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MANY OF US DREAM of owning a second home near the sea, a lake or the mountains. For my wife and me, that dream location was the southern New Jersey Shore. We’d both spent many vacations there as children and then did the same with our own growing family. We had visions of taking grandkids to the beach and boardwalk.
In March 2012, we realized our dream by purchasing a three-bedroom condo in Ocean City,
IF YOU’RE MARRIED, filing for Social Security can be confusing. But there’s one group who has it even worse—those who are divorced.
In recent weeks, I’ve had a number of conversations with women who had no idea that they were even eligible for spousal benefits based on their ex-husband’s earnings record. (I also recently watched the television show Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, which gave completely erroneous advice on benefits for ex-spouses.) My hope: Someone reading this may learn that he or she is eligible for spousal or survivor benefits from an ex-spouse.
A REVOLUTION IN the workforce is creating an underutilized resource: workers over age 50. These workers represent more than a quarter of the U.S. labor force, and that number is expected to climb sharply as the population ages.
For these workers, it would be a boon—financially and otherwise—if they could stay in the workforce for longer. It would also be great for the economy, ensuring we continue to have enough workers to produce the goods and services that society needs.
ARE YOU PLANNING to withdraw funds from your Roth IRA? If you aren’t careful, you could owe both taxes and penalties, even though you’ve already paid taxes on the money that went into the Roth. At issue: the IRS’s five-year rule. How do you sidestep its unpleasant consequences? Bear with me while I explain.
First, a word of caution: You don’t have to take distributions from your Roth IRA during your lifetime. Withdrawals are strictly up to you.
ONE OF MY GOALS for 2020: develop a plan for doing Roth IRA conversions over the next 10 years. Once the money is out of traditional IRAs and in a Roth, it’ll grow tax-free. Problem is, the conversion means taking a tax hit today.
So why am I interested? There are several reasons: lowering lifetime taxes for my wife and me, creating the flexibility to manage future tax bills and leaving a tax-free inheritance to our children.
I HAVE A BIG PROBLEM with a small word. But before I get to that, I’ll start with a little bit of history.
In his book The Success Equation, Michael Mauboussin tells this story: Back in the 1970s, a Spanish man won the country’s biggest national lottery, called El Gordo—the Big One. Awarded annually at Christmastime, it’s the rough equivalent of our Powerball. In this particular year, when the winner was interviewed,
HERE IS WHY I DON’T trade, and don’t make big market bets, and why you shouldn’t, either.
Headlines last Monday at 6 a.m.: Nation Braces for Brutal Week, At Least a Fourth of U.S. Economy Goes Idle, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Hospitalized.
Headline at 9:30 a.m.: Dow Surges as Tech Stocks Rally
I got spooked last weekend. It was epic. I was actually scared after days of hearing about the bungled federal response to the pandemic and about states fighting over medical supplies.
AFTER A SHORT BUT rough tender ride, we’re now off the Zaandam and on the Rotterdam, where we are once again quarantined in our cabin, thankfully still with a balcony. We are through the Panama Canal and now near Cuba. Our three-and-a-half week “mystery” cruise is—we hope—drawing to a close.
On March 30, Colombia refused to allow a plane to land on one of its islands near us. The plane carried medical supplies for the Zaandam.
FOLLOWING THE STOCK market’s steep decline, sensible investors are faced with three alternatives. The first two are fairly straightforward, but the third option is worth some discussion.
1. Do nothing. If all of your assets are in retirement accounts and you’re comfortable with your risk level, you might choose to tune out the news and do nothing at all. Similarly, if your portfolio doesn’t include any stock market investments, you might opt to watch the market upheaval from a distance,
AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK, I run across the sort of portfolio I like to call a “broker’s special.” While each is different, they typically include some mix of the following:
A handful of mutual funds with names like “New Economy” or “New Discovery” or “New Perspectives.”
Some commodity funds.
10 or 20 individual stocks.
Funds with names heavy on buzzwords such as “infrastructure” and “renewable energy.”
And, in some cases, master limited partnerships,
“THE INVESTOR’S CHIEF problem—even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.” So wrote Benjamin Graham, the father of modern investment analysis.
With these words, written in 1949, Graham acknowledged the reality that investors are human. Though he had written an 800-page book on techniques to analyze stocks and bonds, Graham understood that investing is as much about human psychology as it is about numerical analysis.
In the decades since Graham’s passing, an entire field has emerged at the intersection of psychology and finance.
I CAN TELL I’M a little squishy on my investment plan, because the thought of making a public New Year’s resolution fills me with all the dread of a reluctant groom.
As I linger outside my metaphorical church, I imagine my bride wants to shackle me to allocation targets and rebalancing rules that I announce to the whole congregation. My aversion to such commitments competes with my realization that—without them—I’ll be back to my free-wandering self.
AS IF ON CUE, Ebenezer Scrooge recently showed up in Washington, DC. The result wasn’t pretty.
A bill known as the SECURE Act, a favorite of the insurance industry, had been stuck in Congress all year. But suddenly, on Dec. 20, it got tacked onto another bill and signed into law. As far as I can tell, the primary beneficiaries of this new law, which heavily impacts retirement plans, will be the IRS and the insurance industry—but probably not you.
TAX-DEFERRED ACCOUNTS are great, until they aren’t—when we have to pay taxes on our withdrawals. Millions of Americans have tax-deferred accounts, pundits laud them, companies help fund them, institutions service them and markets help them grow. But when it comes time to empty them, often the only person to guide us is Uncle Sam, who’s patiently awaiting his cut.
Efficiently managing 30 years of retirement withdrawals from a 401(k), 403(b), IRA or other tax-deferred account is just as important as the 40 years of accumulation.
IT’S IRONIC THAT WE often shortchange retirement savings during the first half of our working lives, because that’s when we can buy future retirement dollars at a huge discount—thanks to investment compounding.
How can we hammer home this point? My proposal: We should adopt a simple mental math rule that allows us to weigh today’s spending against future retirement dollars. That brings me to my ”6 to 2 times 200” rule. The rule covers five age groups: early 20s,
