Squared Away Blog

Karen Dobson Kay Dobson is 68, and it’s time to retire from her job as the jack of all trades at the Augusta Circle Elementary School in Greenville, South Carolina. But she isn’t quite as ready for her June retirement as she could’ve been. She recently learned that an admitted unfamiliarity with Social Security’s arcane rules cost her about $31,000 for two years of foregone spousal benefits based on her husband’s earnings. “I had not the vaguest idea that I would be eligible for that,” she said. Dobson is hardly the first person to make a painful mistake like this. People have all kinds of misconceptions about Social Security, or they lack a basic understanding of how it works – that…

Over the long Christmas holiday, I got a sneak preview of what retirement could be like. Frankly, it was a little boring. I fully appreciate that most workers don’t have the perk provided by my employer, Boston College, which gives us generous time off between Christmas and New Year’s. By cashing in a few unused vacation days prior to Christmas, I was able to string together 16 glorious days off. It felt like a lifetime. After cleaning off my desk, running long-neglected errands, reading a book about the sinking of the Lusitania, wrapping gifts, stocking the pantry, going to a holiday party, exercising at the gym, seeing most of the 2015 Oscar contenders at local cinemas, and getting together wit…

In the 1960s and 1970s, the baby boom generation had a reputation for breaking down societal norms for behavior – and they’re at it again. Between 1990 and 2010, the rate of individuals over age 50 who become newly divorced in a year doubled to more than 10 people affected per 1,000 married people, according to Susan Brown, a sociologist at Bowling Green State University. Studies by Brown and others are emerging that show this important trend of “gray divorce” is having negative consequences for baby boomers’ financial security in old age. “Individuals who go through gray divorce are considerably economically disadvantaged, and they are a growing demographic group,” Brown said. She estimates nearly 650,000 people over 50 were involved…

Will you retire when you want to, when you have to, or when you can afford it? This is crucial, because when Americans retire is more important than it’s ever been to our financial well-being in old age. Yet the research indicates this doesn’t carry enough weight in people’s decisions. This doesn’t make any sense. The typical combined 401(k)/IRA balance is a slim $111,000 for working households between 55 and 64 years old that have a 401(k). And fewer and fewer retirees have defined benefit pensions, which provide reliable income. More than half of us are at risk of experiencing a decline in our standard of living after we retire, estimate economists at the Center for Retirement Research, which supports…

Nearly half of the low-income residents in some sections of Louisville are delinquent on their city water bills. In Newark, water customers’ unpaid balances have been known to reach $4,000. The shutoff and reactivation fees that some cities charge when they stop a customer’s water service create another problem in places like Houston: they add to the unpaid balances of customers who are already struggling financially. Cities are also becoming more aggressive about collecting on their debts, hiring third-party collection firms. Researchers and the National League of Cities tried an alternative in the form of an ambitious pilot program involving five city water departments: Houston; Louisville, Kentucky; Newark, New Jersey; Savannah, Georgia; and St. Petersburg, Florida. Driving the program was…

In a webinar next Thursday, an official from the Social Security Administration will explain the fundamentals of calculating and claiming benefits. Social Security represents the largest single financial resource for most baby boomers, so deciding when to file for benefits is their single biggest retirement decision. The value today of that future stream of monthly checks – $287,200 for the typical household aged 55-64 – far exceeds the value of home equity or 401(k)s for most people, according to 2010 data from the Federal Reserve Board.  And it often exceeds the value of their traditional defined benefit pension plan – if they even have one.  The lower one’s income, the more Social Security matters too. The webinar was organized by…

There are now two reasons to postpone retirement. The financial reason has been covered repeatedly in this blog: working longer increases a retiree’s savings and monthly Social Security income, while shortening the number of retirement years that their savings will have to fund. If that doesn’t convince you, here’s the other reason: working longer may prevent dementia. That’s the conclusion of a study on nearly 430,000 French retirees. After analyzing their health and insurance records, the researcher determined that each additional year an older worker remained in the labor forced further reduced the risk of being diagnosed with various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. ……

Traditionally, the picture-perfect retirement included a paid-off house. But the Me Generation isn’t sticking to the script. Snapshots of three generations of U.S. households on the cusp of retirement – people born in the Depression, at the beginning of World War II, and after the war – show that more of the most recent generation, the baby boomers, are still carrying mortgages as they head into their retirement years. About 40 percent of households who were between the ages of 56 and 61 in 1992 – the Depression-era parents of baby boomers – held mortgages at that age. This share had increased to 48 percent by 2008, as the front wave of baby boomers were reaching their late 50s and…

These federal government resources should be helpful to Squared Away readers ranging in age from 20 to 70: Free credit report: Young adults in particular may not be aware they’re entitled to a free credit report from one of the major credit rating agencies. To ensure the report truly is free, click and follow the links to an outside source recommended by the Federal Trade Commission. To file a paper request or ask for a report by telephone, try the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s website. New U.S. Social Security Administration blog: The agency started a new blog last month to provide important benefit information under various programs. Here’s a sample of three useful articles on the blog: Replace dog-eared Medicare cards…

As we age, the things we forget are at first laughed off as “senior moments.” But when forgetting to send a birthday card becomes forgetting to pay the mortgage, the natural cognitive decline that accompanies aging becomes a serious financial issue. With Americans living longer and an estimated 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, a spate of fresh research has examined how and whether older brains can handle the challenges of modern financial life. But what the researchers have found out so far about the aging mind and money is somewhat of a mixed bag. First, the bad news. Diminished cognition is an increasingly important concern in the financial arena, because the choices faced by retirees are getting ever…

The unemployment rate is an incredibly low 4.4 percent, and a Federal Reserve survey released last week shows that American households’ net worth is increasing. Yet all is not well. One in three Americans say they are suffering financial hardships, and another third report they are making it but aren’t exactly thriving. One in five struggles to cover what is most basic: food, housing and medical care. These new findings, which came out of a report by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), aren’t about economists’ traditional, objective measures of security, income and wealth levels. This is about how people are feeling about their financial state of affairs. The common, everyday financial distress expressed in the report is one marker of…

There’s plenty of evidence of the unfortunate consequences for employees overwhelmed by too many investment options in their 401(k) plans. Studies find that confused employees might not join the plan at all, select investment funds that are not well diversified, or throw up their hands and put an equal amount in each fund offered by their employer. And as employers add more options, the new funds often carry higher fees and produce lower returns. A new study took the opposite tack, examining how employees reacted when one large U.S. employer reduced the number of investment options. The results were lower fees and less turnover, saving employees an average of $9,400 over a 20-year period. Further, their new portfolios were less…