Squared Away Blog

Americans are fighting back against soaring food prices by shopping at discount grocers, buying lower-cost store brands, or giving up their favorite gourmet items. Yet Medicare beneficiaries usually don’t shop around for a less expensive insurance policy or a higher quality one. It’s also advisable for retirees to review their current plans to make sure they still include the right doctors or prescription drugs for treating any new medical conditions. Open enrollment for Medicare Advantage and Part D plans started Oct. 15 and ends Dec. 7. Over their lifetimes, retirees will spend an average $67,000 out-of-pocket for medical care – and that does not include the monthly premiums. The least healthy retirees will pay twice that much. Yet only three in 10 peo…

J.D. Vance’s rural Kentucky roots, described in his book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” differ from my father’s family in southern Indiana in one important way. Vance’s violent, angry mother was a substance abuser with a trail of failed relationships in her wake. Vance carries the childhood scars. My dad’s family was a bunch of kind, reticent, teetotaling farmers. Alvin and Lena Belle Blanton and sons Gerald and Leland, 1966. But the similarities between our families struck me too – Vance called his grandfather Blanton “Papaw,” which I’d always thought was unique to my own Papaw Blanton but, I now know, is an endearment. And believe me, the corn fields and hills of southern Indiana and contiguous Kentucky are more southern than Midwestern…

JoAnn George   Kathy Barker already was having concerns that her elderly father’s dementia made it increasingly difficult for him to manage his life. When his doctor said he could no longer drive, Barker had to do something. A contractor was hired to build a 448-square-foot cottage in the backyard of her Tampa home. Her father enjoyed it for just 10 days before going into the hospital, where he died. But the house was still a great solution – this time for her mother, JoAnn George. (Her parents divorced long ago.) Last November, George was moved into the backyard “granny pod,” which has a front porch, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and small refrigerator – but no other appliances. Granny pods,…

Australia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Ecuador, Belize, Nicaragua – our readers living all over the world, or planning to, shared their experiences in comments posted to a February blog, “The Ultimate Travel: Retiring Abroad.” The article profiled a Houston couple on the verge of retiring who are systematically exploring cities that interest them in Panama and Costa Rica. Few blogs have elicited so many comments – no doubt because thoughts of retiring overseas are more fun than worrying about whether the 401(k) account has enough money in it. The success of retiree Dennis Desmond and his wife’s relocation to Australia makes it hard to resist temptation. “The weather here is incredible, the people are fantastically friendly, and the scenery…

Most retirees didn’t notice the $5 cost-of-living increase in the average Social Security check. That’s because the Part B Medicare premium deducted from their checks went up nearly as much (from $104.90 in 2016 to an average $109 this year). Beyond premium hikes, the bigger issue for retirees are the additional out-of-pocket costs they must pay as part of their Part B coverage for doctor visits and outpatient care. When rapidly rising copayments are added to the basic premium, they together consumed more than 15 percent of the average Social Security benefit last year. That is more than double the percentage in 1980, and it’s expected to exceed 17 percent by 2030, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). T…

Chris Vickery, director of cyber-risk research for UpGuard in California, warned NPR listeners recently about a situation in which another high-technology company allowed 198 million voters’ personal information to become publicly accessible online. When our non-financial information gets loose on the Internet, it can cause financial damage: “If a bad guy has your phone number and can get your PIN, they can, at 3 in the morning, get a code sent to your phone, listen to your voicemails, log in to your bank account and drain all your money,” Vickery said. “Phone numbers are more important than people realize.”   Squared Away asked him to expand on what occurs when we freely hand over our personal data to retailers, financial institutions, and credit…

This blog is for a part-time Macy’s saleswoman and immigrant whom I met in a hospital waiting room – she’d never heard of Social Security. It is also for a 22-year-old contingent worker I know who lacks steady employment and isn’t regularly accruing credit toward the Social Security pension he will probably need when he retires. And it is for a 62-year-old eager to claim his benefit right away, possibly short-changing his retirement. A substantial share of retirees would fall into poverty were it not for the Social Security program passed during the Great Depression.  It’s especially important for two groups of people to understand how Social Security calculates their pension benefits: young adults making employment decisions that will impact…

A new study of Medicare Advantage plans in 20 U.S. counties found that plans with higher premiums generally offer broader networks of physicians to their customers. “There are exceptions but there does seem to be a fairly clear relationship between how much plans are charging and the size of the network,” said Tricia Neuman, a Kaiser senior vice president and one of the study’s authors. The correlation between premiums and network size is one finding in a rare study that tries to get a handle on the quality of Advantage plans around the country amid a scarcity of data on these plans. An earlier Kaiser study looked at how many of a county’s hospitals and top cancer treatment centers are availab…

High school students who participated in Boston’s summer jobs program in 2015 work on a public beautification and landscaping project. It’s a spring rite in Boston.  The mayor’s office and private and non-profit employers hustle to get ready for a program employing more than 10,000 inner-city teens for the summer. A new study of the summer 2015 participants shows that the high school students made remarkable strides, compared with the kids who applied but were not accepted for the limited number of slots available in the program.  New York and Chicago have similar, large programs. The Boston teens, who are mostly either black or Hispanic and from low-income neighborhoods, improved their job readiness, from showing up on time to developing their…

When my new partner and I bought a condominium last month to accommodate our combined stuff, I remembered that borrowing so much money can be an emotional, even terrifying, ordeal. It’s difficult to think clearly. But attention should be paid to closing costs, which add to the cost of buying a house. So I decided to apply my skills as a veteran newspaper reporter and grilled my lender, attorney and real estate agent about these costs. Despite my diligence, I was only modestly successful at reining them in. But I stepped on a few land mines that might help other homebuyers: The HUD-1 matters: Federal law requires prospective mortgage lenders to provide loan applicants with a “good faith estimate” of…

Upon retiring, you suddenly have access to a chunk of money that’s been accumulating in your 401(k). It’s easy to make a move that incurs unfamiliar tax consequences or otherwise jeopardizes your hard-earned savings. Based on interviews with financial planners, as well as experts at the Center for Retirement Research, which funds this blog, Squared Away assembled the following check list for imminent and new retirees: At least one year before retiring, collect information from: Social Security – how does your monthly check vary, depending on the filing age you select, and how can you and your spouse determine the best strategy for getting the benefits you’ll need? Your employer – is an annuity an option in your 401(k) plan,…

Squared Away wrote about three unemployed baby boomers on Tuesday – an arts administrator, a corporate executive, and a social-services professional – who are having to scrounge for income to sustain themselves. They are among the more than 1.5 million baby boomers caught in that painful limbo between a long and successful career and retirement – very possibly by default. All three want to get back into the labor force but may be forced to retire, because it’s more difficult for them to find employment than it is for younger workers. While nearly half of unemployed adults between the ages of 25 and 49 were able to find work within seven months during and after the Great Recession, it took…