Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

With no heirs in sight, the fortune of a real estate mogul in New York may go to the state.

Taking care of these retirement and estate-planning details is a gift that someday will make your family very grateful.

Happy May Day! A new month brings new sales, and no one knows bargains quite like Bankrate does.

Are “death puts” a way to get long-term CD rates without locking heirs in?

Is your estate plan ready for the 21st century? Does it consider your parents, your dog and your online business?

Growing up, I lived with one of my grandmothers every summer, and during the winter, I lived down the street from the other. Both of them were huge influences in my life. My own children — because of death and distance — scarcely knew their grandparents — a hole in their lives that they probably

Estate planning is an important part of retirement planning. My mother-in-law died in January, and we’re still struggling with closing the estate. The holdup is her late husband’s life insurance policy. He died a couple of years before she fell ill, but she never claimed the proceeds of the policy — probably because it wasn’t

Gay couples who say “I do” in New York and the five other states that have legalized same-sex marriage should also quickly consider retirement planning, because the financial implications of a same-sex partnership are more complex than they are for conventional marriages. Anna Pfaehler, a CFP with Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Scarsdale, N.Y., offers

I have this terrible retirement planning fear that I have somehow overlooked changing the beneficiary on some old retirement account and it will inadvertently become the property of my ex-husband. Beneficiaries supersede wills and trusts, so paying attention to them is a key part of estate planning. Giving thought to choosing the right beneficiary is

My 86-year-old mother-in-law gave my husband his annual holiday check last weekend when we visited. Sometimes she gives me my own check, but this year she said she didn’t think I needed the money and that if I did, my husband could share his. I laughed. Family money — even when there isn’t much of