The financial news that actually matters
For most people, Medicare does not switch on by itself, and the government does not send anyone out to track down those who forget to enroll. That leaves a costly trap waiting for retirees who assume Part B can be picked up whenever the timing feels convenient. Miss the sign-up window, and the price of…
For millions of retirees, the surprise is not that Social Security exists but that the federal government can tax part of the benefit it pays out. Whether that happens turns on a single income figure, and the dollar line that triggers the first level of tax has not been raised in more than four decades….
Federal prosecutors in Washington have moved to seize more than $25 million in cryptocurrency that investigators say was stolen by overseas fraud networks preying on residents of the United States and Canada, including roughly $12 million taken from more than 200 people ensnared in online romance scams. The action puts no one in handcuffs. It…
Enormous sums of retiree savings sit in ordinary bank savings accounts earning almost nothing, even as safe government options pay far more. The national average interest rate on a savings account remains well below half a percent, while Treasury bills and Series I savings bonds have generally paid considerably higher yields. For a saver living…
Long-term care, the ongoing help with daily activities that many people need late in life, is expensive and largely uncovered by Medicare. Private long-term-care insurance is one way to prepare for that cost, but the price of a policy, and even the ability to buy one at all, depends heavily on the applicant’s age and…
A data breach at STIIIZY, one of the country’s larger cannabis brands, has produced a settlement that pays affected customers real money, and the filing window is short. People whose personal information was exposed can claim up to $7,500 for documented losses, or take a smaller flat cash payment with no proof required, but every…
A will is the document most people assume controls where their money goes after death, yet the largest accounts many older Americans own do not follow it. Individual retirement accounts, 401(k) plans, and similar workplace savings pass instead to whoever is named on a beneficiary form kept by the plan or custodian. When that form…
One of the least understood breaks in the tax code lets some retirees sell appreciated investments and pay nothing in federal tax on the profit. It is not a loophole or a gimmick; it is the bottom rung of the regular capital-gains rate schedule, and it rewards people whose taxable income sits below a certain…
The tax code quietly rewards turning 65 with a larger standard deduction than younger filers receive. For 2026 that extra slice is 2,050 dollars for a single filer, stacked on top of the regular standard deduction, and it lowers the amount of income the government can tax. It is also one of the easiest breaks…
Most retirees hold their savings in more than one kind of account, and the order in which those accounts are drawn down turns out to matter almost as much as how much was saved in the first place. A common approach among financial planners is to spend taxable brokerage money first, tap tax-deferred retirement accounts…