Get smart with your money
Today’s top story: Don’t let your friends derail your finances. Also in the news: Protecting your EIF investments, how to fly with your baby, and why retailers are tracking your returns.
Don’t Let Friends Derail Your Finances
How to stay on track and still have fun.
Are Your ETF Investments at Risk in a Market Sell-Off?
Potecting your investments.
How to Fly With Your Baby
Keeping your sanity in the skies.
Retailers Are Tracking Your Returns
Assigining a “risk score.”
Today’s top story: 7 places to get a slice of savings on Pi Day. Also in the news: Choosing between a Roth 401(k) and a Roth IRA, guarding your cash from debit card fraud, and credit bureaus may get a boost from Congress.
7 Places to Get a Slice of Savings on Pi Day
Happy 3.14!
Roth 401(k) vs. Roth IRA: Which Is Better for You?
Making the right choice.
Debit Card Fraud Still Rising; Here’s How to Guard Your Cash
Protecting your money.
Despite Equifax breach, Congress may boost credit bureaus
Rewarding bad behavior.
Today’s top story: The most and least affordable places to buy a home. Also in the news: 3 investments that aren’t actually investments, why credit card rewards may lose their sparkle, and how to ask for a raise.
The Most and Least Affordable Places to Buy a Home
Some of these may surprise you.
3 Investments That Aren’t Actually Investments
The true definition of investment.
Credit Card Rewards May Lose Sparkle, but Not Value
Rewards could get a lot more personal.
Use This Formula to Ask for a Raise
Getting what you’re worth.
If you want money advice you can trust, your best bet is to hire a fee-only financial planner. The trick is finding a planner who’s willing to be hired for a reasonable fee.
Fee-only planners don’t accept commissions or kickbacks and are paid solely by client fees. Most use an “assets under management” model where they manage their clients’ investments and charge an annual fee of about 1 percent. To make the math work, these financial planners usually require people to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest. Otherwise the advisers would reap too little from their fees to justify the hours spent creating financial plans.
This is obviously a problem for people who don’t have enough assets. In my latest for the Associated Press, how to find financial advice that isn’t based on the size of your portfolio.
Today’s top story: How to save green on St. Patrick’s Day. Also in the news: The bull market’s 9-year anniversary in 9 numbers, how to save on your destination wedding in Hawaii, and the financial and personal toll of family caregiving.
Save Green on St. Patrick’s Day — No Luck Required
Find your pot of gold.
The Bull Market’s 9-Year Anniversary in 9 Numbers
It’s been quite a run.
How to Save on Your Destination Wedding in Hawaii
Aloha!
The Financial and Personal Toll of Family Caregiving
$190,000,000 is spent yearly on out-of-pocket caregiving expenses.
Dear Liz: I turned 70 last week and therefore I am leaving my part-time job after about 13 years. No big deal, but now that I am retiring I have a 401(k) worth about $60,000 and an IRA that is somewhere around $50,000. Should I roll my 401(k) account into my IRA or just let it sit there collecting dust? I do understand that at age 70½ I am supposed to start withdrawing some of the funds, but am not sure how much. It seems 70 years creeped up on me.
Answer: Years have a nasty habit of doing that.
You mentioned that you’re retiring because you’ve achieved a certain age. Few jobs have mandatory retirement ages, though. If you don’t retire, you can continue putting off required minimum distributions from your 401(k). You would still have to take minimum distributions from your IRA, unless your employer allows you to roll that money into your 401(k) plan.
But we’ll assume you’re happy with your decision. Rolling your 401(k) into your IRA isn’t necessarily the best option. What you should do next depends on the details of both accounts.
Most large-company 401(k)s allow retirees to take regular distributions, including required minimum distributions, from the plans. These plans also tend to offer low-cost institutional funds that may be a much better deal than those you can access as a retail investor with an IRA. If you’ve got a good 401(k) that allows retirement distributions, there may be no need to move your money.
If your employer’s plan doesn’t allow such distributions, don’t automatically assume your current IRA provider is the best choice, especially if it’s a full-service brokerage or insurance company. Compare the fees of the investment options with what’s available from a discount brokerage. Transferring all your retirement money to a lower-cost provider can help you keep more money in your pocket.
Calculating your required minimum distributions isn’t difficult. The IRS has tables on its website, and in Publication 590, to help you figure out how much money to withdraw. Various sites have calculators as well.
One caveat: If you keep your IRA and 401(k) separate, you’ll have to calculate required minimum distribution separately for each account and withdraw those amounts from each account, says Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for taxes and accounting at Wolters Kluwer. That’s different from the rules when you have multiple IRAs. When you have more than one IRA, you calculate the required minimum distribution based on the total of all your IRAs but are allowed to take the distribution itself from any one of them.