Long-Term Planning – Carol H Cox

May 26, 2019July 14, 2019

Audiobook Recommendation: Jill Schlesinger’s New Personal Finance Book

by Carol H Cox

If you’ve ever listened to Jill Schlesinger’s podcast, you know that she’s a straight shooter, smart, and as to the point as you could wish for in a financial adviser. I really respect the woman and was excited to hear that she had a new book out, The Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money: Thirteen Ways to Right Your Financial Wrongs.

Because I love the way she banters on air and her manner of making me feel like she’s talking to me personally on her show, I decided to listen to the audiobook version, which she narrates herself. Great choice!

It’s an enjoyable, no holds barred dive into how not to make stupid mistakes with our money. If we’d only follow her advice, we’d no doubt be much better at such practices as investing using reason instead of emotion, avoiding obsessive emphasis on money, finding affordable ways to send kids to college, prioritizing retirement savings, and demystifying the allure of real estate, and so on.

September 3, 2017March 1, 2018

Retirement Savings in the Gig Economy

By Carol H Cox

Many people find it challenging to consistently and sufficiently put money away for retirement. Workers who piece together their monthly income from freelance and part-time jobs can find this particularly challenging. It’s easy to get lost in the trees of “making a living” and lose sight of the forest of “providing lifetime income.”

Social Security will no doubt still exist when the freelancers of today retire, but by then who knows at what age retirees will become eligible and how much money they will receive? Individuals will need to depend more on their own savings for their post-working years.

Your expected retirement date may seem quite distant, especially if you’re looking out over a 30-year, or more, time horizon. So why start now? Well, it’s usually much easier to put away relatively smaller amounts of money over a lengthy period than much larger amounts later in life. Continue reading “Retirement Savings in the Gig Economy”

January 24, 2017January 31, 2018

Older Americans Taking on More Student Loans

By Carol H Cox

Are you a parent or grandparent considering co-signing on or taking out a student loan for your child or grandchild? Well, you may first want to read a new study on this matter.

In January of 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a sobering study called “Snapshot of Older Consumers and Student Loan Debt.” (In the study, “older consumers” are categorized as those being age 60 and older.) Between 2005 and 2015 the number of older consumers carrying student loan debt, meaning either co-signing on or taking out student loans directly, has increased by a factor of four, to 2.8 million Americans. These older consumers are responsible for a total of $66.7 billion of student loan debt, including federal Parent PLUS loans and private student loans.

Continue reading “Older Americans Taking on More Student Loans”

November 29, 2016January 31, 2018

Benefits of an HSA

By Carol H Cox

Photo: www.TaxCredits.net

The Health Savings Account (HSA) came into being as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. An HSA is designed to be used as a savings storehouse for medical expenses, current and future. The contributions to the HSA can be used to pay medical deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums in tandem with a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). You can open an HSA on your own once you are covered by an HDHP and meet other requirements, see below.

An HSA can also provide a nice tax-break and a tax-free means of saving for medical expenses in retirement. And the extent of contributions to an HSA isn’t limited by the contributor’s income tax bracket.

One of the beauties of an HSA is that, if you follow IRS rules, the money you place into the account is tax deductible and/or any money your employer contributes is excluded from your gross income. In addition to this, money you withdraw from the account (including any earnings from investments) used to pay for qualified medical expenses is also tax-free. If you can fully fund the account annually and resist using the money in the account until you retire, an HSA can grow to a sizable amount in a few years.

Continue reading “Benefits of an HSA”