The financial news that actually matters
Covers retirement planning, Social Security benefits, pension systems, and long-term financial security. It helps readers understand how to prepare financially for retirement.
Most retirement accounts come with a government-imposed deadline to start spending them down. Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s let savings grow untaxed for years, but the deferral does not last forever — eventually the tax collector forces annual withdrawals so the postponed tax finally gets paid. One account breaks that pattern entirely. A Roth IRA carries…
Retirement rarely arrives on a tidy schedule. A layoff, a buyout package, or a decision to step back from full-time work in the mid-50s can leave an older worker needing income from a 401(k) years before the standard access age of 59½. Federal tax law usually punishes an early raid on retirement savings with a…
A new rule taking effect in 2026 quietly changes not how much certain workers can save for retirement, but how that money is taxed on the way in. Higher earners who make catch-up contributions to a workplace plan can no longer route those extra dollars in before taxes. Instead, the contributions must go into a…
The individual retirement account, the do-it-yourself savings tool that sits outside any workplace plan, is finally getting a raise. For 2026 the government has nudged up the annual amount a person can put into an IRA, ending a stretch in which the ceiling held flat. The dollar increase is modest, but for late savers and…
The amount workers can funnel into a workplace retirement plan is climbing again, and for anyone within striking distance of retirement the increase opens a wider door in the years that count most. The government has lifted the annual 401(k) contribution ceiling for 2026, and layered catch-up allowances let older savers stack thousands of extra…
Retirement is when many older Americans finally take the long-planned trips — a river cruise in Europe, a visit to family overseas, a winter stretch somewhere warm across a border. Most assume the Medicare coverage they have paid into for decades travels with them. It generally does not. Once a beneficiary leaves the United States,…
Medicare Advantage has grown into one of the most popular ways for older Americans to get their health coverage, pulled in by low or even zero monthly premiums and extra benefits such as dental, vision, or hearing care that Original Medicare leaves out. Those advantages arrive with a structural catch that many enrollees never notice…
A single good financial year can quietly follow a retiree into the future and show up as a higher Medicare bill two years down the road. Sell a house, convert a large sum to a Roth account, or take a big withdrawal, and the extra income can push a household into a surcharge that raises…
Most people assume that once they are on Medicare, there is a limit to how much a bad year of health can cost them. On a private or employer health plan, that assumption is usually correct, because those plans include an annual ceiling on out-of-pocket spending. Original Medicare works differently, and the difference is easy…
For all the ground Medicare covers, three of the most predictable expenses of growing older sit almost entirely outside it. Teeth still need cleaning and repair, eyes still need exams and glasses, and hearing still fades with age. Yet Original Medicare, the traditional government program that anchors coverage for tens of millions of retirees, generally…