Wednesday, August 27, 2014 | Joe Alfonso, Personal Finance Expert, GoLocalPDX If you’re relying on the Social Security system to get you through retirement, you might have been confused by the annual report released recently by the system’s Board of...
August 16, 2014|Brent Hunsberger, The Oregonian Lowell Serfling bought long-term care insurance a dozen years ago at his dying wife’s suggestion and paid $150 a month for it – until earlier this year. That’s when State Farm informed him that...
No one ever said you could live like royalty on Social Security. The program was always intended to provide a foundation for retirement but not to completely replace one’s working income. Having said that, it is wrong to ignore the...
In a recent article, The Social Security “Reset”, I talked about how to partially undo the benefit reduction that results from taking early Social Security retirement benefits. I pointed out that the rules allow a recipient to suspend retirement benefits...
(Note: Social Security benefits are gender-neutral, but in this article I will refer to the wife as the recipient since statistically this is typically the case.) Sociologists have a name for folks who divorce after age 50—“gray divorcees”—and their numbers...
April 19, 2014|Joe Alfonso, Guest blogger, The Christian Science Monitor Retirees who begin collecting Social Security before their full retirement age can take a significant cut to their benefits — but there may be a way to “reset” that process...
March 6, 2014|Cliff Newell, The Lake Oswego Review Baby boomers urged to find best way to receive benefits The boom is on when it comes to people signing up for Social Security. Many baby boomers have already retired and many...
Many current retirees decided to begin taking Social Security retirement benefits well before their full retirement age (FRA). The FRA is the age at which a beneficiary is entitled to receive a full Social Security retirement benefit based on their...
Investment decisions should be based on empirical data and modern financial science. Modern Portfolio Theory and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, informed by nearly a century of market information, show that a passive investment approach that shuns market timing and individual...