Retirement Blog

I grew up in West Virginia in a family where “waste not, want not” was practically a religious tenet. It has taken me at least 50 years to get over the notion that leaving food on my plate isn’t a sin. So I found the study that retirement services provider ING US released last week

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department proposed changing Internal Revenue Service rules to make it easier for people saving for retirement — or actually living in retirement — to use some of the money in their 401(k)s to buy annuities that guarantee monthly payments until they die. These changes are a real retirement-planning boon.
Here are

401(k) fee disclosures have been delayed once again. A couple of years ago, we were promised that by January of 2012, we would be told how much our 401(k) plans cost. Then last July, the Department of Labor issued a final regulation, postponing the effective date for 401(k) fee disclosure to April 1 of 2012

Retirement planning gurus often say flatly that you MUST replace 80 percent of your income and you can ONLY spend 4 percent of your nest egg annually.
These are great rules of thumb, but for some people, they don’t make a lot of sense. I propose a different rule, one that works for almost everyone  –

If Medicare is a vital part of your retirement planning, pay attention to what is happening with the fight over health care reform.
In November, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as health care reform or ObamaCare. The court will decide three separate

Hurray for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal pension insurance agency that protects consumers from losing their corporate pensions. The PBGC  isn’t rolling over and accepting bankrupt American Airline’s move to dump its pension obligations on the PBGC.
Instead, the PBGC filed liens today against American Airlines after the airline failed to make all but

I heard a retirement planning horror story this morning, and I’ll share it with you.
Because the law changed this year, making things simpler and more financially advantageous for employers, more companies with frozen defined benefit retirement plans are offering employees and former employees a lump-sum payout. If you decide to accept their offer — you

If you are old enough to be worried about retirement planning, then you already know women are different than men.
Ameriprise Financial has been studying that truth, and it has come up with at least five ways women plan for retirement differently than men. None of them should surprise you.

Women want to stay close to family.

You hear all the time that you should wait until full retirement age — or until age 70 if you can — before collecting Social Security benefits. But is that the best advice, or is it simplistic?
The February issue of Kiplinger’s Retirement Report illustrates the benefits of delaying in the article, “On the homestretch to

Many people living in retirement are feeling more financially pinched this January than they did 12 months ago, according to a survey of financial security conducted for Bankrate.com.
The survey looked at all ages and all employment situations, and you can see the overall results here. But I was interested in seeing how retirement