Starting over in your 50s, and other curveballs

Losing a job late in life can be devastating, and rebuilding can be tough. Here’s how writer Teresa Mears puts it:

Americans in their 50s and 60s, who expected to be at the peak of their careers before retirement, are finding themselves playing catch-up. While they may never get back the lives they had before, there are steps they can take to improve their retirement prospects.

Jean Chatzky and I offer advice about those steps in “10 ways to get your retirement plan back on track.”

Job losses can have another side effect, besides derailing your retirement: they also can derail your credit scores. I talked to Kelley Holland for CNBC about why that matters and what you can do about it in “What your poor credit rating is costing you.”

I also discusses debt for a series of interviews with Spectrem’s Millionaire Corner, including “Debt is Not Just a Four-Letter Word,” “What Every Buyer ‘Auto” Know about Car Loans” and “You Don’t Want to Overdose on Student Loan Debt.”

Speaking of student loan debt, there are ways to erase some of your federal education loans—but too many people don’t know what they are. Read more in “5 ways do-gooders can erase student loan debt.”

My other recent education columns for Reuters including “Debunking the myth of college rejection rates,”  “3 ways to fix financial aid form flaws” and “That break from college? Stopping out leads to dropping out.”