Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

q&a

Q&A: Special needs trust

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Dear Liz: Your suggestions about resources to help a parent with an emotionally ill adult child were very helpful. But from a financial standpoint, don’t you think you should have discussed a special needs trust for the time when the parent dies? Whatever assets she has, most likely her home, should be put in this trust to protect her son’s eligibility for government benefits (Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid, for example). An inheritance could jeopardize his eligibility for these programs. It will be overseen by a responsible party and can never be taken as part of a potential lawsuit. This is something I recommend to my clients as a geriatric social worker.

Answer: Thank you for the suggestion. Given the brevity of this column, it’s impossible to cover all potential angles to every situation. In this case, there was no indication that the son was receiving government benefits or that his mother had sufficient assets to be concerned about an inheritance.

That wouldn’t be unusual. One study for the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 46% of Americans have less than $10,000 in financial assets when they die. Many single-person households (57%) have no home equity.

Still, even a small inheritance can disqualify someone from SSI, and losing access to Medicaid health coverage would be catastrophic for people who depend on the program. So parents who have both an heir who needs these programs and assets that might outlive them should discuss a special needs trust with an estate-planning attorney.

Q&A: Social Security and Divorce

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Dear Liz: Can my 63-year-old ex-husband, who was a slacker who never worked, collect on my Social Security? I am 59 and happily remarried. He hasn’t remarried. We were married for 25 years before I left him.

Answer: Since you were married for more than 10 years, your former husband can apply for spousal benefits based on your work record. He can’t do so, however, until you’re old enough to get retirement benefits, which means he has to wait another three years until you’re 62. If you were still married, he would have to wait until you actually applied for your own retirement benefits to get a spousal benefit. That requirement is waived for divorced spouses to keep a vengeful ex from deliberately withholding the right to benefits. His ability to claim spousal benefits on your work record would end if he remarried.
Any spousal checks he gets won’t affect or reduce your benefit or any benefits claimed by your current spouse. Should you die first, both your current and your former husbands could claim survivors’ benefits — again, without affecting each other’s checks

Q&A: Credit card interest rates

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Dear Liz: I have had a certain credit card for over five years. I just received a letter stating that my interest rate was going to be raised from 10.24% to 12.24%. My FICO score is 819 and I have never had late payments on any of my cards. I called the issuer to complain about this change but they will not reduce the rate. The letter states that they obtained my FICO score of 819 from Experian and used the score to make the decision to raise my APR. They told me that they are raising rates across the board for customers with FICO scores over 800. Why are credit card companies allowed to do this? It is so unfair.

Answer: Credit card companies are no longer allowed to raise interest rates arbitrarily on individuals’ existing balances, as they could — and often did — before the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009. Now card issuers are allowed to raise your interest rate on an existing balance only if you’re 60 days or more late with your payment, a promotional rate has expired or the index to which a variable-rate card is linked has gone up.

Credit card companies can, however, raise your interest rate going forward for pretty much any reason they want, and new balances will accrue at the higher rate. Also, the CARD Act’s restrictions apply only to consumer credit cards; business credit cards aren’t covered by the law.

Changeable rates are just one of the reasons why it’s not smart to carry credit card balances. Since you have high credit scores, though, it should be easy for you to find another card with a low promotional rate. Some cards now offer a 0% rate for 12, 15 or 18 months, although you’ll typically pay a balance transfer fee of around 3%. Sites such as CreditCards.com, NerdWallet and LowCards.com, among others, list these competitive offers.

Once you get the new card, you should work to pay off the entire balance before the promotional rate expires.

Q&A: Early withdrawal penalties on CDs

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Dear Liz: You told a reader to be suspicious of a bank’s offer to waive early withdrawal penalties on a certificate of deposit. But several credit unions allow early withdrawals from five-year CDs after the account holder turns 59 1/2. These credit unions will even allow you to get higher-interest CDs at other credit unions with no penalty after 59 1/2 . My husband and I and sister did this for many years until just a few years ago. I even do Roth conversions every year and take money from five-year CDs with no penalty and go to the place with the highest interest rate. There are many rewards and unexpected privileges at credit unions. When my husband passed and I disclaimed his traditional IRAs, the children were allowed to keep the 6% interest on those CDs until they matured, even after they were changed to inherited IRAs.

Answer: Credit unions, which are owned by their members, often have better rates and terms than banks, although some banks also offer to waive early withdrawal penalties after 591/2 on certain CDs.

But no one should rely on a verbal assurance that a fee will be waived. The offer to waive the fee should be in writing and kept with other financial documentation.

Q&A: Saving for retirement

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Dear Liz: After many years of unemployment, I finally got a full-time position. It is a state job with a pension. How much do I need to save for retirement? Can I focus on paying off debt and saving for college, and trust I will be OK in retirement?

Answer: Your long stint of unemployment should have taught you that no job, and no plan for your life, is guaranteed.

You may have to work for the state for years to become “vested” in the plan, or eligible for a retirement check. In order to actually retire, you typically have to stay employed by the state for a decade or more. Even then, your check in retirement may not replace a big chunk of your salary. Traditional defined benefit pensions tend to offer the highest benefits to those who work for the system for decades.

A lot can happen while you’re waiting for your pension to build. You could get fired or laid off or suffer a disability that limits your ability to work. The pension plan itself could change.

If your employer doesn’t pay into the Social Security system, that adds another layer of uncertainty to your future. You could wind up without a pension, or only a small pension, and less Social Security than you might have had with a job that did pay Social Security taxes.

That’s why it’s essential to save for retirement even with the prospect of a good pension. You may be offered a tax-deferred workplace plan, or you can save on your own through IRAs or taxable accounts.

Q&A: Credit freezes

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Dear Liz: Is there a way to lock my credit history and access to prevent the unscrupulous from opening accounts in my name? Maybe I’m rare, but I have enough existing credit cards, don’t have a mortgage and essentially have no debt, and I want to keep it that way. I suspect businesses that make their living issuing credit reports will resist this ability, but I want to do all I can to make it tough for anyone to steal my identity.

Answer: You can lock up your credit reports with what’s known as a credit freeze (also called a security freeze). The three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — have information about how to do this on their websites. You also can find general information about credit freezes on Consumer Reports’ site.

Credit freezes can prevent new account identity theft — someone opening new credit accounts in your name. Lenders typically check credit reports when they get new credit applications. If they can’t access your reports thanks to a credit freeze, they’re unlikely to approve the application.

Of course, the freeze applies to you as well. If you change your mind and want to apply for a new account, you’ll need to temporarily thaw the freeze.

Other entities also check credit reports, so you may need to lift the freeze if you apply for a job, insurance, new utilities or cellphone service. You typically have to pay fees (which range from $2 to $15, depending on your state) to each bureau to lock up your credit and another set of fees to thaw it.

Credit freezes won’t interfere with your ability to use your credit cards or prevent your current lenders from accessing your reports.

Credit freezes also won’t prevent other types of identity theft, including tax refund fraud, medical identity theft and criminal identity theft (which occurs when criminals give law enforcement your information when they get arrested, rather than their own).

Still, credit freezes are a good solution if your identity has already been stolen or you’re at high risk because your Social Security number has been swiped or exposed in a data breach.

Credit bureaus may suggest you put a temporary fraud alert on your reports instead, or pay for credit monitoring or identity theft “protection” (which actually doesn’t protect you against anything but simply offers an early warning if your reports are compromised). A credit freeze is a more secure solution, but you have to weigh the potential hassle and cost against the benefit.