Think About Your Lifestyle Before You Retire Sometimes planning for retirement isn’t entirely about money. How many words have been written about retirement? It’s a preoccupation for many, and we devote so much time, thought, and energy toward saving for the last day we go to work. Saving and investing in such a way that we no longer have to work may seem ideal at first, but it raises a question: what do you have planned for all of that [...]
The Many Benefits of a Roth IRA Why do so many people choose it rather than a traditional IRA? The Roth IRA changed the whole retirement savings perspective. Since its introduction, it has become a fixture in many retirement planning strategies. The key argument for going Roth can be summed up in a sentence: Paying taxes on retirement contributions today is better than paying taxes on retirement savings tomorrow. Here is a closer look at the trade-off you make [...]
What Will the Election Do to the Market? Will volatility seize Wall Street? Or will calm prevail? Wall Street has had a rather calm summer. How about fall? Will volatility increase before and after Election Day? So far, the market is performing roughly in line with historical patterns. In 19 of the prior 22 presidential election years, the S&P 500 advanced from June through October. The median gain for the index during that 5-month period: 4.1%.1 During those 22 election years, [...]
Do Women Face Greater Retirement Challenges Than Men? If so, how can they plan to meet those challenges? A new study has raised eyebrows about the retirement prospects of women. It comes from the National Institute on Retirement Security, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization based in Washington, D.C. Studying 2012 U.S. Census data, NRIS found that women aged 65 and older had 26% less income than their male peers. Looking at Vanguard’s 2014 fact set on its retirement plans, NRIS [...]
Impact Investing Planning to grow your money with causes in mind. Can investing change the world? Some millennials, Gen Xers, baby boomers and elders hope the answer is “yes.” Billionaires, like Bill Gates and Richard Branson, are pouring money into green business ventures and projects intended to improve education and the quality of life, and millions of other households are directing portions of their portfolios into socially responsible investments. Impact investing, which was once largely ignored by Wall Street, [...]