The struggle for financial wellness is real. Four in 10 Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency expense, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Board.
And that is just one sign of the financial strain plaguing America.
Credit card debt is at its highest level in a decade. People are behind on retirement savings. Student loan debt has hit a new record, and Americans continually rate financial stress as one of their top concerns.
April is National Financial Literacy Month, which spotlights a driving factor behind the fiscal heartburn – financial illiteracy – and aims to solve it by raising people’s financial awareness.
To discuss how to tackle the devastating effects of the U.S. financial literacy crisis, we asked for insights from Jim Chilton, founder and CEO of the Society for Financial Awareness (SOFA).
SOFA is a national non-profit, which Chilton started in 1993, with the mission of ending financial illiteracy across America.
Below is a sum-up of the conversation, which covers why financial literacy is important, how people struggle with money matters, and ways to solve the problem. Read More
It’s one of the things we like to think about the least: needing help caring for ourselves when we are older.
While living to a ripe old age sounds great—and statistics show that many of us might be headed in that direction—the idea of not being able to fully care for ourselves is so daunting that we put off planning for it, or perhaps never plan for it at all.
Yet it’s an issue that is much better dealt with now, when we are best equipped to explore our options.
Maybe it’s sticker shock that prevents some of us from taking action. The cost of long-term care, known as LTC, is well reported. Genworth, a provider in the long-term insurance space, has published its Cost of Care Survey for the last 15 years. Read More
If consumer studies give any indication, America needs a financial wake-up call.
A lack of consumer financial awareness is taking a toll nationwide, as InvestmentNews covers in a recent story. And the effects of what the advisory news publisher calls a “financial literacy crisis” are significant.
Almost two-thirds of people shows signs of low financial awareness, according to FINRA. Financial advisors also recognize the challenge. In a survey by InvestmentNews, 78% of advisors strongly agreed that financial literacy is of national concern.
WalletHub reports that the average household credit card debt is the highest it has been in nearly a decade. Financial stress is affecting work productivity, according to a recent survey of 10,000 employees by Salary Financial.
Nearly one in two Americans (48%) said they worry about their finances, leading to sleep loss, distractions at work, and other disruptors in work performance. The survey drew responses from employees ranging from entry-level to C-suite professionals.
“The Breakfast Club” was a classic coming-of-age film. The stars of the movie? Gen X misfits dreaming of their futures during a fateful day-long detention in their high school library.
What they couldn’t have foreseen is that many Gen Xers would grow up to be responsible not only for their own well-being, but for the care and livelihood of their parents and their grown children as well.
So, if a sequel about Gen Xers was made today, it might be called “The Breakfast Sandwich Club.” And why? Many members of Gen X struggle to plan for their own futures while facing the financial impact of caring for the generations before and after them. Read More
Life in the work lane means keeping your nose to the career grindstone. You work hard over many years, balancing work and family while accruing a comfortable nest egg for your retirement.
Along the way, you probably benefited from the discipline and focus that comes from working with a financial advisor. Their guidance was helpful in growing your portfolio and other assets to where they are now.
This life stage is called the “accumulation phase,” and its long-term priority is with the growth of your financial assets. Yet it’s just as important to plan for the backend, or when you start drawing on your nest egg for retirement income.
After all, life changes quite a bit when you retire. Your sources of income will change once you hit the golden years, whether you were a full-time executive, you ran your own business, you worked in a government capacity, or you steadily climbed the ranks as a salaried employee. And not only that.
There is also the matter of “distributions” from your portfolio. Withdrawals have tax implications, especially if money is taken from accounts or vehicles that had special tax treatment as you accumulated funds within them.
And don’t forget the question of longevity, which poses the potentially costly risk of outliving your retirement money. With the numbers of people living to their 90s, and even to 100-and-beyond, increasing by the year, there runs the possibility of a nest egg being mismanaged for long-term income needs. Read More
“Nothing is certain but death and taxes,” as the old saying goes. And while the question of spousal survivorship is an uncomfortable topic, it’s far too important to put off.
No one lives forever. What will happen when you or your partner pass away before the other? In that event, what is your plan?
To help you prepare ahead of time, here are some general guidelines for developing and managing a long-term retirement and financial survivorship strategy. They stress the importance of “income continuity,” or having uninterrupted income streams in place after the first death in a couple. Read More
You have had your dream retirement in the back of your mind your entire life.
Whether that movie in your head shows you traveling to exotic lands, spending quality time with your grandchildren, or turning a lifelong hobby into a business, retirement isn’t the end of your story. It’s the beginning of an exciting new sequel.
But how do you make the retirement of your imagination a reality? For many, bringing their ideal retirement to life includes consulting with a financial professional who specializes in retirement planning services.
If you have a nest egg, you have experience in personal finance. Earning an income and saving for a “rainy day.” Building wealth in equity markets, and putting away money into a 401(k), IRA, or other retirement account.
But those are all actions on the front side of retirement—called the accumulation phase. The backend? It’s known as the distribution phase, or how you draw retirement income from those assets accumulated over many years.
How you prepare for reliable income streams in retirement will determine if you live out the retirement of your dreams — or possibly deal with some scaled-down version.
Finding the right retirement planning services can help strengthen your chances of a confident lifestyle. Read More
Thanks to progress in healthcare and technology, you may expect to have a long retirement. But living to 100? While a lofty milestone, it’s not as out of reach as it may seem.
In 2014, U.S. government statisticians found that the number of people reaching age 100 had increased 40% from four years prior. And by 2050, the “100 and up” crowd is expected to grow to 3.68 million people worldwide.
Given the reality of lengthening lifespans, it’s no wonder why outliving retirement money remains a top concern. In an Allianz Life survey, almost two-thirds of surveyed Americans (63%) said they worried about running out of money in retirement more than death!
Financial planners and advisors call this chance of outliving your money a “longevity risk.” Building a well-defined retirement strategy will help you guard against this hazard, not to mention enjoy more financial peace of mind in your golden years. Read More
Most people consider investment returns as a benchmark for judging the performance of their portfolio. This may be especially true for retirees and pre-retirees who likely have been invested in the market for some time. That experience might have been through brokerage mutual fund investments, brokerage accounts, or even retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s or IRAs.
But the reality is that many financial concepts rely on average returns to forecast future portfolio activity. Yet compounding growth and compounding losses are the real-life factors that will potentially affect a portfolio’s value.
This is strongly exemplified in sequence of returns risk, a potential hazard for American retirees. And that doesn’t apply to only retired households.
Sequence risk can also linger for soon-to-be-retirees, especially during the “retirement red zone,” that critical decade of five years before and five years after one retires. Read More
If you are an employee of the U.S. government, then you and millions of your colleagues have access to the largest life insurance program in the world: the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance Program (FEGLI). It’s one of a number of employee benefits available to the federal civil service.
Created in 1954, FEGLI provides group term life insurance that may serve several purposes.
Federal employees depend on FEGLI for many reasons in the event of untimely death: income replacement, death benefit protection, coverage for debts or expenses that may overwhelm survivors, financial safeguards for young families, and other benefits.
FEGLI often features a lower requirement for participation compared to other life insurance policies. For private-sector group life insurance – or just personal life insurance coverage in general – people are often required to undergo a medical examination or to meet other eligibility criteria. Read More
Start a Conversation About Your Retirement What-Ifs
Start a Conversation About Your Retirement What-Ifs
Already working with someone or thinking about getting help? Ask us about what is on your mind. Learn More
What Independent Guidance Does for You
What Independent Guidance
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Stories from Others
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