Retirement News & Updates

Roth IRA Vs Traditional IRA
Having just taken a look at your traditional IRA, you may be wondering if the time is now to convert it to a Roth IRA. Choosing between a Roth and a traditional IRA requires you to estimate what your tax situation will be when you start drawing from the account.

It’s That Time of Year
It’s usually around this time of year, when individuals are preparing paperwork for filing their tax returns, that we are asked what the deadlines for contributions are, and what happens if one spouse is non-working but still wants to make IRA contributions. As a general rule, you have until tax

The Busyness of Life
What does retirement really, truly mean? What are your plans for after you retire? We’ve been thinking about this recently. Many would define it as “retreating from the ‘busyness’ of life.” When do you plan on retiring? How old will you be? How long do you think you’ll spend in

Bridge the Gap
We’ve heard many times that it’s a good idea for retirees to put off receiving Social Security payments, as waiting can allow you to get more out of them than if you were to start as soon as age permits. One way to make this more feasible is to include

Stay Active During Retirement
Retirement is a new beginning. As a new retiree, you enter a new stage of your life, where your time is now regulated by you and you alone, rather than revolving around your work. Unfortunately, many new retirees find this isn’t what they’d expected it to be. Many people begin

Money in College Savings Accounts Can Instead Be Put Towards Retirement
Starting in 2024, due to the Secure Act 2.0, up to $35,000 of the money in a 529 college savings account to be rolled over to a Roth IRA for the beneficiary of the 529 account. Although funds in a college savings account going unused is rare, it’s not unheard

Seven Different Ways
We thought we’d bring to your attention an article recently published by AARP that discusses seven different ways retirement income will be different this year: “For most people, retirement finance is a delicate balance between income that’s likely less than what you made while working and expenses that may be

A Sudden Influx of Cash?
Annuities are one way to leverage a sudden influx of cash that may or may not have been expected, such as a bonus, inheritance, or sale of a small asset you had never factored into your financial profile. The reason they can be leveraged is because, unlike traditional tax-advantaged retirement

Retirement With $5 Million
There was a recent report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute on an analysis of retirement accounts using the 2018 Survey of Consumer Finances. According to the analysis, a $5 million retirement nest egg puts you in the top 0.1% of households. Then, the question becomes: what does $5 million

New Law For 2024
If you own a small business or family office you could be required to report ownership details to the federal government… or face stiff penalties and possible jail time. The Corporate Transparency Act went into effect on January 1, 2024, and it requires otherwise unregulated companies to report information about

Estate Planning
We all know that complex estates require sophisticated estate planning. If you have a large estate or own a business, only a qualified estate-planning attorney will have the knowledge and expertise to tailor to your specific needs. Because we have been doing business with you, we may be able to

Gifts That Keep Giving
The younger a child is when you contribute to their 529 plan, the longer the account has to potentially benefit from compound growth. In 2023, individuals can contribute up to $17,000 per year (and couples up to $34,000 per year) without eating into their lifetime gift and estate tax exemption.

Pre or Post-Retirement?
Most of us think of life insurance as a way to help the people who depend on us financially, or even just to help pay the debts we may have left for our end-of-life care, funeral, or burial costs. What few of us tend to consider is the simple fact

Types of Annuities: A Rundown
We’ve been asked what a variable annuity and a fixed annuity are. What are the differences between them? Essentially: A variable annuity’s value is based on the performance of a portfolio of sub-accounts; it offers the opportunity for higher returns and greater income than a fixed annuity, but there’s also

Don’t Take the Bait
In 2022, social media-based scams cost Americans a total of $1.23 billion, a 54% increase since 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Typically, these sorts of scams start with someone claiming to be a mutual acquaintance of someone you know, or relative. Then, they either ask for financial assistance,

Paying For Medicare
Friends and colleagues who are approaching 65 are beginning to ask about Medicare benefits. Not just how to sign up, but what to select from among the various choices. The good news is, 94% of Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and up are satisfied with their quality of care. The not-so-good

What is a Pension? Do You Have One?
The phrase “pension benefits” has come up a lot in recent weeks, especially during the negotiations between the United Auto Workers union and the “big three” automotive manufacturers, narrowly avoiding a strike. But for the majority of private-sector U.S. workers, pensions seem to have disappeared a long time ago. Pensions

Did You Hear?
Did You Hear? According to LIMRA, annuity sales are on the rise yet again this year, after also breaking records last year. Investors building their retirement strategy looking to mitigate some risk have chosen to lock-in annuities–How smart is this choice? Well, there’s definitely a reason they’ve been selling recently. Reach