Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

Retirement

Don’t obsess about Social Security “breakeven”

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Dear Liz: I read your recent article in which you advised waiting before starting Social Security benefits. Is this good advice for everyone? You probably know that there is a break-even age around 85, so that if you die before 85, starting benefits early is better, but if you die after 85, starting late is better. “Better” means you receive more money. So, right off the bat the advice to delay is wrong for half the people in their 60s, since about half will die before the crossover, and if they had delayed, they lost money.

Answer: The problem with do-it-yourself financial planning is that people often focus their attention too narrowly and ignore the bigger picture. That’s what leads them to do things like pay down relatively low-rate student loan debt while failing to save for retirement. They may focus only on the expected returns of each option, while ignoring the tax implications, company retirement matches and the extraordinary value of future compounding of returns.

Obsessing about the break-even point — the date when the income from larger, delayed retirement benefits outweighs what you’d get from starting early — is often a mistake, financial planners will tell you. There are a number of other considerations, including the value of Social Security benefits as longevity insurance. If you live longer than you expect, a bigger Social Security check can be enormously helpful later in life when your other assets may be spent. Also, if you have a spouse who may be dependent on your benefit as a survivor, delaying retirement benefits to increase your checks will reduce the blow when she has to live on just one check (yours) instead of two (yours and her spousal benefit).

In his book “Social Security for Dummies,” author Jonathan Peterson offers a guide to figuring out your break-even point based just on the dollars you can expect to receive (rather than on assumed inflation or investment returns). In general, the break-even point is about age 78. That means those who live longer would be better off waiting until full retirement age, currently 66, than if they started early at age 62.

Currently, U.S. men at age 65 can expect to live to nearly 83, and the life expectancy for U.S. women at age 65 is over 85.

You can change that break-even by making assumptions about inflation and your future prowess as an investor, but remember that the increase in benefits you get each year by delaying retirement between age 62 and 66 is about 7%. It’s 8% for delaying between age 66 and age 70, when your benefit maxes out. Those are guaranteed returns, and there’s no “safe return” anywhere close to that in today’s environment.

Don’t forget that those benefits will be further compounded by cost-of-living increases. One researcher published in the Journal of Financial Planning found that an investor would have to achieve a rate of return that exceeds inflation by 5% to justify taking benefits at 62 rather than at full retirement age.

“At higher inflation rates and/or higher marginal tax rates, the rate of return may need to be even higher, perhaps in excess of 7% or 8% above inflation to justify taking benefits at age 62,” wrote Doug Lemons, a certified financial planner who retired from the Social Security Administration after 36 years.

You can read Lemons’ paper, as well as other research that planners have done on maximizing Social Security benefits, at http://www.fpanet.org/journal.

Keep Credit Cards Active Without Slipping Into Debt

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Dear Liz: Recently I’ve paid off almost $20,000 in credit card debt and am determined not to go down that path again. Because I haven’t used these cards in a while, though, I’m starting to get notifications from the credit card companies that they’re closing my accounts because of inactivity. I know having long-standing accounts on your credit report is a good thing, but I don’t want to be tempted to use these cards just to keep the account open. Is it a bad thing if almost all of my credit card accounts get closed?

Answer: Your good histories with these cards should remain on your credit reports for years. But if you stop using credit entirely, eventually your credit reports won’t generate credit scores. That could cause you problems if you later want to borrow money (say, to buy a home) and could even affect your insurance premiums, since insurers use credit information as well.

It’s not too hard to keep accounts active without slipping into debt again. Simply set up a bill to be charged automatically to each account, then set up automatic payments with the credit card issuer so the full balance is taken out of your checking account each month.

 

Why company 401(k) matches matter

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Dear Liz: As a CPA financial advisor to individuals and small businesses, I devour your column. It’s almost always spot on. But the first sentence of your advice to the person whose 401(k) doesn’t offer a match — “start looking for a better job” — was not, and you missed an opportunity to educate your readers in how to compare job compensation.

I encourage my small-business and wage-earning clients to adopt a “total compensation” view to evaluate labor costs and to talk wages with their employees or employers. Employer A offering $100,000 might be better, worse or equal to Employer B offering $70,000 plus retirement plan match and, more importantly, employer-subsidized family health insurance. Besides the intangible factor of job satisfaction, one just doesn’t know which employer’s total financial compensation is “better” without crunching the numbers before and after tax. The two companies might be different only in philosophy of how compensation is paid, not better or worse.

Answer: Some jobs come with pensions or pay so good that the lack of a company 401(k) match is all but irrelevant. It’s safe to say those jobs are not in the majority. The median full-time wage at the end of last year was under $44,000, which means half of all workers earned less. Given stagnant incomes and rising costs, many workers have a tough time saving, so the extra help provided by a company match can make a world of difference in their ability to achieve a comfortable retirement.

Nine out of 10 employers that have a 401(k) offer a match, according to PlanSponsor.com, so plans that don’t are definitely outliers. The most common match is now 100%, or one dollar for each dollar contributed, up to 6% of the worker’s salary, according to the most recent Aon Hewitt study. Nineteen percent of the employers surveyed offered this match, up from 10% in 2011. The most common match used to be 50 cents for each dollar contributed up to 6% of salary.

Clearly, more employers are getting the message that good company matches are an excellent way to signal that they care about their employees’ futures.

Who should save 10%

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Dear Liz: I often hear financial planners say you should save 10% of your income, but they don’t go into exactly what that means. Is that 10% separate from retirement or including retirement? Does that include saving for your emergency fund? Is this just archaic advice now? I’m 46 with only $40,000 saved for retirement so I’m in the panic mode that I will never be able to save enough for retirement.

Answer: Saving 10% for retirement is often considered a minimum for those who start saving in their 20s. The older you are when you begin, the more you’d need to save to match the nest egg you would have accumulated with an earlier start. That means saving 15% to 20% if you start in your 30s, 25% to 30% if you start in your 40s, and 40% of your income, or more, if you don’t start until your 50s.

Clearly, the wind is at your back when you start saving young. It starts blowing pretty hard in your face if you wait.

If you can’t carve out a huge chunk of your income for retirement, though, you shouldn’t despair. Save what you can, as anything you put aside will help supplement your Social Security checks. You may find that your expenses drop substantially in retirement, particularly if you have a mortgage paid off by then, so you won’t need to replace as much income as you think.

Another technique for coping with a late start is to work longer. That gives you longer to save, but it also allows your savings — and your Social Security benefits — more time to grow. You will be able to claim early Social Security benefits at 62, but you’ll be locking in a smaller check for life. It’s usually better to wait until your full retirement age, which will be 67, to begin benefits, since each year you wait adds nearly 7% to your check. If you wait three more years, until age 70, your check would grow by 8% each year. That’s a guaranteed return unavailable anywhere else.

One way around early withdrawal penalties

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Dear Liz: My son is 52 and has been unemployed for three years. He has been forced to withdraw money from his 401(k) and pay early withdrawal penalties on it to pay his mortgage and other bills. Is there such a thing as a hardship exception to avoid this tax bill?

Answer: There’s a way to avoid the 10% federal penalty, but not income tax, on early withdrawals from retirement accounts when someone is under 591/2 (the usual age when penalties end). The distributions must be made as part of a series of “substantially equal periodic payments” made using that person’s life expectancy. When these distributions are taken from a qualified retirement plan, such as a 401(k), the person making them must be “separated from service” — in other words, not employed by the company offering the plan.

Your son wouldn’t be able to withdraw big chunks of his savings, however. Someone his age who has a $100,000 balance in a retirement plan could take out about $3,000 per year without penalty. Revenue Ruling 2002-62, available on the IRS site, lists the methods people can use to determine these periodic payments. If he might benefit from this approach, it would be smart to have a tax pro review his calculations.

No match? Save anyway

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Dear Liz: Lately I have been reading a lot about how people aren’t saving enough for retirement. Every article I read talks about the need to put enough into employers’ 401(k) programs to get the maximum possible company match. What do you do when your employer doesn’t match your contribution?

Answer: You contribute anyway, and start looking for a better job.

The advice that people should contribute at least enough to get the maximum match is designed to ensure that workers don’t leave free money on the table. That’s essentially what a match is — a free, instant return on your contributions.

Maximizing the match doesn’t mean you’re contributing enough for a comfortable retirement, however. The match may be 50 cents for every dollar you contribute, but most companies won’t match more than 6% of your salary. Most people need to save more than that — sometimes much more, especially if they got a late start.

If your company’s 401(k) doesn’t offer a match, then you will need to save more to make up for the free money you aren’t getting. Because most plans offer a match, though, it may be worthwhile to look for an employer that offers this benefit as it can make retirement saving easier.

To figure out how much you need to save, use a retirement calculator such as the one at the AARP.org website.