August 14, 2014

South Has Highest Debt Collection Rate

It’s old news that working people in the South earn less than residents of thriving communities in California, the Northeast, the Upper Midwest and elsewhere.

What’s troubling is how many Southerners apparently can’t pay their bills.

West Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas – they’re among 13 states where more than four in 10 state residents’ credit card or other debts have been sent to collection agencies, according to a July report by the Urban Institute.

The report, based on data from the credit reporting firm TransUnion, provides insight into how many Americans continue to experience financial stress even though the recession is technically over.   The Urban Institute’s analysis doesn’t focus on mortgage debt, since delinquent home loans generally go into foreclosure and rarely to collections. Yet many of the Southern states were also hit harder by the housing market collapse than the nation as a whole. …Learn More

August 12, 2014

Credit Union Popularity Rises

It’s not hard to find glowing testimonials online about credit unions – friendlier staff, lower fees, and faster processing of loan applications, credit union customers say.

“Way better than a bank!” Dan F. says about his Iowa credit union.

Now this warm, fuzzy feeling among existing credit union members seems to be reaching the general public. The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports membership growth exceeded 2 percent annually for the past three years, ending a lull that was taking hold only a decade ago.

In CUNA’s newest count – the year ending 2014 – total membership increased to 100.1 million members. CUNA president Bill Hampel’s theory is the financial crisis of 2008-2009 “soured a lot of people on the big banks.”

People do trust credit unions a lot more than banks, especially large banking companies, according to a “trust index” tracked by the University of Chicago and Northwestern University’s business schools. Two-thirds of Americans trust credit unions, the index showed recently, while only one in four trust a major bank. …Learn More

July 17, 2014

College 529 Plans: a Video Primer

In this video, the president of a Boston-area community bank explains the fundamentals of 529 college savings plans, which most state governments offer.

Bob Mahoney recently put both of his daughters through college with money he’d saved in 529 plans. While it can be difficult for many parents to scrape together the money, he said 529 plans provide some hedge in the future against the ever-rising cost of a college education.

Mahoney suggested starting small and contributing, say, $1,000 or $5,000 each year and also asking grandparents to put money into the 529, in lieu of giving toys and other gifts.

As he explains in the video, the advantage is that 529 plans are free of federal and often state taxes on the investment returns earned while the future student is growing up.

One disadvantage is that they require parents to make difficult decisions about how to invest the money they’re saving. Mahoney’s advice is to avoid high-flying stocks and to approach 529s as one would approach 401(k) investing. And, like 401(k)s, low-fee funds also make sense for 529 plans. …Learn More

July 15, 2014

Target Date Funds Keep Growing

The number of employers offering target date funds as an option in their 401(k) plans, and the number of workers using these funds, continue to increase.

In 2013, 86 percent of all employer plans offered target date funds (TDFs) – double the share of plans offering them in 2006 – according to Vanguard’s annual report on defined-contribution plans, “How America Saves 2014,” released in June.

Vanguard data also support TDFs’ growing popularity among employees: more than half of plan participants now have some or all of their retirement accounts in TDFs, compared with just one in 10 in 2006.

TDFs eliminate the need for employees to wade in and make complex investment decisions about choosing and updating their asset allocations. A TDF initially invests largely in stocks, but the portfolio becomes more conservative and the allocation to stocks declines as the individual approaches the targeted retirement date he selected. …Learn More

July 3, 2014

Financial Savvy Means More 401k Returns

Financial knowledge is critical to one’s retirement security, finds a new study showing that 401(k) plan participants who scored higher on a test of their financial knowledge earned an additional 1.3 percentage points of investment returns annually on their retirement accounts.

Over a 30-year working life, that higher rate of return would add 25 percent to total savings at retirement.

Readers can take the quiz by clicking here; answers appear at the end of this blog post. …Learn More

June 5, 2014

Test Yourself for Dementia

Dementia is a critical personal finance issue when so much is at stake in managing, investing, and spending one’s lifetime savings.  But one study found that, in the vast majority of older couples, the person in charge of managing the household finances continues to do so after dementia sets in.

Dementia can be difficult to perceive in oneself or a spouse or parent, because changes are usually so gradual, psychologists say.

Individuals can now get a rough assessment of their own or a loved one’s cognitive abilities with a test posted on the website of Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. Spokeswoman Elaine Scahill said more than 900,000 people have downloaded the test since it went online in mid-January as a public service.

The test, appropriately named SAGE – for Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam – is similar to others used by mental health professionals as an initial screen; another one is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. …

Learn More

June 3, 2014

Long-Term Care: Winging It

Americans have a very good chance of entering a long-term care facility. New research at the Center for Retirement Research, which sponsors this blog, finds that 44 percent of older men and 58 percent of older women will likely enter such a facility for at least a short stay.

Only 29 percent of adults age 40 and over, however, are “extremely” or “very” confident they’ll have enough resources to pay for such care, or for other types of care they may need in old age, according to a survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, an independent survey organization based at the University of Chicago.

The AP-NORC poll also revealed that people are poorly informed about how much care will cost if they need it.

They tend to underestimate how much nursing homes cost (about $6,900 a month) and overestimate the cost of a part-time aide coming to their home to help with personal care such as cooking or bathing (about $1,150 a month); their estimates about the cost of assisted living facilities (about $3,400 a month) were either too high or too low.

An additional complication, according to Jennifer Benz, NORC’s senior research scientist, is that “people don’t understand how the financing of long-term care works in the U.S.” The distinct roles of Medicare and Medicaid, in particular, caused great confusion. …Learn More