I hate to break it to you, but worrying about your finances doesn't stop once you leave the workforce. In fact, for a lot of people, financial worry ramps up as they find themselves facing decades of living on a fixed income. But you can reduce yours by planning your retirement carefully right now. Here are three things you can do to improve your retirement readiness today, so you can [...]

Simon had been really looking forward to retirement. The constant pressure that came with his job had been getting to him. Too many meetings, too much travel, too much of everything. Unfortunately, retirement didn’t pan out quite the way he’d hoped. Grocery shopping was giving him only a limited sense of fulfillment, and he missed the daily streams of emails and phone calls. He missed talking to his colleagues. He [...]

As life expectancy increases it’s only going to become more difficult for Americans to pay for their retirement. When 401(k) plans emerged 40 years ago, not much thought was given to how workers would use the money they accumulated. It has only been fairly recently that the concept of “retirement income” has taken shape, mostly in response to workers expressing deep concerns about what their futures might look like. This [...]

The Smarter Investor blog guides retail investors who are looking for investment strategies and ways to manage their portfolio. Here, you will read about topics and scenarios relevant to the current news cycle from financial professionals on how to think about market trends and manage your investments. Get real-life investing advice from certified financial professionals including Halpern Financial, Jackson Square Capital, 4J Wealth Management, TFC Financial Management, The Harvest Group [...]

The coronavirus pandemic has put tens of millions of Americans out of work, strained people's finances, and even among those whose situations haven't changed, many are more fearful about the future. As a result, investing strategies have been altered, and retirement plans are evolving to accommodate these crazy times. Among those changes in plans, one shift in particular that's being considered by a majority of us is actually a positive one: According [...]

Being married means learning how to compromise, and sometimes, it means doing things that benefit your life partner more so than they benefit you. That philosophy applies not just to life in general, but to Social Security, and if you're married, it's important that you avoid the one mistake that may not hurt you so badly, but that leaves your spouse cash-strapped for life. Filing early can hurt your spouse You're [...]