Right now, the so-called “three-legged stool” of retirement income is rapidly losing its legs. Social Security was never a program designed to provide an adequate retirement income — it has always been considered supplemental. By the time I retire, Social Security may not even be a contender. Few companies offer pensions anymore, and if you are close to retirement right now, your tax-advantaged retirement account may be losing value. Which means you need something else to help keep you going. Here are 3 ideas for additional retirement income:

Reverse mortgage. If you have equity in your home, especially if you have …read more

Don’t raid your 401k if you can help it.

Here are the top 5 tips for your retirement account.

Right now, there is a battle heating up over your retirement account. It has to do with tax breaks on your contributions, and whether your earnings are tax deferred. The new proposals regarding contributions don’t really affect me, since my husband and I are all about the Roth IRA, and we don’t have an employer-sponsored plan. But I know that there are plenty of other folks out there whom this would affect. Jeremy at Gen X Finance offers this:
If you currently save in an employee-sponsored retirement plan, how would you feel if you stopped getting a tax break on your …read more

I’ve been thinking about my parents a lot lately, since they are approaching retirement age. My husband’s dad retired last year, and his mom expects to retire this year. So I’ve been contemplating their situations. I also had a brief email conversation with Patrick over at Cash Money Life in which he wondered how many people are considering putting off retirement because of the current economic issues. So, really, it is no surprise that over this past weekend I’ve received a few emails to this effect:
I’m a couple of years away from retirement. Should I put it off for a …read more

With all the craziness in the stock market (bailouts and rate cuts just aren’t doing the job), I thought I’d toss up this poll:
{democracy:11}
Let me know what you think — whether it’s for your passive income or your retirement account, what, if anything, are you doing about your investment portfolio?

Right now, the big news is that inflation is at its highest levels in 17 years. There are a couple of ways to look at inflation:

As a rise in prices.
As a decline in the value of your money.

Either way, inflation has a very real effect on your personal finances. And it’s not just “regular folks” feeling the pinch. Millionaires are feeling the pains of inflation as well.
Here are 5 ways that inflation can affect you:

Cost increases. This is the most obvious way that inflation can affect your personal finances. Your food, energy and other products increase in price. Additionally, you …read more

One of the things to remember when you are saving for retirement is that once you reach age 70.5, you are required to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) each year from your retirement account.
Even if you don’t want the money.
If you don’t take the RMD, you will find yourself hit with an excise tax. So, while you do need to remember that you cannot withdraw from most tax-advantaged retirement plans until you are 59.5, you also need to plan for the fact that at some point you have to begin taking RMDs.

The last personal finance tip was about opening a retirement account. This tip is what to do if your employer offers a match program for the retirement account:
Put in the maximum for your employer-match retirement program.
This is free money that will be leveraged on your behalf in the retirement account. Take as much as you can.
This post is part of the b5media Business Channel Great Blog Off! Find out more about the Blog Off here: http://www.b5media.com/b5media-blogs-for-a-cause-and-raises-money-in-support-of-charity/

The Business Channel is supporting Accion International for the Great Blog Off. You can make a donation directly to Accion (http://www.accion.org/b5media). Donations are …read more

My Roth IRA lost in value last year. A great deal of it happened in November. I’m sure it was rather rocky last week as well. But I didn’t check. Mainly because I’m not terribly worried about what this bear market is going to do to my retirement portfolio. If were retiring next year, I’d be terrified. I’d make a plan to keep working a little longer until the market recovers (which it almost always does in the long run). But I am decades from retirement, so the bear market isn’t a bad thing for me.
CNN Money points this out …read more