Retirement-planning stories tend to look through the lens of a two-person household, making certain assumptions about everything from income and insurance needs to estate planning as if every saver were part of a couple. This story is aimed at single retirement savers. Without the buffer of another person contributing to household finances for this life stage, people who were never married, or are widowed or divorced, need to be vigilant. [...]

You don’t need to be an actuary to predict that for married couples, there will come a time when one spouse will be aging alone. You can see insights on key differences between how men and women experience widowhood in a recent report from the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL), published in The Journal of the Economics of Ageing. These insights can help married couples make critical decisions as they transition [...]

Retirement planning is all about numbers. It centers around one question: Do my financial assets — pension, 401(k)s/IRAs, Social Security, property, sale of a business, etc. — provide enough income to fund my desired retirement lifestyle? At least, that is what most people think. But ask any retiree, and they will likely tell you that it is only half the story. You’ll need enough money to get by, of course, [...]

Digital investing, once a playground mostly for younger investors, is no longer just for the young, but also for the young at heart. For the past decade or so, digital investing has broadly been thought of as a way for Millennials and other investor newbies to access low-cost advice and investment management services. Generally speaking, fintech players have paid less attention to older investors, partly due to the perception that [...]

Social Security provides benefits not only to retired workers but also to spouses who have not contributed to the program. Spouses are one of the many beneficiaries of Social Security, and even ex-spouses can claim a payout from the program in some circumstances. When you apply for Social Security, you automatically apply for the greater of your benefit or half your spouse’s benefit. The average monthly payout for all retired workers was [...]

In our last post, we discussed the wide variety of retirees’ circumstances, preferences, and styles. A domain in which they enjoy an increasing variety of options is where they call home. One of the many rewards that comes with maturity and retirement is having new freedom to choose what kind of home to occupy and where to live. About 70% of people in their 30s and 40s say that where they [...]