Retirement Planning
401(k), IRA, Roth accounts, pension plans, withdrawal strategies, required minimum distributions, and how much you need to retire.
Latest in Retirement Planning
SECURE Act 2.0 forces most non-spouse heirs to drain inherited IRAs within 10 years — but spouses, minor children, and disabled beneficiaries can still stretch withdrawals
A 52-year-old marketing director in Dallas inherits her late father’s $600,000 traditional IRA. Under rules that would have applied a decade ago, she could have...
Treasury Hunt at TreasuryDirect finds forgotten paper savings bonds by Social Security number for free — every Series H and HH bond in America stopped earning interest in August 2024
A retired teacher in Ohio discovers $12,000 in forgotten Series HH bonds while cleaning out her late mother’s safe deposit box. A son in Texas...
Roth IRA contributions can be pulled out tax-free and penalty-free at any age — only the investment gains have an age-59½ and five-year rule attached
When a young professional who has been funding a Roth IRA since landing her first salaried position needs $15,000 for a down payment, she can...
If you haven’t rebalanced your 401(k) since 2022, the stock-and-bond mix that felt safe then is wildly different now — most plans rebalance with two clicks
Picture the 401(k) allocation you chose sometime in 2022. Maybe it was 60% stocks and 40% bonds, a textbook moderate mix. You picked it during...
A self-employed worker can stash up to $70,000 a year in a solo 401(k) — the same retirement vehicle big-company employees use, with no employer match required
When Sarah Chen left her UX design job at a Houston agency in 2023 to freelance full-time, she kept contributing to a Roth IRA. At...
If your 401(k) holds your own company’s stock, the usual rollover can overtax it — a special “NUA” move taxes the gains at lower capital-gains rates
Imagine spending 25 years at a company whose stock price tripled during your career. Your 401(k) now holds $300,000 in employer shares, but the plan...
Some 401(k)s let you stash up to about $70,000 a year and convert it to a Roth — a “mega backdoor” move most plans allow but few employees use
A 45-year-old software engineer in Seattle maxes out her 401(k) every year, funds a backdoor Roth IRA, and still has money left over to invest....
Leave your job at 55 or later and you can tap that 401(k) penalty-free — but roll it into an IRA first and you lose the break for good
Picture this: a 56-year-old worker clears out her desk for the last time, knowing her 401(k) holds $400,000 and she needs $30,000 to bridge the...
Earning too much to fund a Roth IRA doesn’t actually lock you out — a “backdoor” contribution is legal and most high earners don’t use it
Every April, high-earning Americans file their taxes, glance at the Roth IRA section, and skip it. They assume their income disqualifies them. For 2025, the...
A 1% fee on your 401(k) can quietly cost six figures over a career — yet most savers have never checked their funds’ expense ratios
Somewhere inside your 401(k) account, a number you have probably never looked at is shaving money off your retirement balance every single day. It is...
After 70½ you can send up to about $108,000 a year from your IRA straight to charity — tax-free, and it counts toward your required withdrawal
A 74-year-old retiree who owes $45,000 in required minimum distributions this year has two choices: pull the money out, add it to taxable income, and...
Old 401(k)s from past jobs often sit in high-fee default funds — rolling them into a low-cost IRA can save tens of thousands over time
Somewhere in the records of a former employer’s retirement plan, $30,000 is quietly losing a race against fees. If that balance sits in a default...
The beneficiary form on your 401(k) and IRA overrides your will — an outdated one can send your savings to an ex instead of your family
In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court settled a case that still catches divorcing Americans off guard. A DuPont employee had split from his wife, and...
The federal pension agency is holding unclaimed benefits from shut-down plans — search by your name and the last four of your Social Security number
More than 80,000 people have retirement money sitting in a federal database, and most of them probably have no idea. That figure comes from the...
Drawing down taxable accounts before tax-deferred ones and Roth last can stretch retirement savings for years — a sequence most retirees get backwards
Picture a married couple, both 65, walking out of their offices for the last time in June 2026. Between them they have $400,000 in a...
Converting part of a traditional IRA to a Roth in a low-income year locks in today’s tax rate — before RMDs and Medicare surcharges hit
A 66-year-old who left a full-time job in late 2025 and plans to delay Social Security until 70 might report only $30,000 in taxable income...
A teenager with a summer job can open a Roth IRA — and a few hundred dollars saved now can grow into six figures of tax-free retirement money
A 16-year-old lifeguard who earns $3,000 between Memorial Day and Labor Day has cleared the only hurdle that matters for opening a Roth IRA: she...
Skipping your full employer 401(k) match throws away an instant 50% to 100% return — yet one in five workers leaves that free money on the table
Every pay period, employers across the country deposit matching dollars into 401(k) accounts, but only if workers contribute enough to trigger them. For someone earning...
Americans have left $1.65 trillion sitting in forgotten 401(k)s — the average lost account holds nearly $70,000, and a free federal database now finds yours by Social Security number
In 2022, a 54-year-old teacher in Ohio named Margaret Rowell discovered she had a 401(k) worth $43,000 sitting with a recordkeeper she had never heard...
Low- and middle-income savers can claim up to $2,000 back just for funding a retirement account — but only about 6% of eligible filers ever take the credit
Put $2,000 into a Roth IRA this year while earning $35,000, and the federal government will knock $1,000 straight off your tax bill. File jointly...