Evaluate College Costs: it is the net cost not advertised price that counts toward lowering Student Loan debt. Finding the college discounts will ultimately reduce student loans. Colleges post their prices online. This is just like hotels have rates on room doors and car dealers have sticker prices on car windows.
It can be scary retiring after a near lifetime of working. Perhaps even scarier is realizing that you must live on what you have now in investments. The markets daily ups and down with the television, radio, and social media hype only enhance this fear. How are you to do your retirement investing? Put them under a mattress or bank CD’s earning very little interest? Here is a method that works for my clients.
Financial planners like myself often encounter clients wanting to know how to financially retire. While retirement is about much more than just money, that is why folks frequently seek out financial planning. These people just want to know “How much do I need to retire” to avoid living under a bridge? This can become a kind of “Catch 22” question.
Retirement Pension and Social Security Sweet Spots Coordinating the timing of pensions and social security can create greater wealth during retirement. Often folks want to take their pensions and Social Security as soon as possible. Social Security which can be started as early age 62 is penalized for each month taken prior to the Full …
What is Retirement The retirement years, for many, no longer exists the way they use to be for the early baby boom generation. Pensions are no more for many people. As a result, they must live on Social Security and the savings from a life time of working. Some folks continue to work into their …
Maintenance While cleaning up and doing tent maintenance after a recent Orland Park Cub Scout camping trip, I thought about how important it is to perform maintenance on many items including my investment accounts. This part of financial planning is necessary yet a very unexciting chore. I perform such cleaning tasks as making sure beneficiaries …
Funding a Trust My financial planning training and estate planning lawyer suggested I create a living trust for my estate planning situation. I went through the process of creating and signing legal documents with my wonderful attorney, Amy Delaney. After that, the real work began. I needed to fund the trust. That means I worked …
8/28 Automating savings is the by far the easiest way to put away for tomorrow’s financial needs. Sending a small amount to a 401K or bank savings account directly from a paycheck is painless once established. Likely after a few times, it won’t be miss it as much and increasing the savings contribution in a …
College 529 plans get their name from the section of the Internal Revenue Code that defines them. These college savings plans are a tax preferred “wrapper” for dollars earmarked for education. Another name for the plans is Qualified Tuition Programs (QTP). State governments establish and run these plans. There are two types of QTPs. The …
The decision to save for our children’s education or retirement is a vexing one. For me, the bottom-line is that there are no scholarships or grants available for retirement. Don’t misunderstand, I am not suggesting our children’s education is unimportant and not worth our money. It may be possible to fund both. I’ll come back …
Should I Save for My Kid’s College or Retirement? Read More »
