The age you land on for claiming Social Security could affect the monthly benefits you receive for life. Those benefits themselves are calculated by taking your average monthly earnings during your 35 highest-paid years in the workforce, adjusting them for inflation, and applying a special formula to that number. You’re then entitled to collect your monthly benefit in full once you reach full retirement age.
But you actually get an eight-year window to sign up for benefits that starts at age 62 and ends at age 70. In fact, you technically don’t have to sign up at 70, but delaying past that point won’t put more money in your pocket, so there’s no sense in waiting longer.
Currently, 62 is the most popular age for seniors to start collecting benefits. But if you’re contemplating that decision, you may be inclined to go with age 65. And while that could be a wise choice in some cases, here are three terrible reasons to land on 65 as your filing age.
1. You don’t know your full retirement age
You might assume that 65 is your full retirement age for Social Security purposes because that’s when you’re first eligible for healthcare coverage under Medicare. But for people born between 1943 and 1954, full retirement age is 66. For those born between 1955 and 1959, it’s 66 and a certain number of months. And for those born in 1960 or later, it’s 67.
If you sign up for Social Security at 65, you’ll automatically slash your monthly benefits between 6.67% and 13.34%, depending on your full retirement age, so rather than grapple with a lifelong reduction in Social Security income, commit your full retirement age to memory. Incidentally, in a recent Nationwide survey, only 24% of older adults knew what their full retirement age was, so if you’re nearing retirement, be sure to get that number straight.
2. You’re worried you won’t get Medicare coverage
It could be the case that you want to start getting Medicare benefits at 65 and aren’t ready for Social Security — but you sign up for Social Security at that age anyway because you’re convinced your Medicare coverage hinges on it. In reality, though, you can be on Medicare for years before claiming Social Security, and it won’t impact the level of care you receive.
The only drawback to signing up for Medicare before Social Security is that you won’t have the option to pay your Part B premiums directly from your Social Security benefits. Not only does that mean you’ll need to take that step yourself, but it also means you don’t get protection under Medicare’s hold harmless provision. This provision effectively caps the extent to which your Medicare premiums can rise from year to year when you’re on Social Security, because an increase in Part B can’t cause your monthly benefit to go down.
In other words, if your annual cost-of-living adjustment raises your monthly Social Security benefit by $12, but Medicare premium costs rise by $13, you’re only liable for the extra $12. Still, the reduction in benefits you’ll face by claiming Social Security early will generally well outpace any increase Part B throws at enrollees, so if you’re ready to sign up for Medicare at 65 but don’t need your Social Security benefits just yet, don’t feel compelled to claim them.
3. You’re scared Social Security is running out of money
There are rumors abounding that Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy, but actually, that’s far from true. Social Security gets its funding from payroll taxes, so despite the program’s financial woes, it’s not in danger of going away. Right now, the worst-case scenario is a potential cut in benefits in 2035 to the tune of 20%, but that assumes lawmakers won’t step in and prevent that from happening, which many are invested in doing.
Therefore, don’t file for Social Security at 65 because you’re worried that by waiting, you’ll risk not getting paid any benefits at all. That scenario just isn’t on the table, and if you file at 65 rather than wait until full retirement age or later, you’ll risk losing out on a substantial amount of monthly income for life.
Claiming Social Security at 65 isn’t always a bad idea, and with regard to reducing benefits, it doesn’t cause nearly the same extreme hit as filing at 62. But if you’re going to sign up for Social Security at 65, make sure you’re doing so for the right reasons, and not because you’re ill-informed or are buying into myths.
The $16,728 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook
If you’re like most Americans, you’re a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known “Social Security secrets” could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,728 more… each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we’re all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.
https://socialsecurityintelligence.com | Not everyone needs to delay filing for SS. There are some cases where filing at the earliest eligible age makes the most sense. A lot of the content that you find online will make the case that filing early for social security benefits is always a bad idea. They’ll say things like, “you should always wait until you’re full retirement age for file for maximum amount of benefits,” and while it’s true you can make a good case for filing later for social security benefits, for maximization of income in most cases, that doesn’t apply to every situation. In fact, there are five specific circumstances where I think filing early makes the most sense.
It sounds like the makings of a sitcom, but your parents may end up rooming with you if they haven’t started saving for retirement.An analysis for the Harvard Health Letter using U.S. Census Bureau data concluded that some 3.4 million people aged 65 or older were living in a grown child’s home in 2016.
Before you start counting the ways your life will change once your parents move in, prepare to do some information gathering. Your parents may not have much in savings, but the faster you can get their finances in order, the better off you’ll all be.
1. Get your siblings on board
Start by having an informal chat with your siblings to share perspectives. Has anyone already had this conversation with mom and dad? If so, how’d it go? Also find out who’s willing to join forces with you to ensure your folks have a good plan for the future.
2. Invite your folks to an open conversation about finances
Your parents may be defensive about their financial situation, so it’s important to set the tone carefully. Do your best to treat this as a shared circumstance. You’re not fixing or blaming. You’re simply looking out for them by planning for their future.
By starting the conversation with an offer to help, you can keep from playing the blame game. You might say, “Mom and Dad, I’d like to help you guys plan for your later years. Can we set aside some time to talk about financial stuff?”
3. Ask for the numbers
It may feel better to talk about finances in generalities, but to be successful, you need to resist that urge. You can be most helpful when you know how much your parents spend, their income, what they own, and what they owe. It’s also useful to chat openly about how stable they think their income is. For instance, Mom may plan on working another 20 years, but things are more complicated if she’s worried about getting pushed out next year.
When you understand their income outlook, you can broach the topic of Social Security benefits, and help them strategize on when to take those benefits. If they aren’t sure where they stand with Social Security, help them set up an online account withmy Social Security. And while you’re at it, see if they’ll share passwords to their other financial accounts in case you need to check in on those.
If your folks have a ton of debt or are borrowing to cover their expenses, help them find ways to spend less. Review their credit card statements and checking accounts for subscription services they don’t use, encourage them to shop around for cheaper rates on home or auto insurance, and introduce them to streaming TV so they can cancel cable.
A consistently high grocery bill is a harder challenge to tackle. You might introduce them to a grocery delivery service to minimize impulse purchases. A produce delivery service can also eke out some savings, as these focus on less expensive, seasonal produce that’s locally sourced.
Once your parents’ spending is in line with their income, every bit of savings should go towards paying down the debt.
5. Consider downsizing on homes and cars
If your parents are open to it, downsizing now may result in more freedom later. Selling an extra car raises some quick cash to pay down debt, and also reduces insurance and maintenance expenses. Downsizing the home may be a tougher conversation to have, but it’s worth exploration. A smaller place that’s fully paid off provides a lot more security for your parents than a bigger place with a mortgage. Ongoing maintenance and expenses will be less, too.
6. Brainstorm new streams of income
Even after you help your parents streamline their debt and expenses, they probably won’t have access to the traditional, work-free retirement lifestyle if they haven’t been saving diligently for years. That’s not to say they’ll be fully dependent on Social Security either. They could start up aside hustle to generate income and protect their lifestyle.
A little teamwork between you and your folks could have them on sustainable financial ground in just a few years. In other words, the best way to head off the parent-roommate situation is to start those tough conversations now.
The Motley Fool is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news, analysis and commentary designed to help people take control of their financial lives. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Offer from the Motley Fool:The $16,728 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook
If you’re like most Americans, you’re a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known “Social Security secrets” could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,728 more… each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we’re all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.
More Canadians are living well into their eighties. Chances are that many of us will be involved in caring for at least one aging parent and will be concerned if their retirement savings will be enough. Planning ahead will help ensure your parents’ financial independence and for you – piece of mind. BlueShore Financial advisor David Lee explains the nuances of financial planning for aging parents, including RRSPs, Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, Long Term Care Insurance and more. Learn more about helping your parents with their financial plan: https://www.blueshorefinancial.com/We…
How much can you save for retirement in 2020? The Treasury Department has announced inflation-adjusted figures for retirement account savings for 2020: 401(k) contribution limits are up; traditional IRA contribution limits stay the same; almost all the other numbers are up.
The amount you can contribute to your 401(k) or similar workplace retirement plan goes up from $19,000 in 2019 to $19,500 in 2020. The 401(k) catch-up contribution limit—if you’re 50 or older in 2020—will be $6,500 for workplace plans, up from $6,000. But the amount you can contribute to an Individual Retirement Account stays the same for 2020: $6,000, with a $1,000 catch-up limit if you’re 50 or older.
So super-savers age 50-plus can sock away $33,000 in these tax-advantaged accounts for 2020. If your employer allows aftertax contributions or you’re self-employed, you can save even more. The overall defined contribution plan limit moves up to $57,000, from $56,000.
Sounds unreachable? During 2018, 13% of employees with retirement plans at work saved the then maximum of $18,500/$24,500, according to Vanguard’s How America Saves. In plans offering catch-up contributions, 15% of those age 50 or older took advantage of the extra savings opportunity. High earners are really saving: 6 out of 10 folks earning $150,000+ contributed the maximum allowed, including catch-ups.
Want to join in? We outline the numbers below; see IRS Notice 2019-59 for technical guidance. For more on 2020 tax numbers: Forbes contributor Kelly Phillips Erb has all the details on 2020 tax brackets, standard deduction amounts and more. We have all the details on the new higher 2020 retirement account limits too.
401(k)s. The annual contribution limit for employees who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans and the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan is $19,500 for 2020—a $500 boost over 2019. Note, you can make changes to your 401(k) election at any time during the year, not just during open enrollment season when most employers send you a reminder to update your elections for the next plan year.
The 401(k) Catch-Up. The catch-up contribution limit for employees age 50 or older in these plans is $6,500 for 2020. That’s the first increase since 2015 when the limit rose to $6,000. Even if you don’t turn 50 until December 31, 2020, you can make the additional $6,500 catch-up contribution for the year.
SEP IRAs and Solo 401(k)s. For the self-employed and small business owners, the amount they can save in a SEP IRA or a solo 401(k) goes up from $56,000 in 2019 to $57,000 in 2020. That’s based on the amount they can contribute as an employer, as a percentage of their salary; the compensation limit used in the savings calculation also goes up from $280,000 in 2019 to $285,000 in 2020.
Aftertax 401(k) contributions. If your employer allows aftertax contributions to your 401(k), you also get the advantage of the $57,000 limit for 2020. It’s an overall cap, including your $19,500 (pretax or Roth in any combination) salary deferrals plus any employer contributions (but not catch-up contributions).
The SIMPLE. The limit on SIMPLE retirement accounts goes up from $13,000 in 2019 to $13,500 in 2020. The SIMPLE catch-up limit is still $3,000.
Defined Benefit Plans. The limitation on the annual benefit of a defined benefit plan goes up from $225,000 in 2019 to $230,000 in 2020. These are powerful pension plans (an individual version of the kind that used to be more common in the corporate world before 401(k)s took over) for high-earning self-employed folks.
Individual Retirement Accounts. The limit on annual contributions to an Individual Retirement Account (pretax or Roth or a combination) remains at $6,000 for 2020, the same as in 2019. The catch-up contribution limit, which is not subject to inflation adjustments, remains at $1,000. (Remember that 2020 IRA contributions can be made until April 15, 2021.)
Deductible IRA Phase-Outs. You can earn a little more in 2020 and get to deduct your contributions to a traditional pretax IRA. Note: Even if you earn too much to get a deduction for contributing to an IRA, you can still contribute—it’s just nondeductible.
In 2020, the deduction for taxpayers making contributions to a traditional IRA is phased out for singles and heads of household who are covered by a workplace retirement plan and have modified adjusted gross incomes (AGI) between $65,000 and $75,000, up from $64,000 and $74,000 in 2019. For married couples filing jointly, in which the spouse who makes the IRA contribution is covered by a workplace retirement plan, the income phase-out range is $104,000 to $124,000 for 2020, up from $103,000 to $123,000.
For an IRA contributor who is not covered by a workplace retirement plan and is married to someone who is covered, the deduction is phased out if the couple’s income is between $196,000 and $206,000 in 2020, up from $193,000 and $203,000 in 2019.
Roth IRA Phase-Outs. The inflation adjustment helps Roth IRA savers too. In 2020, the AGI phase-out range for taxpayers making contributions to a Roth IRA is $196,000 to $206,000 for married couples filing jointly, up from $193,000 to $203,000 in 2019. For singles and heads of household, the income phase-out range is $124,000 to $139,000, up from $122,000 to $137,000 in 2019.
If you earn too much to open a Roth IRA, you can open a nondeductible IRA and convert it to a Roth IRA as Congress lifted any income restrictions for Roth IRA conversions. To learn more about the backdoor Roth, see Congress Blesses Roth IRAs For Everyone, Even The Well-Paid.
Saver’s Credit. The income limit for the saver’s credit for low- and moderate-income workers is $65,000 for married couples filing jointly for 2020, up from $64,000; $48,750 for heads of household, up from $48,000; and $32,500 for singles and married filing separately, up from $32,000. See Grab The Saver’s Credit for details on how it can pay off.
QLACs. The dollar limit on the amount of your IRA or 401(k) you can invest in a qualified longevity annuity contract is increased to $135,000 from $130,000. See Make Your Retirement Money Last For Life for how QLACs work.
I’m an associate editor on the Money team at Forbes based in Fairfield County, Connecticut, leading Forbes’ retirement coverage. I manage contributors who cover retirement and wealth management. Since I joined Forbes in 1997, my favorite stories have been on how people fuel their passions (historic preservation, open space, art, for example) by exploiting the tax code. I also get into the nitty-gritty of retirement account rules, estate planning and strategic charitable giving. My favorite Forbes business trip: to Plano, Ill. to report on the restoration of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, then owned by a British baron. Live well. Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ashleaebeling Send me an email: aebeling@forbes.com
The IRS announced changes to contribution and benefit limits for 2019. CSIG’s Alison Bettonville, CFA highlights the limit changes that affect various qualified retirement plans. Highlights include: -402(g) limit increased to $19,000 -415 or the Total Annual Additions limit increased to $56,000 -Catch up contributions limit remained at $6,000 -Compensation limit increased $280,000 -Highly Compensated Employee definition increased to $125,000 To the extent that any portion of the information submitted by CSIG contains material that is copyrighted, the recipient shall observe the protection of such material as provided under applicable copyright laws. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Diversification does not guarantee investment returns and does not eliminate risk of loss. We believe the information provided here is reliable, but do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. Opinions and estimates offered constitute our judgment and are subject to change without notice, as are statements of financial market trends, which are based on current market conditions. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument. The views and strategies described may not be suitable for all investors. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, accounting, legal, or tax advice. References to future returns are not promises or even estimates of actual returns a client portfolio may achieve. Any forecasts contained herein are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be relied upon as advice or interpreted as a recommendation. The price of equity securities may rise or fall because of changes in the broad market or changes in a company’s financial condition, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. International investing involves a greater degree of risk and increased volatility. There is no guarantee that companies that can issue dividends will declare, continue to pay, or increase dividends.
Shortly after wrapping up my lecture on the future of retirement, a petite older woman approached me. Confidently, she quickly positioned herself between me and other attendees that had follow-up questions. She came close and began speaking to me at a volume that may have been more appropriate several feet away, saying: “I don’t know who he is! He is always there—every day!”
Before I could ask her whom she was describing, I noticed an older man standing slightly to the side, but a little behind her. She continued, picking up her pace, and volume.
“He just doesn’t understand. I have a daily routine!”
The man now seemed to be stepping back — almost shrinking away. She turned to him and rhetorically asked: “Isn’t that true?!”
Not waiting for his response she turned to me, seemingly looking to me to agree, or referee, saying, “My husband! Now that he is retired, he is always looking to me to feed him, entertain him, and keep him busy!”
Not waiting for my reply, she took the old man by the arm and walked toward the exit.
This was not the first time I heard from an older woman, a now common refrain, voiced by many women with retired partners—“I married him for life, but not for lunch.”
People 50 years old and older have the highest divorce rate of all age groups. In fact, according to Pew Research, the Baby Boomer divorce rate, the so-called gray divorce, has doubled since the 1990s.
Social observers have offered many reasons—among them, most often voiced by women, is: “He bores me.” That reason may not be altogether incorrect, just a little incomplete.
What if the cause of many divorces is poor planning? Not retirement planning in the financial sense, but longevity planning. The failure to plan how, as a couple, they will spend nearly a full third of their adult lives together. A far more concentrated time together than all the previous decades they shared.
There is a new retirement math that has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with living well—together. This new math includes numbers you and your partner didn’t imagine, let alone plan on.
Relationships are typically measured in years. We even assign symbolic gifts to achieving years of togetherness: 25 years is a silver anniversary, 50 years is golden, etc. But, in all those early decades—how much time do you really spend together? Between raising children, careers and countless other activities and responsibilities that only grow in number, and intensity, from young adulthood through midlife, a couple may find they spend years living together, but very few hours actually being together.
The New Math Of Retirement Togetherness
How much time do we actually spend with our partners?
There are 168 hours in a week. Assume that about 8 hours each day are spent sleeping, totaling 56 hours a week, leaving 112 waking hours.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average work day is about nine hours, five days a week. For most, that means 45 hours of work away from their partner, leaving 67 hours.
Just getting to work and going home takes time, too. The nation’s average commute time is nearly 30 minutes one way to work, unless you share Boston’s commute with me, then you are sitting nearly idle for an average 49 minutes. Assuming at least an hour per day to travel to and from work, that is an additional five hours from home, leaving 62 waking hours together—assuming that Saturdays and Sundays are days off.
On any given Monday through Friday, however, a couple may spend only a mere six hours truly together. And that is six hours of togetherness counting showers, bio-breaks, meals, children and all the other big and little tasks that make up a day.
Now, let’s consider retirement. A clean break from the workplace. A dividend of 45 waking hours per week are given to you—with interest. Because the end of the daily grind, also ends the daily work commute, another five-plus hours of freedom is gained to spend with your mate.
Suddenly instead of being limited to a just six waking hours per day with your partner, you have scored an additional ten waking hours at home!
Overnight, you went from 6 to 16 hours together! Every day!
Cause for celebration? Perhaps. For many, it is a surprise. Instead of a time to be celebrated, if not fully planned for, it may be a time that brings unanticipated complexity and even conflict between partners.
Many couples cash in their retirement dividend of more time together by making trips dreamed of decades before. Others plan on spending time with friends, family and, grandchildren. However, leisure travel for most is only a week or two a year. Family visits are typically over holidays and long weekends. In sharp contrast, life after full-time work is a daily event that continues for decades.
Retirement planning today focuses primarily on financial security. It is now necessary to develop a longevity plan, that includes money, but also a comprehensive and collaborative discussion that couples must have about what they will do, and how they plan to live together in the many years that is likely to be a full one third of their adult lives.
For now, many may not have a plan, but they are muddling through. Women appear to be taking action to ensure that their later years are filled with activity and income— not just activity planning for their retired mate. The Boston College Center for Retirement Research reports a sharp rise in the average retirement age of women.
Some men are taking a defensive approach. Pete, my Uber driver, keeps busy by staying on the road four to five days a week. With a full head of white hair, dressed in khakis, polo shirt, and sweater, Pete looks more like someone on his way to a member meeting of a high-end golf club, than someone who has found navigating traffic for seven to eight hours a day a side hobby.
I ask him why does he work so many days in retirement? As he puts it, “Retirement has been a great change after years at a desk. I am outside, and I get to meet and talk with interesting people.”
Looking at me in the rearview mirror, he adds, with a big smile: “There’s another reason too. Driving gets me out of the house before the wife kills me.”
I lead the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab (agelab.mit.edu). Researcher, teacher, speaker and advisor – my work explores how global demographics, technology and changing generational attitudes are transforming business and society. I teach in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning and the Sloan School’s Advanced Management Program. My new book is The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World’s Fastest Growing, Most Misunderstood Market (Public Affairs, 2017) . Follow me on Twitter @josephcoughlin.
Saving for retirement means navigating a potential minefield of high fees and bad advice. Billy Eichner and Kristin Chenoweth share some tips. Connect with Last Week Tonight online… Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would: http://Facebook.com/LastWeekTonight Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news: http://Twitter.com/LastWeekTonight Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once: http://www.hbo.com/lastweektonight
When Lisa first learned about the financial independence, retire early (FIRE) movement she was stunned that so many people, often younger than her, could possibly save enough to retire. Reading the blogs and first-person stories invigorated her. She wanted to follow suit. It changed the way she and her husband spent money. They cut out restaurants, wore old clothes and avoided coffee shops, funneling all the extra cash into paying down debt and building retirement funds.
“It really did motivate us,” Lisa said.
But as someone who has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years, she never had a huge problem with her job. The more Lisa saved, though, the more she felt annoyed at going to work. The more she saved, the more she wanted to watch HGTV before bed. The more she saved, the more she couldn’t understand why she should walk around in a coat with holes in it simply to prove that she was good with money.
The whole effort “made me unhappy,” said Lisa, who asked to only use her first name since she’s still working full-time. That’s why, four years after starting her FIRE goal of retiring young, Lisa and her husband decided to abandon the ‘retire early’ portion of their savings plan. Instead, she’s decided to focus on financial independence, but also not worry if they want to eat out on a Friday night.
There’s a fine line between frugality and feeling guilty over every dime that you spend in order to save a little bit more. Those that enter FIRE often ignore that line during the accumulation phase, saving as much as possible without regard to how it makes them feel today while sometimes sacrificing their health or well being. But it’s not a feat for everyone. For Lisa, this excessive frugality only became a hindrance to life.
It doesn’t mean she’s giving up saving. Or now, suddenly, going to rack up credit card debt. Instead, Lisa, who blogs about her experience at Mad Money Monster, is reevaluating her life again, figuring out what to keep and what to ignore when it comes to her financial independence (FI) strategy.
Abandoning Her Great Health Care Wasn’t An Option
As they saved, one factor that grew increasingly concerning was the health and welfare of her mom. “My mother depends on us for help for basic living expenses,” Lisa said. She expects to care for her mother as she grows older. While Lisa was making strides paying back debt under the FIRE plan, she had to spend $2,000 on her mother’s dental expenses.
Usually that cost comes out of pocket, and they expect to have to do the same with vision care and some other wellness needs.
This unknown complicated their financial picture. But also Lisa sees her mom’s situation, and then recognizes her luck with her current health care plan, which she describes as “really good.” The idea that she would walk away from that plan, simply so she could retire early – she’s about 60% of the way to her original FIRE mark – she now views as “selfish.” And she’s not comfortable with some of the other options out there for health care coverage, including the public markets or health shares.
“For me to walk away from that [healthcare] would be kind of dumb,” Lisa added.
Keeping A High Savings Rate
Despite rejecting the idea of early retirement at this point in her mid-40s, she’s made great strides in reshaping her financial situation.
When she learned about FIRE, her and her husband had just walked away from buying a large, expensive home that would have put them in a tricky financial predicament. They thought they needed the big house because that’s what people did after getting married. Instead of getting the house, she’s paid off her student loans, two cars and some credit card debt. The family has also invested in two single-family hoes, which they rent out, covering the mortgages.
Part of the reason Lisa quit her early retirement goal was because she was having to sacrifice too … [+]
Lisa, Mad Money Monster
At the peak of their saving they stashed away about 70% of their income. Now it’s closer to 50%. Still a strong level, but not with early retirement as the goal.
Lisa’s realization that there’s little desire to retire before traditional age has given her the freedom to build wealth for other purposes. She has the financial knowledge now and she’s using it to provide a large inheritance for her daughter one day.
“I want to build legacy wealth for my family,” she said. She has no problem staying at her job to grow that wealth.
But she’s also in a much more secure position, whenever her job does go away.
She’s Not Deprived Of Time
Often when people say they want to retire in their 30s or 40s they have dreams of traveling across the world, seeing new sights and meeting new people. That’s not the case for Lisa. “I’m so content with and entrenched in the adult family life,” she said.
She doesn’t demand much more travel than the summer vacation her family already goes on. Meanwhile, her husband, who works in the film industry, never wants to retire because he’s already found a job he would do even if he didn’t have to work.
“I feel like [we’re] not being deprived of time,” said Lisa.
And now that she has clarified her goals, it makes going into work much easier.
‘Time poor’ is the catch-cry of our era, and yet end-of-life retirement means we have an average of two decades of feeling time rich to look forward to… when we’re old. In this talk, Lacey shares how combining financial independence and mini-retirements is one way to bring that time rich feeling into our youth. Lacey Filipich started her entrepreneurial journey with a hair wrap stall at 10 years old. Today, she is the co-founder and director of two successful businesses; Money School and Maker Kids Club. Between hair wraps and start-ups, Lacey graduated as valedictorian from the The University of Queensland with an Honours degree in Chemical Engineering. She moved to Australia’s ‘wild west’ to begin her career in mining, rising quickly through the ranks. A health scare and her sister’s suicide opened Lacey’s eyes to the world beyond work, leading her to redesign her life and take five mini-retirements in the next five years. This was achievable because of Lacey’s financial position: she started investing at 19 and now earns a passive income. Lacey considers herself time rich: able to choose if, when, where, how, on what and with whom she works. Her story is one of many in the Financially Independent Retiring Early (FIRE) movement supporting the idea that end-of-life retirement is optional. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
That is the kind of plan in which the employer guarantees the worker a set monthly benefit for life. They are increasingly scarce except for small closely held corporations.
The same rules apply for small closely held businesses as for large corporations.
These plans can be great tools for independent professionals and small business owners. But if you have thousands of employees, DB plans are expensive and risky.
The company is legally obligated to pay the benefits at whatever the cost turns out to be, which is hard to predict.
The advantage is you can use some hopeful accounting to set aside less cash now and deal with the benefit problems later. The problem is “later” comes faster than you would like, and procrastination can be a bitch.
That Brings Us to the Lesson for Today
In October 7, General Electric (GE) announced several changes to its defined benefit pension plans. Among them:
Some 20,000 current employees who still have a legacy-defined benefit plan will see their benefits frozen as of January 2021. After then, they will accrue no further benefits and make no more contributions. The company will instead offer them matching payments in its 401(k) plan.
About 100,000 former GE employees who earned benefits but haven’t yet started receiving them will be offered a one-time, lump sum payment instead. This presents employees with a very interesting proposition. Almost exactly like a Nash equilibrium. More below…
The first part of the announcement is growing standard. But the second part is more interesting, and that’s where I want to focus.
Suppose you are one of the ex-GE workers who earned benefits. As of now, GE has promised to give you some monthly payment when you retire. Say it’s $1,000 a month.
What is the present value of that promised income stream? It depends on your life expectancy, inflation, interest rates and other factors. You can calculate it, though. Say it is $200,000.
Is GE offering to write you a generous check for $200,000? No. We know this because GE’s press release says:
Company funds will not be used to make the lump sum distributions. All distributions will be made from existing pension plan assets in the GE Pension Trust. The company does not expect the plan’s funded status to decrease as a result of this offer. At year-end 2018, the plan’s funded ratio was 80 percent (GAAP).
So GE is not offering to give away its own money, or to take it from other workers. It is simply offering ex-employees their own benefits earlier than planned. But under what assumptions? And how much? The press release didn’t say.
If that’s you, should you take the offer? It’s not an easy call because you are making a bet on the viability of General Electric.
When GE says its plan is 80% funded under GAAP, it necessarily makes an assumption about the plan’s future investment returns.
I dug around their 2018 annual report and found the “expected rate of return” was 8.50% as recently as 2009, when they dropped it to 8.00%, then 7.50% in 2014, to now 6.75%.
So over a decade they went from staggeringly unrealistic down to seriously unrealistic. They still assume that every dollar in their pension fund will grow to almost $4 in 20 years.
That means GE’s offered amounts will probably be too low, because they’ll base their offers on that expected return.
GE hires lots of engineers and other number-oriented people who will see this. Still, I doubt GE will offer more because doing so would compromise their entire corporate viability, as we’ll see in a minute.
Financial Engineering
GE has $92 billion in pension liabilities offset by roughly $70 billion in assets, plus the roughly $5 billion they’re going to “pre-fund.”
But that is based on 6.75% annual return. Which roughly assumes that in 20 years one dollar will almost quadruple.
What if you assume a 3.5% return? Then you are roughly looking at $2, which would mean the pension plan is underfunded by over $100 billion—and that’s being generous.
GE’s current market cap is less than $75 billion, meaning that technically the pension plan owns General Electric.
This is why GE and other corporations, not to mention state and local pension plans, can’t adopt realistic return assumptions. They would have to start considering bankruptcy.
If GE were to assume 3.5% to 4% future returns, which might still be aggressive in a zero-interest-rate world, they would have to immediately book pension debt that might be larger than their market cap.
GE chair and CEO Larry Culp only took over in October 2018.
We have mutual friends who have nothing but extraordinarily good things to say about him. He is clearly trying to both do the right thing for employees and clean up the balance sheet.
He was dealt a very ugly hand before he even got in the game.
GE needs an additional $5 billion per year minimum just to stave off the pension demon. That won’t make shareholders happy, but Culp is now in the business of survival, not happiness.
That is why GE wants to buy out its defined benefit plan beneficiaries. Right now, the company is on the wrong side of math.
It doesn’t have anything like Hussman’s 31X the benefits it is obligated to pay. Nor do many other plans, both public and private. Nor does Social Security.
Tough Choices
To be clear, I think GE will survive. Its businesses generate good revenue and it owns valuable assets. The company can muddle through by gradually bringing down the expected returns and buying out as many DB beneficiaries as possible. But it won’t be fun.
Pension promises are really debt by another name. The numbers are staggering even when you understate them. We never see honest accounting on this because it would make too many heads melt.
If I am a GE employee who is offered a buyout? I might seriously consider taking it because I could then define my own risk and, with my smaller amount, take advantage of investments unavailable to a $75 billion plan.
I predict an unprecedented crisis that will lead to the biggest wipeout of wealth in history. And most investors are completely unaware of the pressure building right now. Learn more here.
I am a financial writer, publisher, and New York Times bestselling-author. Each week, nearly a million readers around the world receive my Thoughts From the Frontline free investment newsletter. My most recent book is Code Red: How to Protect Your Savings from the Coming Crisis. I appear regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. I’m also Chairman of Mauldin Economics, a research group that provides monthly analysis and recommendations to thousands of readers around the world. I was previously CEO of the American Bureau of Economic Research. Today I am President of the investment advisory firm Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC. I am also president and registered principal of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC a FINRA and SIPC registered broker dealer. When I’m not traveling to speak at conferences and events, I live in Dallas, TX. I’m also the proud father of seven children.
FREE Help for Seniors! Miriam Dix is an independent Medicare Insurance Agent and helps seniors do more with less by helping them stretch their healthcare dollars and determine the best value for their specific situation. Miriam does not work for any one insurance company and, instead she offers the best value plans available. Miriam can be reached at 1-904-513-0535 and via email at miriam@seniormarketmanagement.com. Send me your questions! I’ll help ya! 🙂 News clip available at: http://www.wdrb.com/story/29661213/ge…
If you are trying to figure out how much money you need to save for retirement, there’s an easy rule of thumb that you can use: simply multiply your expected annual expenses in retirement by twenty-five.
For example, if you expect to spend $100,000 annually once you’re retired, you’ll want to have a $2.5 million portfolio saved up. If you’d like to play around with the numbers to estimate your own retirement needs, you can use this simple retirement calculator.
This retirement savings rule of thumb is based on the 1998 landmark study conducted by Carl Hubbard, Philip Cooley and Daniel Walz, in their seminal study known as the Trinity Study. They built on the 1994 work of William Bengen, who originally coined the ‘4% Rule’.
The Trinity Study evaluated safe retirement withdrawal rates, and found that 4% was sufficient for the majority of retirees. A safe withdrawal rate simply refers to the amount of money that can be taken out of an account and allow you to reasonably expect the portfolio to not fail, or run out of money. In this case, the 4% withdrawal rate refers to the amount of money that will be withdrawn from the balance of the retirement portfolio in the first year of retirement. In subsequent years, the balance withdrawn will simply be an inflation adjusted number based on the total dollar amount withdrawn the year prior.
The Trinity Study has become so well-known, that it has been adopted by hopeful retirees from all walks of life, including those hoping to retire early. The FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is a lifestyle movement with the goal of allowing individuals to retire as early and quickly as possible.
However, one detail that the movement is getting wrong and completely missing, is the fact that the Trinity Study’s 4% rule of thumb was based on a 30 year retirement period. This time horizon was determined to be on the conservative end of retirements by the authors of the study. If you work until you’re 65, having a 30 year retirement seems pretty reasonable. I don’t think many would argue that living until the age of 95 is a short life by any means.
The problem arises due to the FIRE movement seeking a much longer retirement period. If you retire at 45 years old, you may need a portfolio that will survive another 45 to 50 years in order to avoid running out of money. In this case, making a judgement error could end up meaning re-entering the workforce at an advanced age. For this reason, relying on a 4% withdrawal rate is an extremely risky decision if you plan to retire early.
This begs the question of what a more appropriate withdrawal rate is if you plan to retire early. The answer is that it depends. In general, the study found that as the balance between stocks and bonds shifts towards equities, a portfolio is more likely to withstand the test of time. So inherently, your risk tolerance will need to be factored into the equation. If you are comfortable with 75%+ of your portfolio being in stocks (and stomaching the increased risk), you might be safe with a 3% withdrawal rate. If you prefer less volatile investments, a lower rate is more conservative.
This is bad news for a lot of you hoping to retire early.
For one, it would mean having to save an additional $833,000 if you hope to spend $100,000 annually like in the example above. Unless you are an exceptionally high earner, it’ll likely mean having to work for several additional years or having to continue to earn additional income even after retirement.
With the buzz surrounding the gig economy and the seemingly endless ‘side-hustle’ opportunities available, this seems like a surmountable hurdle. The deficit in retirement savings required also highlights the impact of having to save for retirement as efficiently as possible.
This means fully taking advantage of your 401(k), IRA, and other tax-advantaged accounts. It also means evaluating whether it makes sense to refinance your student loans or not. Avoiding credit card interest fees and other forms of high interest debt are a must. In addition, maximizing your earning potential will also help safeguard your nest egg from market turbulence and economic uncertainty.
To build wealth, you have more potential to increase income than cute expenses.
TheFinanceTwins.com
Just as important, you’ll also want to avoid making costly investment mistakes. One that comes to mind is erroneously viewing your vehicle as a sound investment. Another pitfall is picking individual stocks in lieu of index funds or ETFs. To set yourself up for success, minimizing fees and diversifying your investments is the name of the game.
Does all of this mean that the 4% rule is futile and should be completely ignored? Absolutely not. The authors of the Trinity Study ran simulations to find what the safe withdrawal rate would be for varying time horizons. But at the end of the day, they were just that: simulations. Even if you only had an expected 15 year retirement and used a conservative withdrawal rate, there is always the chance that your portfolio could fail. The same is true in the opposite direction: there’s always the chance that a 4% withdrawal could be sufficient for a 50 year retirement.
The question you have to answer is whether you are comfortable taking that risk. I know I’m not.
There are many financial gurus out there that tell you how much to save for retirement, but how did they come up with that number? Honestly they are all just using each others guesses, but as financial advisors we need to do better. While others guess that you should save 10, 12,15% for retirement we can actually figure out how much you should save…to the penny! The first thing we want to know is how much income are you looking for in retirement? Typically we say that you should aim to have 75% of your current income replaced for retirement. The reason is that social security and other savings may make up the difference. Today we will calculate how much a 30 year old couple should save for retirement given that they each have income of $50,ooo per year. We will adjust this to account for inflation and make some assumptions about their retirement age and life expectancy. After calculating this along with expected returns we can see that they need to save 11.9% of their income yearly to have 75% of their income in retirement. We love doing this for our clients and if you are considering a place for your retirement investments then we hope you will consider jazzWealth.com We’re an investing service that also helps you keep your dough straight. We’ll manage your retirement investments and, using NestEgg we can help you with every penny! —Ready to subscribe— https://www.youtube.com/jazzwealth?su… For more information visit: www.JazzWealth.com — Instagram @jazzWealth — Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JazzWealth/ — Twitter @jazzWealth Investment related questions 📧 Dustin@JazzWealth.com Business Affairs 📧Carolyn@JazzWealth.com
What makes people happy in retirement? That’s the question Michael Finke has been researching for many years now. He’s the chief academic officer of the American College of Financial Services, and was one of 16 experts who spoke on at TheStreet’s Retirement, Taxes, and Income Strategies symposium held recently in New York.
But first a little background. Finke has been researching the question of what makes people happy in retirement because he wants to know to what extent does what people do with their money make them happy in retirement. “Is it better if they have a lump sum? Is it better if they have a pension, or some kind of annuitized income?”
And what he found was this: There seems to be three pillars of happiness in retirement. The first pillar is money, which he says is good news for those of who are actually saving for retirement. “You are happier if you have more money,” Finke said. “So money is a pillar.”
It’s never too late – or too early – to plan and invest for the retirement you deserve. Get more information and a free trial subscription to TheStreet’s Retirement Dailyto learn more about saving for and living in retirement.
And it shouldn’t be any surprise, he said, that health is also a pillar of happiness. “You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not healthy, you’re not actually gonna enjoy your retirement,” Finke said.
But most of his newest research is on social well-being. For instance, the extent to which you have good relationships with your spouse is is one of the strongest predictors of happiness in retirement. “So make sure you invest in that as much as you’re investing in your 401(k),” Finke said.
The other predictors of happiness in retirement are, according to Finke, friendships and the depth of friendships and the number of friendships that you have with other people. “And even when we look at spending, what we see is that social spending is what really makes people happy,” he said.
Spending money on all sorts of other stuff that we think might make us happy in retirement doesn’t really make us that happy. “It is social spending that makes us happy,” Finke said.
So that’s the foundation of his research in life satisfaction in retirement. “You have to have all three of those if you’re going to be satisfied, and all of them are an investment,” said Finke.
What is an investment in retirement? According to Finke, an investment is anything that requires a sacrifice during your working years in order to build value. “When you save for retirement, it means that you’re living a little bit less well,” he said. “You’re setting money aside that you could have spent today, and you’re (going to) spend that money in retirement.”
Health is an investment, too, said Finke who recalled his early days as a food consumption researcher. “The whole reason I got into finance was because I took a doctoral class in investments because I wanted to understand investments theory, but my theory was that the same thing that motivated people to save money for retirement is the thing that motivated them to engage in healthy behaviors like eating better or exercising, and so that’s an investment in your future as well,” he said.
Relationships are an investment as well and it takes ongoing investment and time and resources to be able to maintain those friendships “so that you can actually draw from them in retirement,” said Finke.
Introducing TheStreet Courses:Financial titans Jim Cramer and Robert Powell are bringing their market savvy and investing strategies to you. Learn how to create tax-efficient income, avoid top mistakes, reduce risk and more. With our courses, you will have the tools and knowledge needed to achieve your financial goals. Learn more about TheStreet Courses on investing and personal finance here.
And if you haven’t made those investments — and men are especially bad at making investments in friendships — you’re not going to be as happy in retirement, he said.
Women, by contrast, invest more. “Women have more deep relationships than men do by the time they get to retirement,” he said. And that, said Finke, actually creates a big issue because very often women have friends outside of the relationship, and they want to spend time maintaining that investment with their friends.
A man’s social circle, by contrast, is at work. “And by the time they retire, they’re relying more on their spouse,” Finke said. “In an opposite-sex couple, they’re relying on their spouse for that, to spend time with them, to go on vacation with them and have lunch with them, and sometimes that creates a bit of friction in retirement.”
Finke also noted that married retirees, in general, are happier, but the happiest group is women who are newly divorced between the ages of 60 and 65. “That’s the happiest group,” he said.
It costs over $1 million to retire at age 65. Are you expecting to be a millionaire in your mid-60s?
If you’re like the average American, the answer is absolutely not.
The Emptiness of the Average American Retirement Account
The first thing to know is that the average American has nothing saved for retirement, or so little it won’t help. By far the most common retirement account has nothing in it.
Sources differ, but the story remains the same. According to a 2018 study by Northwestern Mutual, 21% of Americans have no retirement savings and an additional 10% have less than $5,000 in savings. A third of Baby Boomers currently in, or approaching, retirement age have between nothing and $25,000 set aside.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) paints an even bleaker picture. Their data from 2013 reports that “nearly half of families have no retirement account savings at all.” For most age groups, the group found, “median account balances in 2013 were less than half their pre-recession peak and lower than at the start of the new millennium.”
The EPI further found these numbers even worse for millennials. Nearly six in 10 have no retirement savings whatsoever.
But financial experts advise that the average 65 year old have between $1 million and $1.5 million set aside for retirement.
What Is the Average Retirement Account?
For workers who have some savings, the amounts differ (appropriately) by generation. The older you are, the more you will have set aside. However there are two ways to present this data, and we’ll use both.
Workers With Savings
Following are the mean and median retirement accounts for people who have one. That is to say, this data only shows what a representative account looks like without factoring in figures for accounts that don’t exist. This data comes per the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. (Numbers rounded to the nearest hundred.)
• Under age 35:
Average retirement account: $32,500
Median retirement account: $12,300
• Age 35 – 44:
Average retirement account: $100,000
Median retirement account: $37,000
• Age 45 – 55:
Average retirement account: $215,800
Median retirement account: $82,600
• Age 55 – 64:
Average retirement account: $374,000
Median retirement account: $120,000
• Age 65 – 74:
Average retirement account: $358,000
Median retirement account: $126,000
For households older than 65 years, retirement accounts begin to decline as these individuals leave the workforce and begin spending their savings.
Including Workers Without Savings
When accounting for people who have no retirement savings the picture looks considerably worse. Following are the median retirement accounts when including the figures for people with no retirement savings. The following do not include mean retirement accounts, as this would be statistically less informative than median data.
• Age 32 – 37: $480
• Age 38 – 43: $4,200
• Age 44 – 49: $6,200
• Age 50 – 55: $8,000
• Age 56 – 61: $17,000
How Much Should You Have Saved For Retirement?
So that’s how much people have saved for retirement, or more often don’t. Now for the more useful question: How much should you have saved for retirement?
The truth is that there’s no hard and fast rule. It varies widely by your age, standard of living and (perhaps most importantly) location. Someone who rents an apartment in San Francisco needs a whole heck of a lot more set aside than a homeowner in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The rule of thumb is to estimate by income. Decide the income you want to live on once you retire, then picture your life as a series of benchmarks set by age. At each age you want a multiple of this retirement income saved up. Your goal is to have 10 to 11 times your desired income in savings by retirement.
• By age 30: between half and the desired income in savings
• By age 35: between the desired amount and double the desired income in savings
• By age 40: between double and triple the desired income in savings
• By age 45: between triple and quadruple the desired income in savings
• By age 50: between five times and six times desired income in savings
• By age 55: between six times and seven times desired income in savings
• By age 60: between seven times and nine times desired income in savings
• By age 65: between eight times and 11 times desired income in savings
So, if you earn $50,000 per year, by age 40 you will want to have between $100,000 and $150,000 in retirement savings set aside. The formula grows later in life for two reasons. First, as your savings accumulate they will grow faster. Second, as you approach retirement it is often wise to accelerate your savings plan.
What You Should Do Next for Your Retirement Savings
Retirement is approaching a crisis. In the coming decades millions of Americans will get too old to continue working without the means to stop. Millennials, crippled by debt from graduation, will turn this crisis into a catastrophe in about 40 years. And Social Security, designed to prevent exactly this problem, covers less than half of an average retiree’s costs of living.
It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss exactly how this happened, but if you’re one of the many people who have fallen behind on retirement savings, don’t panic. There’s plenty you can do. But… it might not necessarily be easy.
The key is to think about retirement savings like a debt. This is money you owe to yourself and it charges reverse interest. Every day you go without adding money to your retirement account is a day you lose investment income. That’s money that you’ll need someday and won’t have.
Next, take stock of where you are. How much will you want to live on in retirement and how much do you have saved today? Use our chart above. That will tell you how far behind you are compared to where you need to be. Are you a 40 year old with $25,000 in savings who will want to live on $50,000 per year in retirement? Then you’ve got $75,000 you need to make up for.
Now, begin catching up. Chip away at that debt every week and every month. Pay into your 401k and IRA the same way you would whittle down a credit card. By thinking about it this way, as a specific goal, you can take away some of the fear of saving for retirement and turn it into an achievable (if large) amount. It’s not just some big, black hole you can never fill. It’s a number, and numbers can go down.
It won’t necessarily be fun. You might have to cut back on luxuries or take on some extra work, but even if you start late in life you can catch up on your retirement.
Dimensional Vice President Marlena Lee, PhD, explains how her research on replacement rates can help you prepare for a better retirement outcome. See more here: https://us.dimensional.com/perspectiv…
Want to be happy in retirement? Then cultivate relationships and spend more money on leisure activities—at least that’s what new academic research (as well as common sense) suggests.
To help you with the leisure part, Forbes presents its 2019 list of 25 great places to pursue seven retirement passions: arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, volunteering, outdoor activities on water, outdoor activities on land and (in its own category) golf.
Most are recommended for multiple passions and two—Seattle and Austin, Texas—excel in all seven categories. Our picks are spread across 21 states in all four continental time zones.
While our flagship Best Places To Retire list highlights locations that offer the best retirement value for the buck, our passions list doesn’t disqualify places simply because they’ve got high costs or taxes. Athens, Georgia, our most affordable passions pick, has a median home price of just $178,000, while San Francisco, our most expensive, has a median home price of $1.36 million. Although high costs (or high taxes) won’t keep a city from making this new list, we do take into account such practical quality of life factors as air quality, crime, doctor availability and how walkable and bikeable a city is. You can read more about our selection method here.
Legend:
Arts 🎨
Fine dining 🍴
Lifelong learning 🎓
Volunteering ❤️
Outdoor activities on water ⛵
Outdoor activities on land 🍁
Golf ⛳
Annapolis, Maryland
The Naval Academy Dome and the Maryland Statehouse buildings show up left in the Annapolis Skyline
Getty
PASSIONS: ❤️ ⛵
Great for volunteering and outdoor water activities
POPULATION: 39,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $428,000
Water on three sides, good air quality and a moderate climate make this charming historic Chesapeake Bay city an ideal spot for those who love boating, fishing or a waterfront view. For the newbie, the city offers lots of recreational boating schools and chartering opportunities. There’s a high rate of local volunteerism and the downtown area, which doubles as Maryland’s state capital (and was the U.S. capital for a year starting in 1783) is very walkable. Doctors per capita are at the national average. Elevation is 40 feet. On the downside, cost of living is 41% above the national average and the crime rate is above the national average. Taxes are on the high side, too; while Social Security benefits are exempt from tax, the top state/local income tax rate is 8.31% and the state has both an estate and inheritance tax.
Ashland, Oregon
A path meandering beneath a vibrant Japanese maple tree. This Japanese Garden is located within Lithia Park, a historic public park in the city of Ashland, Oregon, USA.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🎓 🍁
Great for arts, lifelong learning and outdoor land activities
POPULATION: 21,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $462,000
Located 285 miles south of Portland, this cultural outpost offers art galleries and the nine-month a year Oregon Shakespeare Festival, all set amid scenic mountains and forests. Southern Oregon University hosts an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and allows free auditing of regular college classes. The highly walkable downtown (elevation: 1,950 feet) is set in a moderate climate with little snow, good air quality, a low serious crime rate and a high number of doctors per capita. Nature trails are just outside town. But the cost of living is 40% above the national average and Oregon makes up for its lack of a sales tax with an income tax rate that hits 9% at just $50,000 of income (with Social Security excluded). There is also a state estate tax.
Athens, Georgia
Athens, Georgia, USA downtown cityscape.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🎓 🍁
Great for arts, lifelong learning and outdoor land activities
POPULATION: 127,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $178,000
This affordable college town, just 70 miles east of Atlanta, has a vibrant arts scene. The University of Georgia hosts an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, plus offers seniors free admission to regular classes. Mild terrain and climate (the nation’s first garden club was founded here in 1891) and good air quality are all conducive to warm-weather outdoor activities at an elevation of 600 feet. The ratio of doctors per capita is sufficient. Cost of living is 7% below the national average and the serious crime rate is low. Georgia doesn’t tax estates or Social Security benefits and offers a generous additional break for other retirement income. Top state income rate is 5.75%. One notable downside: Not very walkable.
Austin, Texas
A large crowd attending a festival in Austin, Texas.
Getty
Passions: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ❤️ ⛵ 🍁 ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, volunteering, outdoor water and land activities and golf
POPULATION: 950,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $369,000
Sunny capital of Texas offers scores of dining and entertainment venues (including the annual SXSW festival), plus learning opportunities at the University of Texas, all surrounded by dozens of golf courses. The city boasts a high number of physicians per capita, good air quality, a good economy and a high rate of volunteering. The impressive state capitol building is higher than the one in Washington, D.C. At an elevation of 300 feet, the city is very bikeable and somewhat walkable. While there is no state income or estate/inheritance taxe, the cost of living is 30% above the national average and the serious crime rate is slightly above the national average.
Bend, Oregon
Fly Fishing in Bend Oregon
Getty
PASSIONS: ⛵ 🍁
Great for outdoor water and land activities
POPULATION: 98,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $440,000
Lots of snow guarantees vibrant downhill and cross-country skiing in this scenic “Outdoor Playground of the West” 160 miles southeast of Portland. Other outdoor pursuits at an elevation of 3,600 feet around the north-flowing Deschutes River include fishing, tubing, hiking, rock climbing, bicycling and paragliding. Besides good air quality, a low serious crime rate and a high number of doctors per capita, the area boasts a strong economy. But Oregon makes up for its lack of a sales tax with an income tax rate that reaches 9% on just $50,000 of taxable income (which excludes Social Security). There’s also a state estate tax. The town itself is not very walkable. Cost of living is 34% above the national average.
Boise, Idaho
Spirit of Boise Balloon Classic being held at Ann Morrison Park in Boise
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎓 ❤️ 🍁
Great for lifelong learning, outdoor land activities and volunteering
POPULATION: 227,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $299,000
The surprisingly mild climate in Idaho’s capital city, nicknamed “City of Trees,” is conducive to outdoor land activities, while Boise State University hosts an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and offers free auditing of regular classes for seniors. Other pluses include a high level of volunteerism, a high number of physicians per capita, a low serious crime rate, good air quality and a good economy. With an elevation of 2,700 feet, the city is very bikeable, though not as walkable. Cost of living is only 7% above the national average. There is no state income tax on Social Security earnings, nor a state estate/inheritance tax. Idaho’s income tax rate for married couples is 6.925% on taxable income above $23,000.
Boston, Massachusetts
Community Boating, Boston
Getty
PASSIONS:🎨 🍴 🎓 ❤️ ⛵ 🍁
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, volunteering and outdoor water and land activities
POPULATION: 685,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $604,000
This buzzy historic coastal state capital city of 685,000 offers a wealth of cultural. and educational activities. Not too surprising, considering there are more than 50 area colleges. Boston has good air quality, abundant doctors per capita, and a good economy. At an elevation of 140 feet, the city, named for an English town, is both highly walkable and bikeable. The top state income tax rate is only 5% and there’s no state income tax on Social Security earnings. On the negative side, there’s a state estate tax and a higher than average serious crime rate. But the big downside is the cost of living: 82% above the national average.
Boulder, Colorado
Rock climber at Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder, Colorado.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🎓 ❤️ 🍁
Great for arts, lifelong learning, volunteering and outdoor land activities
POPULATION: 107,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $742,000
This city, 30 miles northwest of Denver, is at the center of a huge recreational open space abutting the Rockies at 5,400 feet of elevation, which can be enjoyed in 10 months of annual sunshine. It’s also the home the University of Colorado, which allows seniors to audit courses for free. Boulder is a walkable and bikeable city with a low serious crime rate, good air quality, abundant doctors and a strong economy. Volunteering is a way of life here. While there is no state estate/inheritance tax, the state income tax (a flat 4.63%) does hit Social Security benefits. One big downside is the cost of living: 87% above the national average.
Chandler, Arizona
Golf in Chandler, Arizona.
US PGA TOUR
Passions: ❤️🍁 ⛳
Great for volunteering, outdoor land activities and golf
POPULATION: 235,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $317,000
This Phoenix suburb, named for Arizona’s first veterinary surgeon, offers myriad outdoor activities, including 185 golf courses in the region. There’s a low serious crime rate, a good economy and a high rate of volunteering. With an elevation of 1,200 feet, the city is very bikeable, although not all that walkable. There is no state income tax on Social Security earnings and no state estate/inheritance. The sate income tax rate tops out at just 4.54% on a married couple’s taxable income above $317,900. On the downside, the number of doctors per capita is below the national average and the air quality is poor. Cost of living is 23% above the national average.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The cherry blossoms at the start of spring on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 🍁
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning and outdoor land activities
POPULATION: 60,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $376,000
The home of the University of North Carolina, which offers free auditing of classes for senior citizens, this college town has been called America’s “foodiest small town” for its range of culinary options. It also has a high number of physicians per capita, good air quality, a low serious crime rate, a strong economy—and quirky blue fire trucks. There’s no North Carolina income tax on Social Security benefits and no state estate/inheritance tax. The state income tax rate is a flat 5.499%. At an elevation of 500 feet, the city is somewhat bikeable, but not very walkable. Cost of living is 30% above national average.
Charleston, South Carolina
St. Michaels Church from Broad St. in Charleston, South Carolina
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 ⛵ ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, outdoor water activities and golf
POPULATION: 130,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $322,000
This historic coastal city brims with activities, both indoors and out. (The first game of golf in the U.S. took place here.) Pluses include a high number of doctors per capita, good air quality and a good economy. There’s no state estate/inheritance tax, no state income tax on Social Security benefits and there are additional tax breaks on pension income. But the state income tax rate tops out at an above average 7% on taxable income of just $14,860. At an elevation of 20 feet, the city is somewhat bikeable, but not very walkable. Cost of living is 22% above national average.
Dallas, Texas
Getty
PASSIONS: 🍴 ❤️ ⛳
Great for fine dining, volunteering and golf
POPULATION: 1.34 million
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $217,000
Scores of public golf courses plus fine dining (far beyond the nation’s first drive-in restaurant, which opened here in 1921) and what is said to be the nation’s largest arts district distinguish the Big D. At an elevation of 430 feet, the city is somewhat walkable and bikeable and has an adequate number of physicians per capita and support for volunteering. Atop of a strong economy, there is no state taxation of income, estates or inheritances. Cost of living is only 8% higher than the national average. On the downside, the serious crime rate is above the national average and the air quality is poor.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Rowers on foggy Lake Fayetteville, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎓
Great for lifelong learning
POPULATION: 85,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $219,000
The University of Arkansas offers free tuition to senior citizens at its flagship campus in this Ozarks city 200 miles northwest of Little Rock. Besides a cost of living 1% below the national average, other pluses include good air quality, adequate number of physicians per capita and a good economy. At an elevation of 1,400 feet, the city (originally named Washington) is somewhat bikeable, although not that walkable. There is no state estate/inheritance tax and there’s no state income tax on Social Security benefits, plus there’s a small additional break for pension income. But the state income tax reaches 6.9% on a married-couple’s income above $35,099. The serious crime rate is above national average.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Mountain bikers, Las Vegas, Nevada
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 ⛵ 🍁 ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, outdoor water and land activities and golf
POPULATION: 2 million (Las Vegas Valley)
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $277,000
World-class entertainment centered around the hotels and casinos, famous chefs, and nearby water and land activities, including golf, grace this exploding desert valley. (In 1900, the population was just 18.) While summers are hot and dry, the other nine months are quite pleasant, and sun is year-round. At an elevation of 2,000 feet, the area is somewhat walkable and bikeable. A good economy is bolstered by no state income or estate/inheritance tax. Downsides include poor air quality, low ratio of physicians per capita and a high serious crime rate. Cost of living is 18% above the national average.
Los Angeles, California
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ⛵ 🍁 ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, outdoor water and land activities and golf
POPULATION: 4 million
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $686,000
The City of Angels has multiple colleges and universities offering reduced-price programs for senior citizens, world-class restaurants, numerous performance venues, a wide range of outdoor activities and many golf courses. Pluses include 28 days a year of sun, sufficient physicians per capita and a strong economy. Despites its reputation as car dependent and congested, the city, with an elevation of 300 feet, is both very walkable and bikeable (despites safety concerns for bikers). There is no state tax on Social Security benefits, estates or inheritances. But the state income tax hits a hefty 9.3% on taxable income above $150,000 per couple and goes up to 12.3% for the very wealthy. Among the drawbacks: poor air quality (although better than it used to be) and a serious crime rate above national average. Cost of living is 95% above national average.
New York, New York
Central Park in autumn, New York City
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ⛵ ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, outdoor water activities and golf
POPULATION: 8.6 million
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $682,000
Dozens of colleges, fabulous arts and dining, and even golf courses accessible via subway can be found in the country’s largest city. Pluses include a high number of physicians per capita, good air quality and a strong economy. With an elevation of 30 feet, the Big Apple is very walkable and bikeable, despite concerns about bicyclist safety. There is no state income tax on Social Security benefits, plus there are additional state tax breaks on pension income. But there is a state estate tax, the combined state and city income tax rate can reach a whopping 12.696% and the cost of living is 109% above national average.
Pinehurst, North Carolina
Shady square on Cherokee Rd in the North Carolina Sandhills town of Pinehurst
Getty
PASSIONS:⛳
Great for golf
POPULATION: 13,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $281,000
Some 40 golf courses, led by famous century-old Pinehurst Resort, plus golf schools surround this scenic village 90 miles east of Charlotte. Pluses include an extremely low serious crime rate, above-average rate of doctors per capita and good air quality. At an elevation of 600 feet, the town, originally named Tuftstown, is somewhat walkable and bikeable. There are no state taxes on Social Security earnings, estates or inheritances. The state income tax rate is a flat 5.499% and the cost of living is 11% above the national average.
Portland, Maine
Tandem sea kayaking, Portland, Maine, USA
Getty
PASSIONS: 🍴 ⛵ 🍁
Great for fine dining and outdoor water and land activities
POPULATION: 67,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $314,000
This coastal city offers a wide variety of water and land recreation, including boating, kayaking, rafting, cross-country skiing, hiking and bicycling. There’s a good restaurant scene, a low serious crime rate, a high ratio of doctors per capita and good air quality. The city—named after an island in the English Channel—has an elevation of 60 feet and is very walkable and bikeable. There is no state income tax on Social Security earnings, but there is a state estate tax. The state income tax rate reaches 7.15% at taxable income above $103,400 for a couple. The
Portland, Oregon
Multi-ethnic fast-food vendors in downtown Portland, Oregon
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ❤️ 🍁 ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, volunteering, outdoor land activities and golf
POPULATION: 648,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $426,000
City affords wide range of pursuits, including free senior citizen auditing of classes at Portland State University. Pluses include a high ratio of physicians per capita, good air quality, a high rate of volunteering and a good economy. At an elevation of 50 feet the city—named after Portland, Maine—is highly walkable and bikeable. The state makes up for its lack of a sales tax with an income tax rate that hits 9% on just $50,000 of income (with Social Security excluded). There is also a state estate tax. Cost of living is 48% above the national average.
—
Salt Lake City, Utah
Hiking the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in the Wasatch Foothills above Salt Lake City, Utah
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎓 ❤️ ⛵ 🍁
Great for lifelong learning, volunteering and outdoor water and land activities
POPULATION: 201,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $402,000
Mountains, lakes and rivers create a choice of outdoor activities, including skiing, bird watching and fishing around this state capital city. Indoors, the University of Utah offers courses a wide range of courses for seniors in concert with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The city has a high rate of volunteering, a high rank on the Milken Institute list of best cities for successful aging and a strong economy. At an elevation of 4,300 feet, it is very walkable and bikeable. There is no state estate tax, but the state income, levied at a flat 4.95% rate, hits Social Security benefits. The cost of living is 27% above the national average.
San Francisco, California
Hikers on Muir Woods Redwood Creek Trail, minutes north of San Francisco, Calif.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ⛵
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning and outdoor water activities
POPULATION: 860,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $1.36 million
Surrounded by water, this scenic city is a mecca of culture and food, with 57 Michelin starred restaurants (compared to 76 in 10 times more populous New York). Opportunities for senior learning are offered at an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State and at other venues. There’s a high ratio of doctors per capita, good air quality and a strong economy. Despite the famed hills, the city, with an elevation of 50 feet, is very walkable and bikeable, with both trails and protected bike lanes. There is no state estate/inheritance tax and no income tax on Social Security benefits, but the state income tax rate is a hefty 9.3% on income above $150,000 per couple and goes up to 12.3% for the very wealthy. The serious crime rate is above the national average, but the biggest downside is the cost of living: a stunning 205% above the national average.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Hiking in Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Close to of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🍁
Great for arts, fine dining and outdoor land activities
POPULATION: 84,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $397,000
Scores of art galleries, fine restaurants and museums, plus world-class skiing, distinguish this scenic state capital mountain town (elevation 7,200 feet), 60 miles north of Albuquerque. Somewhat walkable and bikeable, the city has a high number of doctors per capita, good air quality and a low serious crime rate. There is no state estate tax, but the state income tax does hit Social Security benefits. The state income tax rate is 4.9% on taxable income of married couples above $24,000. The cost of living is 21% above national average.
—
Sarasota, Florida
Sunset walk in Siesta Key, near Sarasota, Florida.
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ❤️ ⛵ 🍁 ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, volunteering, outdoor water and land activities and golf
POPULATION: 57,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $261,000
Nearby beaches, fishing, boating, a big arts/cultural scene and 30 golf courses dominate this Gulf Coast city 60 miles south of Tampa. With an elevation of 16 feet, the area is very walkable and bikeable, with good air quality, a strong economy and an adequate number of physicians per capita. The cost of living is only 9% above national average. There is no state income or estate tax. One downside: a serious crime rate above the national average.
Seattle, Washington
Kayaking at Lake Union in Seattle, Washington
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 🎓 ❤️ ⛵ 🍁 ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, lifelong learning, volunteering, outdoor water and land activities and golf
POPULATION: 725,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $730,000
Still-booming Puget Sound city offers all the passions, including an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Washington. At an elevation up to 500 feet, the city is extremely walkable, bikeable and even boatable, with good mass transit. Other pluses include good air quality, a high ratio of doctors per capita, a very strong economy, and a good volunteering culture. There is no state income, estate or inheritance tax. But the cost of living is a whopping 104% above the national average and the serious crime rate is also higher than average.
Traverse City, Michigan
Ships and pier on West Bay in Traverse City, Michigan
Getty
PASSIONS: 🎨 🍴 ⛵ ⛳
Great for arts, fine dining, outdoor water activities and golf.
POPULATION: 16,000
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $255,000
Frontage on Lake Michigan, the famed Interlochen Center for the Arts, 50 area golf courses and a reputation as a top foodie town all make his city, 250 miles northwest of Detroit, a top passions choice. There’s good air quality, above-average doctors per capita and a decent economy. At an elevation of 600 feet the city—center of the nation’s largest area for growing tart cherries—is very walkable and bikeable. Cost of living is only 2% above national average. There’s no state estate or inheritance tax and no tax on Social Security benefits, plus additional breaks for pension income. The state income tax rate is a flat 4.25%. One downside: The serious crime rate is above the national average.
A journalist for nearly five decades, I’ve written for Forbes since 1987. I’ve covered personal finance, taxes, retirement, nonprofits, scandals and other topics that interest me. I also am the author of a novel, OFFSIDE: A Mystery. Email me at: wbarrett.forbes@gmail.com .
The World’s Retirement Havens – Top 10 Best Places To Retire In The World For 2018. ============= ► Subscribe for latest video ! ► https://goo.gl/lOasu9 ► Follow me on Twitter: https://goo.gl/srKHao ► Facebook: https://goo.gl/yB9XvG ============= Today, retiring abroad is about launching a new life in a new country, starting over someplace sunny and exotic with white-sand beaches or Old World culture. But there is no one way to determine the best place to retire for every person. And with a seemingly endless amount of choices, how will you ever find the right one for you. International Living’s most recent Annual Global Retirement Index 2018 compares 24 countries that give you the maximum return for your money and promise to deliver a better quality of life. Overall, the Index is based on ratings in 12 categories: buying and investing, renting, benefits and discounts, visas and residence, cost of living, fitting in, entertainment and amenities, healthcare, healthy lifestyle, development, climate, and governance. Here are the 10 retirement destinations in the world for 2018: 1. Costa Rica – The World’s Best Retirement Haven 2. Mexico – Convenient, Exotic, First-World Living 3. Panama – Friendly, Welcoming, and Great Benefits 4. Ecuador – Diverse, Unhurried, and Metropolitan 5. Malaysia – Easy, English-Speaking, and First World. 6. Colombia – Sophisticated and Affordable 7. Portugal – Europe’s Best Retirement Haven 8. Nicaragua – Best Bang-for-Your Buck in Latin America 9. Spain – Romance, History, and Charming Villages 10. Peru – Low Cost Living, Vibrant, and Diverse. Thanks for watching this video. I hope it’s useful for you. (This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment) ============= If you have any issue with the content used in my channel or you find something that belongs to you, please contact: ►Business email: truthseekerdailys@gmail.com Music by: Nicolai Heidlas (https://soundcloud.com/nicolai-heidlas) Title: 50 New Cities
