From the category archives:

Retirement

6 Critical Financial Miscalculations I’ve Made – That You May Be Making as Well

You might think I’m a hypocrite for what I’m about to admit (since I blog about personal finance), but this is reality.  In the past, I’ve made some wildly erroneous assumptions about our future ranging from how much we’d be making and spending each year to how our investments would perform.  Many of these misconceptions [...]

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Help a Reader: Pension Plan Frozen – What To Do with 3 Choices

I got a good question from a reader and wanted to share it with you.  Here it is; I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how he might best handle this and then I’ll weigh in with my thoughts after hearing from some of you finance buffs.  While things like pension rules and IRA [...]

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Medical Advance May Extend Life to 150 Years – Crazy Financial Implications!

Today, most financial planning revolves around actuarial assumptions that you won’t live past your 80s or so.  90s if you’re real lucky.  Well, what kind of financial planning implications would there be for people that start living to be 150 or older?  Everything goes out the window!  Instead of having to save 15-20% of your [...]

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Warning: Your Pension & Social Security Are Quoted in FUTURE Dollars – How to Convert to Present Value

I was playing around with our firm’s pension tool the other day after plopping in assumptions for retirement date, assumed future salary increases and other factors, the model would return what various pension options would pay me per month.  For instance, if I wanted my survivor (wife) to enjoy the same monthly income after my [...]

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No COLA for Social Security in 2011: Here’s Why

No COLA for Social Security in 2011 is the headline, then there’s the back story.  First off, COLA is the “cost of living adjustment” that recipients generally expect from their Social Security benefits.  Most years, there’s an increase, since inflation tends to increase enough each year to justify said increase.  However, when inflation, as measured [...]

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401(k) Hardship Withdrawals Spiking – Rules and Alternatives

401(k) Hardship Withdrawals are spiking, according to Fidelity, one of the nation’s largest retirement account administrators.  According to their report, the number of such transactions is at a 10 year high.  While alarming, this should not come as a surprise as a confluence of factors have contributed to a lack of options for people – [...]

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Social Security Retirement Age Increasing to 70? Probably

It’s looking as though the push to increase the Social Security Retirement Age to 70 is gaining some traction.  With all the other news items of late, this initiative has drawn scant attention.  However, for anyone following the solvency (or lack thereof) of the Social Security system, it’s been evident for decades now that something [...]

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New Teachers and Graduates out of Work to Fund Obscene Pensions

There were two articles in the New York Times that had some related themes if you connect the dots.  Primarily, the themes focused around the total lack of employment prospects for teachers entering the workforce this year and likely for years to come (Teachers Facing Weakest Market in Years) and the second article involved the [...]

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