242,000 NEW JOBS CREATED IN FEBRUARY Hiring picked up in America last month. In reporting this sizable net job gain in the second month of the year, the Labor Department also revised December and January hiring totals upward by a total of 30,000. That means payrolls have expanded by an average of 228,000 hires over…

A classic retirement planning rule states that you should retire on 80% of the income you earned in your last year of work. Is this old axiom still true, or does it need reconsidering? Some new research suggests that retirees may not need that much annual income to keep up their standard of living. The…

“What is your greatest retirement fear?” If you ask retirees that question, “outliving my money” may likely be one of the top answers.  Retirees and pre-retirees alike share this anxiety. In a 2014 Wells Fargo/Gallup survey of more than 1,000 investors, 46% of respondents cited that very fear; 42% of the respondents to that poll…

Buying low and selling high is the oldest stock market adage. How does one put it into practice? Dollar cost averaging may give you a method to capture lower prices today and come out ahead tomorrow. How it works. Dollar cost averaging is a long-term investment strategy. It means investing in small increments. Through scheduled…

Decades ago, retirement was fairly predictable: Social Security and a pension provided much of your income, you moved to the Sun Belt, played tennis or golf, and you lived to age 70 or 75. To varying degrees, this was the American retirement experience during the last few decades of the previous century. Those days are…

Information vs. instinct. When it comes to investing, many people believe they have a “knack” for choosing good investments. But what exactly is that “knack” based on? The fact is, the choices we make with our assets can be strongly influenced by factors, many of them emotional, that we many not even be aware of.…

Have you ever wanted to make a major charitable gift? Would you like a significant federal tax break in acknowledgment of that gift? If so, an IRA charitable rollover may be a good financial step to take. If you are age 70½ or older and have one or more traditional IRAs, you may want to…

Ninety-five percent of married couples file joint federal tax returns. Filing jointly can be convenient. Frequently, there’s a financial advantage, but that does not mean it should be done without consideration. Years ago, there was less incentive to file jointly. That was because the “marriage penalty” for doing so was effectively greater. There is no…

UNEMPLOYMENT NOW BELOW 5% Although the economy added just 151,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department’s latest employment report also showed a reduction in the headline jobless rate to 4.9%. The broader U-6 measure of underemployment remained at 9.9%. Monthly payroll gains have averaged 231,000 since November; in fact, the 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month job…

According to Sallie Mae, U.S. families with one or more college students spent an average of $26,458 on tuition, housing, and linked expenses from 2017-18. Statistics like these underline the importance of saving and investing to fund a university education, but that effort has become optional to many. In its annual How America Saves for…