Retirement Watch Weekly
Bob’s Journal for 1/11
Lessons About Estate Planning in 2023 from Celebrity Deaths The rich and famous have a lot of resources available to them and should know better. Yet, they often provide the best examples of estate planning missteps to avoid. Some celebrities who passed away years earlier had longstanding problems with their estates that weren’t resolved until […]
What Bond Yields Are Telling Investors
Bond yields have tumbled since late October while short-term interest rates barely budged. That tells us a lot about the markets and the economy. Short-term interest rates went from near zero in 2021 to more than 5.6% in October 2023, their most rapid rise in at least 40 years. Bond rates were slow to follow […]
Facts and Fiction About the Social Security Earnings Test
When you receive Social Security retirement benefits while working, you could run into one of the more complicated and confusing rules, the Social Security earned income limit, or earnings test. The rule exists because Congress historically discouraged people from working while receiving Social Security benefits. You can receive Social Security retirement benefits anytime beginning at […]
What’s New in Medicare for 2024
Medicare beneficiaries need to be prepared for some changes in 2024. The changes begin with the inflation adjustments for various Medicare features. The monthly basic Part B Medicare premium increase by $9.80 (or 5.94%) to $174.70 on January 1, 2024. The annual Part B deductible increase by $14 to $240 at the start of 2024. […]
Hidden Hazards in Donor-Advised Funds
Donor-advised funds (DAFs) surged in popularity in recent years and now are among the most popular ways to make charitable gifts. DAFs offer significant advantages, but many people are unaware of some potential traps and are setting themselves up for disappointment. A DAF is a charitable entity set up by a sponsoring organization. The largest […]
Important Changes to IRAs and Other Retirement Plans for 2024
Congress and the IRS have been busy changing the rules for IRAs and other qualified retirement plans. The bulk of the recent changes were made in the SECURE Act 2.0 (enacted in late 2022) and its predecessor the SECURE Act (enacted in late 2019). SECURE is an acronym for Setting Every Community Up for Retirement […]
7 Steps to Develop Your Best Estate Plan
Creating or updating an estate plan can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of pieces to a plan and decisions to be made. That’s why many people procrastinate and don’t create or update their plans, though they know it’s important. To develop your best estate plan, I recommend breaking […]
Bob’s Journal for 1/4
The Year-End Rally Was Global U.S. stocks finished 2023 with a powerful rally that garnered a lot of attention. But most other markets around the world did as well or better. The S&P 500 gained 11.64% in the last three months and 3.95% over the last month of the year. The MSCI World Index, excluding […]
