Alexandra Penney had been building up her retirement savings for over 30 years, and a decade ago she put her money in the trust of Bernard Madoff’s firm to grow it. You know how that story ends, but in her ongoing series “The Bag Lady Papers,” Penney writes about the emotional toll of seeing your life’s savings evaporate in what seems like seconds, and how she’s been coping since.
retirement
Test Your Personal Finance Skills With These Quizzes
By 10.9.08
Kiplinger has two quizzes named “Financial Truth or Bunk?“, and they go through some of the more popular tips you’ve heard about personal finance, including lines like:
- You can’t lose money investing in bonds.
- Stay-at-home moms or dads need life insurance, too.
- Don’t buy a red car — it’ll cost more to insure.
- Dollar-cost averaging boosts investment returns.
- The percentage of stock in your portfolio should equal 100 minus your age.
USAA Temporarily Deletes 14k Roth IRA, But Won't Explain Why
By 9.24.08
USAA just pulled a huge mindf#@k on Travis and his wife, and now he wants to talk to someone high enough up the chain to find out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. His wife “went online yesterday to check on some transactions and discovered her IRA balance was $0. Six hours prior to that, her balance was $14,000.” When she tried to find out what had happened, the first CSR she spoke with told her she had no IRA account, and the second CSR told her to refresh her browser. Yeah, you know how these newfangled browswers are always wiping out retirement accounts.
AARP Really Really Needs Members
By 8.26.08
Adam’s mom recently received an AARP invitation, which is not surprising since she’s nearing fifty. But we think AARP may want to pass a better filter over the address lists they’re buying, because a few days later Adam received the same invitation. Maybe AARP is trying to expand to seniors and their admirers—sort of like a backwards NAMBLA.
4 Unusual Ways To Save Money
By 8.21.08
BusinessWeek has put together one of those accursed slideshows of 25 ways to save money, and while a lot of them are things you’ve heard before (use credit cards wisely! buy generic or used!), there are a few less common tips that you might not have considered. Here are four that caught our attention.
Personal Finance Roundup
By 8.18.08
Using Your Health Savings Account as a “Super Roth” Investment Vehicle [Free Money Finance] “If you can afford to delay using your HSA funds and instead leave them invested, your payoff in retirement will be substantial.”
Are You Ready For Death? Financially Speaking.
By 7.31.08
According to Bankrate, 57% of Americans do not have a will, leaving their personal finance, guardianship of children, and many other end-of-life decisions in the hands of strangers (state judges.) The lynchpin of a solid estate plan is having a will, but Vanguard suggests you also need the following assembled to leave your loved ones in good shape following your death:
Why You're Going To Need A Million Bucks To Retire
By 7.22.08
Over at ABC News columnist David McPherson is responding to some reader backlash stemming from an article in which he used an example of somebody retiring with $500,000 in an IRA. The readers accused him of being out of touch with reality. Well, rather than apologize, he’s upped the ante. Now he says you’ll need $1 million to retire.
Personal Finance Roundup
By 7.3.08
8 ways to ruin your chances to retire [Bankrate] “You can stay shackled to a job until your last gasp if you follow these steps.”
Overdraft Fees Are Trapping Consumers On Social Security In A Cycle Of Debt
By 6.24.08
The Center For Responsible Lending has put together a report that examines the disastrous effect of overdraft fees on Americans who depend on Social Security for all or part of their income. Despite the fact that they’ve had checking accounts all their lives (and presumably know what they’re doing), each year older Americans pay 4.5 billion dollars in overdraft fees– and on average they actually pay more in fees than they receive in credit when the overdraft is triggered by a debit card transaction.
Fifteen Shocking CEO Severances
By 6.20.08
Here’s another tip for our Make the Most of Unemployment guide: if you’re going to get fired, be a CEO. HR World has rounded up 15 of the most shocking golden parachutes given out by big corporations to their departing leaders. Some of our favorites, inside.
Instead Of One Big Retirement, Take Mini-Retirements!
By 6.4.08
Personal finance blogger JD Roth at Get Rich Slowly has been interviewing Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, about a new concept of retirement: the mini-retirement. Ferriss suggests that instead of working and saving during our careers to eventually retire and enjoy life, that we instead plan regular times of “retirement” throughout our lives. He deems these “mini-retirements.” Mini-retirements seem like they could be the same as either sabbaticals or vacations, but they differ in the following ways:
By 5.12.08
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Are you managing your aging parents’ finances, or looking for a good financial advisor of your own? The AARP has just released a new booklet called “A Financial Professional’s Guide to Working With Older Clients” (PDF). [AARP]
Retired Safety Inspector Picks Up Slack For CPSC In Brooklyn
By 3.6.08
Martin Bennett is a 69-year-old former inspector for the Consumer Product Safety Commission who retired over six years ago.
Oprah Giving Away Women & Money!
By 2.13.08
Now you don’t have to dress up in corporate casual-wear and spend half the day screaming in a studio audience to get something free from Oprah, because for the next day she’s giving away digital versions of Suze Orman’s new book “Women & Money” on her website, from now until 8/7c February 14th. Downloads are available in English and Spanish versions, PDF only.
Internal Docs Prove Wachovia Knew About Telemarketer Rip-Offs All Along
By 2.6.08
A woman sued Wachovia last year because it allowed a telemarketing scam company to process stolen payments through its banks, despite complaints from customers and warnings from other banks and federal authorities. Wachovia said it had no idea what was going on, but now documents have been revealed that prove people high up in the company not only knew, but that “the bank, in fact, solicited business from companies it knew had been accused of telemarketing crimes.” Why? How about millions of dollars of extra revenue from steep fees whenever a fraud-related chargeback went through? The lawyers for the woman are now seeking class-action status for the lawsuit.
By 2.1.08
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Here’s a horrible idea: a 401(k) program with a debit card. That’s right, you can go to the ATM and make withdrawals from your 401(k) retirement savings plan. [TheStreet]
How Your 401(k) Is Ripping You Off
By 1.31.08
Another chapter in Bob Sullivan’s excellent book Gotcha Capitalism explores how Wall Street quietly devours your retirement plan through an array of hidden fees. Bob quotes a Wall Street money manager as saying, “If we had to disclose fees, half the people in this room wouldn’t have jobs.” [More]
