While paying off your mortgage before retiring may seem like a logical plan, a growing number of Americans are counting a monthly house payment among their retirement expenses. The Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey reports that in 2009, approximately a third of households headed by a person age 65 to 74 had a mortgage on [...]
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The Biggest Retirement Expenses – Week of March 19, 2012
Health care is commonly referred to as the greatest expense Americans face in retirement, but according to a Feb. 15 Investment News article by Darla Mercado, health care comes in second. The biggest expense for Americans over 50 is housing costs. Data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) showed that housing-related costs accounted for [...]
Retire Without Quitting Your Job – Week of March 12, 2012
Retirement may seem like a two-option idea: retire when you reach the right age or retire when you reach the right amount of savings. The latter idea may mean working until death for some, while others may choose to retire early if they have the assets for it. But for pre-retirees contemplating the pros and [...]
Starting a Business in your Retirement Years – Week of March 5, 2012
American entrepreneurs started businesses at a rate of approximately 565,000 a month in 2010, the last year the data was available. According to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, the 55 to 64 age group has seen the greatest increase in number of Americans to launch a business since 2007. That trend coincides with a [...]
Deferred 2010 Roth IRA Conversions Taxes Due – For the Week of April 2, 2012
by Jordan Dechtman
In January 2010, a new law took effect that gave individual retirement account owners the opportunity to delay taxes on 2010 Roth IRA conversions by opting to split income from the conversion between 2011 and 2012. The law lifted income restrictions on Roth IRA conversions and allowed high-income taxpayers to convert to a Roth for [...]