December 31, 2019

Boomers Want to Make Retirement Work

The articles that our readers gravitated to over the course of this year provide a window into baby boomers’ biggest concerns about retirement.

Judging by the most popular blogs of 2019, they were very interested in the critical decision of when to claim Social Security and whether the money they have saved will be enough to last into old age.

Nearly half of U.S. workers in their 50s could potentially fall short of the income they’ll need to live comfortably in retirement. So people are also reading articles about whether to extend their careers and about other ways they might fill the financial gap.

Here is a list of 10 of our most popular blogs in 2019. Please take a look!

Half of Retirees Afraid to Use Savings

How Long Will Retirement Savings Last?

The Art of Persuasion and Social Security

Social Security: the ‘Break-even’ Debate

Books: Where the Elderly Find Happiness

Second Careers Late in Life Extend Work …Learn More

December 24, 2019

Happy Holidays!

Next Tuesday – New Year’s Eve – we’ll return with a list of some of our readers’ favorite blogs of 2019. Our regular featured articles will resume Thursday, Jan. 2.

Thank you for reading and posting comments on our retirement and personal finance blog. We hope you’ll continue to be involved in the new year. …
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December 12, 2019

Caregiving Disrupts Work, Finances

What do groceries, GPS trackers, and prescription drug copayments have in common?

They are some of the myriad items caregivers may end up paying for to help out an ailing parent or other family member. And these are just the incidentals.

Three out of four caregivers have made changes to their jobs as a result of their caregiving responsibilities, whether going to flex time, working part-time, quitting altogether, or retiring early, according to a Transamerica Institute survey. To ease the financial toll, some caregivers dip into retirement savings or stop their 401(k) contributions. Not surprisingly, caregiving places the most strain on low-income families.

People choose to be caregivers because they feel it’s critically important to help a loved one, said Catherine Collinson, chief executive of the Transamerica Institute.

But, “There’s a cost associated with that and often people don’t think about it,” she said. “Caregiving is not only a huge commitment of time. It can also be a financial risk to the caregiver.”

The big message from Collinson and the other speakers at an MIT symposium last month was: employers and politicians need to acknowledge caregivers’ challenges and start finding effective ways to address them.

Liz O’Donnell was the poster child for disrupted work. As her family’s sole breadwinner, she cobbled together vacation days to care for her mother and father after they were diagnosed with terminal illnesses – ovarian cancer and Alzheimer’s disease – on the same day, July 1, 2014.

Her high-level job gave her the flexibility to work outside the office. But work suffered as she ran from place to place dealing with one urgent medical issue after another. She made business calls from the garden at a hospice, worked while she was at the hospital, and learned to tilt the camera for video conferences so coworkers wouldn’t know she was in her car.

“I felt so alone that summer,” said O’Donnell, who wrote a book about her experience. “We’ve got to do better, and I know we can do better.” …Learn More

December 10, 2019

Nursing Homes: Why They Cost So Much

One of retirees’ biggest fears is that they will have to go into a nursing home. This fear isn’t just psychological – it’s also financial.

Roughly half of older Americans will find themselves in a nursing home at some point, according to a 2015 estimate. These stays usually last months, but sometimes years, and the costs add up quickly for those who have to pay for them out of their own pockets.

At an average price of at least $225 per day for a semi-private room, a nursing home stay can put a big dent in retirees’ savings.

A new study in the journal Medical Care Research and Review on how much seniors pay out-of-pocket for facilities in eight states – California, Florida, Georgia, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont – found that prices across the board are rising at about two times the general inflation rate.

Some of the fastest price increases are in California and Oregon – 5 percent to 6 percent a year. There is also a large disparity between high- and low-cost states: the price tag for a typical New York nursing home is more than double the cost in Texas.

Yet little is understood about what’s behind the disparities. In this study, conducted for the Retirement Research Consortium, the researchers begin to uncover some of the things that determine whether an individual happens to live in a high-cost state.

One factor affecting the prices is the competitiveness of each nursing home market, which works in ways one would expect. When a small number of operators dominate in local markets, they can charge more. The results also suggest that prices are higher in markets where limited competition is combined with a high demand for beds.

Another important factor is who owns the nursing homes, and each state has a different mix of private and non-profit chains and smaller operators. For-profit companies own about 70 percent of U.S. nursing homes. More than half of the for-profit facilities are chains, and these chains charge the lowest prices.

The non-profit chains are the most expensive. Their prices, adjusted for staffing levels, location and other facility-level factors, are about 6.6 percent more than the for-profit chains – or about $4,160 more annually – the study found. …Learn More

December 5, 2019

College Graduates Cope with Money

College upperclassmen and recent graduates have a lot on their minds. One thing they don’t always like to think too hard about is money.

But Maggie Germano, a financial coach, encourages them to get things out in the open and talk about it. At a recent personal finance session here at Boston College, she answered students’ questions about their credit ratings, student loans, and how to avoid spending money they do not have.

Here are the five best tips from Germano, a 2009 graduate of the State University of New York in Fredonia. She now lives in Washington D.C.

Pay attention. The first step to getting control of one’s finances is to pay attention to them, she said. Not dealing with credit card bills and student loan statements doesn’t make the problems go away. “The opposite is true: the more you pay attention, the more in control you’ll be,” she said.

Get a credit rating – or fix it. The key is to have a credit card but use it judiciously. Germano advises young adults to get what’s known as a secured credit card with a low spending limit – say $500. Secured credit cards typically require users to put up a cash deposit. To slowly establish a sound credit history, spend no more than 30 percent of the card’s limit and pay it off at the end of each month.

Student loans are hard work. Germano said that, after she graduated, her rent and student loan payments equaled all of her income. She signed up for the federal government’s income-based repayment program. In this program, the government reduces the payments to reflect the low incomes many recent graduates are earning at the start of their careers. Germano said she paid off her $26,000 loan balance off about four years ago.

The secret to not overspending. She learned this trick from a client. Set up two separate checking accounts. One account is for paying monthly bills – rent, Netflix, electricity – and the payments are deducted automatically. For all other spending, use a second account with a debit card and “don’t touch” the money in the first account. Using a debit card for discretionary expenses makes it easy to keep track of how much is left to spend each month – maybe it’s better to walk than take another Uber.

“It’s very human to want new things, be social, and spend money you’ve never had before,” she said. So put “systems into place that will prevent [that] from getting out of control.” …Learn More

November 27, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Whether you’re having Thanksgiving with family or your celebration will take the form of a Friendsgiving, the staff at Squared Away and the blog’s sponsor, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, wish you a wonderful holiday. …Learn More

November 26, 2019

The Art of Persuasion and Social Security

Retirees could get substantially more in their Social Security check if they would just wait longer – up to age 70 – to sign up.

But only a tiny fraction of workers make it to 70, and more than a third get the minimum monthly benefits because they start them as soon as the program allows, at 62. A Bocconi University professor and three UCLA professors have set about trying to change minds by testing 13 ways of encouraging older workers to hold off and lock in a larger Social Security check.

The techniques, which they tried on various groups of workers between ages 40 and 61, ranged widely in approach. But two of the most successful tests had one thing in common: participants were asked to engage in a little reflection about the personal impact of choosing when to start receiving their Social Security. This approach departed from the more common strategy of trying to influence people by feeding them financial or other information.

Everyone began the same way: they saw a table showing how much more they would receive from Social Security for each year after 62 that they delayed. One of the most effective tests was an exercise in self-reflection. The participants were asked to list “their own reasons” for how delaying would help them personally. Only after this step did they list the reasons to start their benefits at a younger age.

The order of these requests was intentional and intended to counteract the tendency by most people to focus on their short-term desires. This group reported that they intended to sign up 10 months later than the control group, which wasn’t exposed to the test, according to the study conducted for the Retirement Research Consortium. …Learn More