Checking your Social Security earnings record can catch a missing year that quietly shrinks your check for life
A single blank year buried in a Social Security earnings record can follow a worker into retirement and drain money from every monthly check for the rest of their life. The agency calculates benefits from a lifetime of reported wages, and when a year of earnings is missing or logged under the wrong number, the […]
Read MoreChecking your Social Security earnings record can catch a missing year that quietly shrinks your check for life
A single blank year buried in a Social Security earnings record can follow a worker into retirement and drain money from every monthly check for the rest of their life. The agency calculates benefits from a lifetime of reported wages, and when a year of earnings is missing or logged under the wrong number, the […]
Read MorePersonal Finance
Smart Spending
$39 billion in matured U.S. savings bonds sits unclaimed, and a free federal search finds any in your name
Roughly $39 billion in United States savings bonds has quietly stopped earning a penny of interest and is sitting unredeemed,…
Personal Finance
Smart Spending
$39 billion in matured U.S. savings bonds sits unclaimed, and a free federal search finds any in your name
Roughly $39 billion in United States savings bonds has quietly stopped earning a penny of interest and is sitting unredeemed,…
Markets & Investing
Banking & Credit Cards
Fraud & Scams
No court or government agency will ever tell you to pay a bill or fine through a Bitcoin ATM
No legitimate court, tax agency, utility company, or police department accepts payment through a Bitcoin ATM. That single fact is worth more to a retiree’s...
Fraud & Scams
Port-out scammers steal your phone number to intercept the codes guarding your bank
The money at stake in a phone-number takeover is roughly everything a bank account will let a thief move in a single afternoon. Criminals who...
Fraud & Scams
Scammers now pose as the agents who can recover your stolen money, and any upfront fee is the tell
The cruelest fraud aimed at retirees no longer targets people with money to lose. It targets people who have already lost it. Federal investigators are...
Fraud & Scams
Comcast customers can claim $50 with no proof from a $117.5 million data-breach settlement before September 14
A $117.5 million settlement over a 2023 cyberattack on Xfinity is paying former and current Comcast customers a flat sum of about $50 with no...
Fraud & Scams
Medicare warns of a “new card” scam demanding your number before benefits switch
A caller says a new Medicare card is on the way, then explains that benefits cannot switch over until the recipient reads back the number...
Bank Accounts & Fees
HSBC customers who file by August 20 receive at least $10 from a settlement
A class action settlement over HSBC Direct Savings accounts is paying a guaranteed minimum of $10 to eligible customers who submit a claim, and the...
Real Estate
Mortgages & Rates
VA-backed home loans can require zero down and no private mortgage insurance
A VA-backed purchase loan can remove two costs that usually arrive together for a lightly funded home purchase: the down…
Retirement & Taxes
Checking your Social Security earnings record can catch a missing year that quietly shrinks your check for life
A free national search can turn up a lost pension from an employer that merged or shut down decades ago
SSI recipients get no deposit in August — the payment arrived July 31, and the next lands September 1
Retirees 70½ and older can send IRA money straight to charity and skip the income tax on the withdrawal
In a no-income-tax state you can deduct your sales taxes instead, a break retirees in Florida and Texas often miss
Money moved into a qualified longevity annuity escapes required withdrawals until payments begin, as late as 85
Required IRA withdrawals can come from a single account once you total them, not each plan separately
A program called PACE blends Medicare and Medicaid to keep frail seniors at home instead of a nursing facility
A home health aide now runs a median $35 an hour, so full-time in-home care can top a nursing home’s cost
Assisted living averages about $6,200 a month, but Medicaid pays only for the care, not room and board
A handful of states let you change Medigap plans each year around your birthday with no new health questions