Jeff Snell

6 Retirement Planning Deadlines You Must Know

Financial Planning, Social Security

The most important retirement date is the actual date you get to stop working — but there are other retirement planning dates that are extremely important as well. Keep these deadlines in mind as you plan for your retirement:

Required minimum distributions: You must start taking minimum distributions from 401(k) and traditional IRA accounts when you are 70.5 years old, but you can wait until April 1 of the year after you turn 70.5 to take your first required minimum distribution from your retirement accounts. (Then all subsequent distributions are due by Dec. 31.) Delaying your first required distribution could mean taking two required withdrawals in the same year, potentially increasing your tax burden.

Keep in mind you do not have to take minimum distributions from your Roth IRA.

Stop contributing to a traditional IRA: Once you begin to take required minimum distributions from a traditional IRA at age 70.5 you can no longer contribute to a traditional IRA. But if your spouse is younger and still eligible to make contributions, he or she can contribute to your IRA by making a spousal contribution.

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Working Beyond 65 — Will You Want To Or Need To?

Retirement

Many of us work with two kinds of coworkers – those who say they can’t wait to retire and those who swear they love their jobs so much they plan to die at their desks. I get the first group.

Who doesn’t want to retire to a life of leisure without alarm clocks, meetings, conference calls, and commuting in traffic?

The second group, however, I view with a somewhat skeptical eye. Sure, some of us have dream jobs that we can’t wait to dive into every day and we would be very happy working in them until we are

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6 Trends That Are Changing Retirement in America

Lifestyle, Retirement

During the course of your working career, technology and globalization have changed the work environment in countless ways. Many societal changes have impacted your personal life as well. It should come as no surprise that many of these same factors have also changed the retirement landscape.

Some changes are positive, others are unwelcome and some are simply different. But viewed as a whole, your retirement will be significantly different from your parents’ and your grandparents’ retirement. Here are six trends that are reshaping retirement.

Read the entire article: 6 Trends That Are Changing Retirement in America | On Retirement | US News

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Voyagers Complete 3-year Trip Around the World in a Polynesian Canoe With No Modern Technology

Lifestyle, Travel

Thanks to all our modern conveniences — GPS, Google Maps, self-driving cars, automatic pilot — traveling around the world has become easier than ever before. But what if all that went away? Would humanity still be able to figure out how to get from point A to point B?For one group of explorers, the answer is yes: Using absolutely no modern-day technology, they navigated a Polynesian canoe all the way around the globe.

As the Associated Press reported, the ship, which started its trip in 2014, had about a dozen crewmembers onboard for each leg of the global journey. The crew used their knowledge of currents, birds, wind, and the stars to sail nearly 40,000 nautical miles, making stops in 19 countries.

Read the entire article: Voyagers Complete 3-year Trip Around the World in a Polynesian Canoe With No Modern Technology | Travel + Leisure

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Airline gate agents share their favorite travel hacks

Travel

Airline customer service reps know a thing or two about travel. From the moment you step into the airport to when you finally board your flight, it’s these airport workers’ job to help you successfully navigate getting from point A to point B.

What’s more, with the perks that come along with working for an airline, like free or discounted flights, many of these agents have quite a bit of travel experience themselves. So, who better to turn to for travel tips and tricks than the people with extensive knowledge on the matter?

We asked airline gate agents, ticket agents, and other airport customer service reps to share their best travel hacks with us, and scoured the internet for more.

Read the entire article: Airline gate agents share their favorite travel hacks – Business Insider

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Pauline Frommer: 13 Expert Budget Travel Tips | Money

Lifestyle, Travel

Before you lock in those summer travel plans, make sure you’re getting the most bang out of your travel buck. Here are are 13 favorite tips from Pauline Frommer of travel-guide company Frommer’s on where to scrimp and splurge when planning a vacation and how to get the best rates on airfare, car rentals and lodging.

1. For airline tickets, check Momondo first. Frommer’s compared prices quoted by airfare search engines, aggregators and booking websites on 25 popular routes, both for last-minute flights and those booked six weeks ahead. The results? Momondo is the best place to find the cheapest airfare. Skyscanner came in second. Frommer’s ran a similar test for hotel booking sites and found that Booking.com came out on top, especially for travelers looking for city-center spots under $200 a night.

2. Accept a little discomfort in the air. “I think it is a huge waste of money to buy business class or first class unless you’re 6’4″ and will be in incredible agony,” says Frommer, co-president and editorial director of Frommer’s. “People concentrate too much on the flight. It is a couple of hours and then you’re in this wonderful destination. So if it is between getting a business class seat and eating a meal in a spectacular restaurant or seeing a show, the hell with business class.

3. Always carry on. “You do not want to be a slave to your suitcase. I only own carry-on luggage and that forces me to pack less than I would have normally and you just wear things over and over,” says Frommer. Packing light delivers three big advantages: You avoid costly airline baggage fees, skip wasting time waiting at baggage claim, and can use public transit easily to get from the airport to your destination or from one city to another.

Read the entire article: Pauline Frommer: 13 Expert Budget Travel Tips | Money

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Don’t leave work without laying out a ‘retirement map’

Financial Planning, Retirement, Travel

Can you imagine going on an extended vacation without making any plans?

No websites or tour guides consulted. No hotel reservations made. No itinerary mapped out.

Of course not. If you wanted your vacation to be a success, you’d budget enough money to cover your costs. You’d know when you were going, how long you could stay and at least generally what you would do while there.

But when it comes to the longest vacation most people will ever take — retirement — fewer than half of all Americans have a formal plan.

And that can spell trouble.

There’s nothing worse than being 85 years old, full of life — and being flat broke.

Read the entire article: Don’t leave work without laying out a ‘retirement map’ – NY Daily News

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4 Retirement Myths That You Need To Know

Financial Planning, Retirement

Retirement planning is hard enough, but disinformation will get you sidetracked from your goal. You’ll need to know what’s not true before you start planning. There is a lot of fake news in the retirement saving world. The truth is, President Trump, Wall Street and GOP allies are making retirement planning more difficult. They are torching investor protection rules found in the Dodd-Frank Act and cutting state offerings for small business retirement plans. And that’s just what’s been happening in the firs

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Americans Aren’t Loving Retirement Like They Used To — Here’s Why

Lifestyle, Retirement

Retirement is a time to shake off years of employment and enjoy life, right? That might be the goal, but many Americans aren’t feeling it. Dwindling satisfactionA 2016 Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) study analyzed retirement satisfaction trends between 1998 and 2012. Respondents who said they were “very satisfied” with their retirements dropped by 11.9 percentage points, those “not at all” satisfied increased by 2.6 percentage points, and the middle-of-the-road “moderately satisfied” response saw a gain of 9.2 percentage points.

Read the entire article: Americans Aren’t Loving Retirement Like They Used To — Here’s Why

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Americans Focused on Short-Term Risks When It Comes to Retirement Planning

Behavioral Finance, Financial Planning, Retirement

SAN MATEO, Calif., June 05, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Americans are almost equally as concerned about short-term market volatility (47 percent) as they are about not achieving their long-term retirement investment goals (53 percent)

Read the entire article: Americans Focused on Short-Term Risks When It Comes to Retirement Planning, Franklin Templeton Investments Survey Finds – NASDAQ.com

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Alleged Jackson Pollock goes to auction June 20

Lifestyle

Jackson Pollock spent nearly all of his youth in Arizona and California. He even left a tiny bit of himself in Phoenix, close to what is now Sky Harbor International Airport.The 20th-century artist, internationally known for abstract, splatter and “drip” paintings, became a sensation in the New York art world starting in the 1940s until his death in 1956. So how is it that one of Pollock’s paintings might have found its way into a Sun City garage?

Read the entire article: Alleged Jackson Pollock goes to auction June 20

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Healthy Lifestyle Important to Retirement Planning

Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Retirement

Retirement has become an active stage of life—one people have positive ideas about. For example, they aspire to stay socially connected, participate in their communities and remain economically active, according to the 2016 Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey.

Globally, the majority (72%) of people associate positive words with retirement, including “leisure” (46%), “freedom” (41%) and “enjoyment” (31%). People ages 65 and older have more positive associations with retirement than do younger people, ages 18 through 24.

The two most widely held retirement aspirations among respondents are traveling (62%) and spending time with friends and family (57%). Twenty-six percent mention some form of paid work as a retirement aspiration.

Achieving retirement aspirations requires more than saving, investing and planning, however; it also depends on staying in good health, the survey report notes.

Read the entire article: Healthy Lifestyle Important to Retirement Planning

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Your Money: 3 moves you should make in the 3 years before you retire – Twin Cities

Lifestyle, Retirement

Life’s major milestones — graduations, births, weddings and cross-country moves — all require a certain amount of preparation.Retirement is no different. That’s why we believe it’s important for people to meet with a financial adviser several years before they retire so you can jump right into the retired life once you’re ready.

Read the entire article: Your Money: 3 moves you should make in the 3 years before you retire – Twin Cities

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Pass On Your Assets Wisely: How To Choose The Right Beneficiaries

Financial Planning, Lifestyle

I’m often asked by clients about who should be named as beneficiaries on their IRAs versus their retirement plans and other assets. This article provides a starting point. I have more detailed information if you wish… just ask. -Jeff

When you pass away, what you leave to your loved ones is important, but so is how you leave those assets. Determining the right assets to leave to different beneficiaries is an absolutely critical part of effective estate planning.

Read the entire article: Pass On Your Assets Wisely: How To Choose The Right Beneficiaries

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