement is a time for spending. However, as today’s article highlights, it appears that affluent American retirees are not doing so. Rather, despite having accumulated an unprecedented amount in assets, studies find they are hoarding money. And while some may be doing so for rational reasons (e.g. wanting to leave a sizable inheritance), the primary motivator appears to be an…
Talk about a double-edged sword: the very mental habits that are advantageous when it comes to saving for retirement and building a nest egg can be harmful once in retirement and spending down that nest egg. The implication of this reversal, according to the author of today’s article? “It can lead to a much less satisfying retirement – one in…
When it comes to the assumptions your retirement is riding on, the author of today’s article warns that “abject optimism can be dangerous.” But not only do many retirement planners have overly optimistic expectations about rates of return in the coming years, many are also overly optimistic with their plans to work longer in order to help fund their retirements:…
April is Financial Literacy Month, but the author of today’s article believes that an understanding of five “big picture principles” is even more important when it comes to achieving one’s financial goals (such as having enough money for a secure retirement) than knowledge of specific financial concepts and processes. The first of these big picture principles? While investing is important,…
“When it comes to important life transitions like retirement, perspective, judgment and objectivity are vital to prevent mistakes that can lead to disaster,” asserts the author of today’s article. The problem? Too many people forego the aforementioned in favor of overly simplistic (and overly optimistic) “back-of-the-envelope” planning. What are some critical steps many people fail to take – and important…
“It doesn’t take brilliant investing to retire early as I did,” states the author of today’s article, a former software engineer who retired at age 50 despite making a number of investing blunders over the years – some of which involved tens of thousands of dollars. For his reflections on how he got to early retirement – including the big…
With high-dividend-yielding stocks feeling the pain as interest rates rise, the author of today’s article argues that, while older investors should not scale back on their dividend holdings, “the challenge is to pick the right dividend stocks and funds” – and the right dividend stocks and funds right now might not be the usual suspects! As such, she proceeds to…
Americans are not saving enough for retirement – and if Republican lawmakers have their way (which they presumably will as they now control Washington), this crisis may only get worse. The author of today’s article goes so far as to call the GOP’s current actions and proposed plans a “war on retirement”. What does the author identify as the three…
If you have a large sum of money that you want to invest for retirement, the commonly-held financial wisdom is that you should use the dollar-cost averaging strategy and move that money into the market gradually so that the entire amount is not at risk of a market setback. But, as today’s article explains, it turns out that this seemingly…