Category: Retirement Plan Participants

Like almost everything else these days, the holidays have become a barrage of options and choices, with nearly limitless opportunities to overspend. Here are some tips to help you make sure your family’s spending remains in check this holiday season. Develop a spending strategy First and foremost, develop a budget. Involving family members will help you establish and maintain realistic expectations at the outset. Remember to include not just gifts, but also holiday meals and parties, travel, greeting cards…

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Retirement health-care costs will vary depending on your health and longevity, but it may help to have a guideline. These are the estimated savings required for an individual or couple who turned 65 in 2019 to have a 90% chance of meeting expenses for Medicare Part B health insurance, Part D prescription drug coverage, Medigap Plan F, and out-of-pocket drug costs, assuming median prescription drug expenses.* These estimates do not include services not covered by Medicare or Medigap. *Medigap…

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Original Medicare — Part A hospital insurance and Part B medical insurance — offers broad coverage, but many services are not covered. Some may be fully or partially covered by a Part C Medicare Advantage Plan, which replaces Original Medicare, or a Medigap policy, which supplements Original Medicare. Both are offered by Medicare-approved private insurers. (You cannot have both a Medicare Advantage Plan and a Medigap policy.) Whether you are looking forward to Medicare in the future or are…

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If you have the opportunity to contribute to both a 401(k) and a health savings account (HSA), you may wonder how best to take advantage of them. Determining how much to contribute to each type of plan will require some careful thought and strategic planning. Understand the tax benefits A traditional, non-Roth 401(k) allows you to save for retirement on a pre-tax basis, which means the money is deducted from your paycheck before taxes are assessed. The account then…

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As you move through different stages of life, you will face new and unique financial situations. Did you just get engaged? Perhaps you are wondering how you and your partner are going to manage your money together. Do you have children? Maybe you are looking for ways to pay for their college education. When you navigate through these various life events, you might seek professional guidance to help you make sound financial choices. 1. Getting married Getting married is…

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Publicly traded companies are required to report their financial performance to regulators and shareholders on a quarterly basis. Earnings season is the often-turbulent period when most companies disclose their successes and failures. U.S. companies included in the S&P 500 index suffered year-over-year earnings declines in the first two quarters of 2019.1 Rising wages and higher material costs (partially due to tariffs imposed on traded goods) had started to cut into profit margins.2 Earnings reports are closely watched because they…

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