Do you know how much money it's going to take for you to be able to retire comfortably and then to remain retired comfortably?

Being "in" a certain tax bracket doesn't mean you pay that federal income tax rate on everything you make. The progressive tax system means that people with higher taxable incomes are subject to higher federal income tax rates, and people with lower taxable incomes are subject to lower federal income tax rates.

Happy New Year! It's that time of year when many of us resolve to change things for the coming year. We make a list of goals that we plan to stick to for the remainder of the following year. That’s great. What's not great is that the overwhelming majority of us don't stick to those goals. I can't actually prove why but my theory is that most of us have goals that create deprivation. Meaning our goal includes depriving ourselves of something we really like doing.

If you spent ten minutes reading economic forecasts for 2021, you wasted ten minutes that you will never get back. By the way, time is your most valuable asset. Invest it wisely. Anyway, I re-read some of the 2020 outlooks from several of the most respected and well known forecasters in the financial industry such as Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc. You know what I noticed?

Good intentions sometimes have bad consequences. A perfect example can be opening a 529 plan for your child or grandchild. Depending on the financial situations of the parties involved the intentions of helping the child can possibly (key word is possibly) have the consequence of hurting the child chances of financial aid in the future. Let's explore how.

High Blood Pressure is often referred to as the silent killer of human beings. It has no obvious symptoms to indicate something is wrong. Many people don't even know they have it. It develops slowly over time and although it can't be cured but it can be managed. Your retirement plan has a similar killer.

So you are closing in on retirement, and you are faced with a difficult choice regarding your defined-benefit pension plan: Should you accept the traditional, lifetime monthly annuity payments or take the lump sum distribution?

Retirement has two doors. One leads to a chance of success. One leads to certain failure.