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
A life-estate deed passes a home to heirs while letting the owner live there for life
An older homeowner who wants a house to reach a child without the delay and expense of probate has a tool many overlook: the life-estate...
An income-only trust can qualify a retiree for Medicaid nursing care in states with a hard income cap
In roughly half the states, being even a few dollars a month over the Medicaid income limit can disqualify a retiree from long-term care coverage...
Medicaid estate recovery can be waived when repayment would cause a survivor real hardship
Many families are blindsided months after a parent’s death by a letter from the state seeking repayment of that parent’s Medicaid long-term care, a claim...
Medicaid’s self-directed home care can let you hire and pay a family member as the caregiver
Families who take on the daily grind of caring for an aging parent often assume the work has to be unpaid. In much of the...
Medicaid lets you keep one home, one car and a prepaid burial while qualifying for nursing-home care
The fear that keeps many families from applying for Medicaid long-term care is that the program will force them to sell everything first. It will...
Medicaid’s five-year look-back turns recent gifts into a penalty that delays nursing-home coverage
A generous gift to a grandchild or a quiet transfer of the family home can quietly cost a retiree months of paid nursing-home care. When...
A national registry tracks down forgotten 401(k) money from old jobs
Roughly $1.65 trillion in retirement savings is sitting in 401(k) and pension accounts that their owners have lost track of, scattered across former employers who...
A free federal search finds old pensions from employers that closed
Millions of dollars in earned pension benefits sit unclaimed because the people owed them lost track of a job, moved without leaving a forwarding address,...
A pension from a failed company is insured by the federal PBGC up to a yearly maximum
When a company collapses and its pension plan folds with it, retirees do not simply lose the checks they were promised. A federal agency, the...
An inherited Roth IRA passes to heirs completely tax-free, unlike a traditional inherited IRA
Two heirs can inherit the same dollar amount in retirement accounts and face wildly different tax bills, and the reason comes down to which letter...
Medicaid cannot take your home to recover care costs while a disabled or caregiver child lives there
For many retirees the house is the largest thing they will leave behind, and the fear that a state Medicaid program will seize it to...
A continuing-care retirement community bundles independent living with future nursing care for one fee
For many older adults, the hardest question in retirement is not how to spend the early years but what happens when health declines and living...
A transfer-on-death title lets a car pass to an heir without probate in many states
A car is often one of the more valuable possessions a person leaves behind, and without planning it can be dragged into probate — the...
The Labor Department’s new Lost and Found helps workers track down old 401(k) money
Billions of dollars in retirement savings sit stranded in accounts their owners have forgotten — 401(k) balances left behind when a worker changed jobs, and...
A pension’s survivor option lowers your monthly check but protects a spouse for life
At retirement, a worker with a traditional pension usually faces one irreversible decision that shapes a spouse’s finances for decades: take the largest possible monthly...
A Roth IRA never forces withdrawals during the owner’s lifetime
Every year, millions of retirees are forced to pull money out of their traditional IRAs and 401(k)s whether they need it or not, because the...
Medicaid’s home-care waivers can pay for help at home instead of a nursing facility
The cost gap between a nursing home and staying put is enormous — institutional long-term care can run several thousand dollars a month, and for...
A financial power of attorney lets someone manage your money if you can’t
A financial power of attorney is the document that decides who pays the bills when illness or injury leaves a person unable to manage money...
The Saver’s Credit hands lower-income workers up to $1,000 for retirement contributions
The Saver’s Credit can return as much as $1,000 to a lower-income worker’s federal tax bill, or up to $2,000 for a married couple, in...
A new law set the estate-tax exemption at $15 million, so almost no family owes the tax
The federal estate-tax exemption climbed to $15 million per person on January 1, 2026, and a married couple can now shield $30 million from the...