Financial Planning
A Warning For Parents About Student Loans
For families across the country, now is the time that big, life-changing decisions are taking place. For students, it’s the time to decide on where to go to college. For parents, it’s time to have frank discussions about how college will be paid for.
Key Question For Millennial Job-Switchers: What To Do With Your Old 401(k)?
If you are even a few years into your career and have taken any interest in saving for retirement you’ve surely heard this advice: stash at least enough in your 401(k) to snag your employer’s match. Good advice, and maybe you’ve taken it. But even if you haven’t paid any heed, you might have money in a 401(k) anyway because your employer has instituted “automatic enrollment” —meaning money is deducted from your paycheck for retirement savings unless you specifically opt out of contributing.
Weddings Now Cost $31K. Here Are 10 Ways To Spend Less
What can you do with $31,213? It’s about enough cash to pay tuition and fees for one year at a private four-year university—or to host 136 of your closest friends and family for a really big party, according to recent numbers from The Knot. That’s the national average cost for a wedding now, up from $29,858 last year.
Paying For College: How To Position Assets To Qualify For More College Financial Aid
The best advice on positioning clients’ assets for financial aid is based on several factors, but first let’s clarify what type of financial aid the asset question pertains to. There are two types of college aid, need-based aid and academic merit aid. Merit aid is straight forward, if you have the grade, you get the aid. For example, a student might have a 3.8 GPA and an ACT score of 32 and receive a $15,000 per year Dean’s Scholarship. That’s good news for smart kids, and those that won’t qualify for need-based aid.
How Much Of Your Income Should You Save?
There’s no question more fundamental to personal finance than how much money we should save. Our savings rate is the cornerstone of virtually every other decision about money we make. It affects everything from buying a home to saving for emergencies to retirement.
Courageous Daughter Fights To Protect Aging Dad From Financial Abuse
Robin is a middle aged working person who has a 98 year old father in declining health. He’s in a nursing home. She’s the one he appointed to take over for him as his appointed successor on this legal paperwork. She has a brother who has always been close to their Dad, but he has always been a moocher too.
7 Ways You’re Ruining Your Credit Score
This three digit number acts like a grade for your financial life and is calculated based on the information in your credit reports, like your history of paying credit card bills and taking out loans.
Lenders use it to determine your eligibility for mortgages, car loans and credit cards, plus how high of an interest rate you’ll pay. Your reports can even be pulled by prospective landlords or employers as they evaluate you for an apartment or job.
401(k) Lump Sums: What You Need to Know
“Participants potentially face a reduction in their retirement assets when they accept a lump sum offer. The amount of the lump sum payment may be less than what it would cost in the retail market to replace the plan’s benefit because the mortality and interest rates used by retail market insurers are different from the rates used by sponsors, particularly when calculating lump sums for younger participants and women.
8 Questions To Ask Before Taking A Pension Lump Sum Offer
“Participants presented with a lump sum offer may not have a full appreciation of the range of risks involved in forfeiting their lifetime annuity under their sponsor’s plan,” the report says. Big employers started shedding plan liabilities after the great recession, and the trend appears to be accelerating. In a recent survey of 183 defined benefit plan sponsors, Aon Hewitt found that one-fifth said they were are very likely to offer terminated vested participants a lump sum window in 2015.
How To Turn Your Retirement Savings Into Retirement Income
Cutting out the middleman typically represents progress. Can you imagine depending on a telephone operator to put your call through? (Come to think of it, going through an operator might save us from making those calls we really shouldn’t make.)
But back to the point: Who wants to deal with a third party when you don’t have to?
