In retirement planning, it’s always good to take a look at the past year’s performance to decide whether adjustments are needed in your long-range strategy and short-term tactics.
I have found that the same holds true for blogging.
In the interest of understanding what content you enjoyed the most, I took a look at the 5 most visited blog posts on my site for 2016.
These included: More
This column first ran Dec. 15, 2016, in The Hill, a daily journal that covers the federal government and related policy issues.
As the federal government’s largest entitlement program, Social Security faces the possibility of having to reduce payouts for millions of new retired workers after 2037. To prevent what would be a political and social disaster, I hope the new administration works with Congress to fashion a non-partisan solution.
An examination of the Republican and Democratic parties’ pre-election platforms, however, suggests that the parties are pretty far apart. The Republican platform position would allow us to invest some of our Social Security savings in the stock market while making unspecified reforms to address the increasing longevity of the population.
The Democratic platform advocates higher taxes on those with incomes above $250,000 along with adjustments to cost of living payments that would more accurately reflect the spending pattern of retirees. Of course, we all understand that platforms do not always indicate how policy actually gets implemented.
Here’s a story I heard at a convention of disability insurance sales professionals:
A woman answers a knock on her front door late on a stormy night only to find a police officer standing there, water dripping from his rain gear.
“Oh my,” the woman says. “My husband was in a car crash!”
When the officer confirms her fears, she asks, “Is he dead?”
The cop answers: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s worse. He lived.”
A friend of mine who looks after her mother’s financial accounts let me know about a new way to detect certain scams, and I would like to pass it on to you.
My friend’s mother, who is in her 70s, got a letter in the mail printed on official-looking letterhead of a familiar bank, which informed her that a long-lost account had been discovered. It had money that she could reclaim if she telephoned before a certain date.
The woman had done business with that bank and wasn’t alarmed, but something made her call her daughter to talk it over. My friend did a Google search on the phone number and the results showed it was linked to several scams that had led to the theft of at least tens of thousands of dollars. More
Some people read tons of articles for year-end guidance to deal with retirement planning decisions. Lots call their accountant, money manager or advisor for advice.
My advice is no advice – it’s too late.
Too many of us spend the final month of the calendar year assembling our files of financial documents and making sure we take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from our 401(k) or rollover IRA accounts. We figure out our realized capital gains from mutual funds or stocks to date, and see if we should realize more gains or losses. We estimate our taxes for the year and consider converting a rollover IRA to a Roth IRA. Then we squeeze in tax-reducing donations to charity or the kids, along with any number of additional important actions. More
