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Comparing Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage
Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage are two distinctly different ways to cover your healthcare expenses once you reach age 65. The decision is an important one. If you start out with Original Medicare and change your…
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The Parts that Make up Medicare
Call it alphabet soup. Call it puzzle pieces. However you describe Medicare, you need to know what each of the pieces do and how they work together – and how one replaces all the others in…
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Medicare Enrollment Periods
Medicare is in the news a lot every fall because of the annual enrollment period when Medicare participants can make changes to their Medicare Advantage plan or Prescription Part D coverage. That is important. If you…
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Getting the Most from Your Retirement Savings: Moving Money Between Accounts
You’ve heard the words: Rollover, transfer, convert. But you may not know the rules and risks about moving retirement funds from one account to another. That’s the purpose of today’s post. There are numerous situations where…
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Getting the Most from Your Retirement Savings: Qualified Charitable Distributions
Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) are a powerful tax break. A QCD converts taxable distributions from your IRA into non-taxable income. They even count toward your Required Minimum Distribution. Making a QCD is pretty simple, too. How…
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Get the Most from Your Retirement Savings: Follow the Rules
Once you’ve worked hard to save up money in a retirement account like an IRA, 401(k), 403(b), etc., the last thing you want to do is have some of that money going for penalties because you…
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A fresh start for No-Nonsense Money Talk with Karen Chan
Beginning in October, this blog will become the focus of my financial education efforts. Up to this point, in-person presentations and webinars have been my main educational vehicle. But it’s time for that to change. I…
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Target Date Retirement Funds: Investing Made Simple, Part 3
If you’re looking for a “set it and forget it” solution for choosing and managing your investments, target date retirement accounts are the closest you’ll get. But as with any investment, understand it before you buy…
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Automatic Rebalancing: Investing Made Simple, Part 2
The value of most investments changes every day. Over time, they can get seriously out of what compared to the allocation of stocks, bonds, and cash that you started with. If your account custodian offers automatic…
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Index Mutual Funds: Investing Made Simple, Part 1
Index funds can make choosing investments easier. In addition, their low costs mean that they typically out-perform actively managed funds.
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Beneficiary Designations, POD and TOD Take Precedence Over Your Will
When you think about passing assets to others upon your death, you probably think first of a will. In reality, a will only controls assets that aren’t transferred by any one of several other mechanisms, including…
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