Ever since a legal secretary named Ida May Fuller received the first retirement benefit check in 1940, women have been counting on Social Security to provide much-needed retirement income. Social Security provides other important benefits too, including disability and survivor benefits, that can help women of all ages and their family members. Continue reading “Four Things Women Need to Know about Social Security”
Planning for retirement is an important and sometimes difficult endeavor. As a member of the military, you may have some special opportunities and challenges when preparing financially for retirement. Often, retiring from the military leads to a second civilian career–and a second retirement.
Continue reading “Members of the Military: Planning for Retirement”
Military families face plenty of financial challenges. If you’re saving for college or retirement, buying a home, or wondering how to help secure your family’s financial future, don’t overlook these five important benefits.
Continue reading “Five Key Benefits for Military Families, including VA Mortgages”
As a retirement savings plan participant, you know that setting an accumulation goal is an important part of your overall strategy. In fact, over decades of conducting its annual Retirement Confidence Survey, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) has found that goal setting is a key factor influencing overall retirement confidence. But for many, a retirement savings goal that could reach as high as $1 million or more may seem like a daunting, even impossible mountain to climb. What if you’re contributing as much as you can to your retirement savings plan, and investing as aggressively as possible within your risk comfort zone, but still feel that you’ll never reach the summit?
As with many of life’s toughest challenges, it may help to focus a little less on the end result and more on the details that help refine your plan.1 Continue reading “Don’t Let Your Retirement Savings Goal Get You Down”
I think it’s time to start planning for retirement. Where do I begin?
Answer:
Although most of us recognize the importance of sound retirement planning, few of us embrace the nitty-gritty work involved. With thousands of investment possibilities, complex rules governing retirement plans, and so on, most people don’t even know where to begin. Here are some suggestions to help you get started.
Answer: It’s seldom easy to achieve a balance between saving for your retirement and saving for the ever-increasing cost of a college education within your present income. Yet it’s imperative that you save for both at the same time. To postpone saving for your retirement means missing out on years of tax-deferred growth and playing a near-impossible game of catch-up. To postpone saving for college means possibly significant borrowing and years of student loan payments. In a perfect world, you want to contribute to each. But to accomplish both goals, you may need to compromise.
Retirement Planning: The Basics
You may have a very idealistic vision of retirement — doing all of the things that you never seem to have time to do now. But how do you pursue that vision? Social Security may be around when you retire, but the benefit that you get from Uncle Sam may not provide enough income for your retirement years. To make matters worse, few employers today offer a traditional company pension plan that guarantees you a specific income at retirement. On top of that, people are living longer and must find ways to fund those additional years of retirement. Such eye-opening facts mean that today, sound retirement planning is critical.
But there’s good news: Retirement planning is easier than it used to be, thanks to the many tools and resources available. Here are some basic steps to get you started.
Continue reading “Retirement Planning – Work with a Professional”
