What kind of retirement do you think you’ll have? Qualitatively speaking, what if the success or failure of your retirement begins with your perception of retirement?

If you are younger than 35, saving for retirement may not feel like a priority. After all, retirement may be 30 years away.  Even so, you must save and invest for retirement as soon as you can. Time is your greatest ally.

Are the days of itemizing over? Not quite, but now that H.R. 1 (popularly called the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act) is the law, all kinds of itemized federal tax deductions have vanished.

Steady income or a lump sum? Last year, financial services firm TIAA asked working Americans: if you could choose between a lump sum of $500,000 or a monthly income of $2,700 at retirement, which choice would you make?

Your Social Security income could be taxed. That may seem unfair, or unfathomable. Regardless of how you feel about it, it is a possibility.

How much does the average American household have in the bank? Estimates vary, but the short answer to this question is “not enough.”

Do bad money habits constrain your financial progress? Many people fall into the same financial behavior patterns year after year. If you sometimes succumb to these financial tendencies, the New Year is as good an occasion as any to alter your behavior.

Some of us may retire at 65 and live to 100 or longer. Advances in health care may make this a strong possibility. The corresponding question is: will we outlive our money?

Much has been written about the classic financial mistakes that plague start-ups, family businesses, corporations, and charities. Aside from these blunders, there are also some classic financial missteps that plague retirees.  

Are you worried about retiring? Many baby boomers are, and they have reason to be, given low interest rates, subpar returns on equities, increasing health care costs, and the issues facing Social Security.

If you withdraw money out of a workplace retirement plan in your fifties, will you be penalized for it? In most cases, the answer is yes.

The Roth IRA changed the whole retirement savings perspective. Since its introduction, it has become a fixture in many retirement planning strategies. Here is a closer look at the trade-off you make when you open and contribute to a Roth IRA – a trade-off many savers are happy to make.

Every day, articles appear urging people to save for retirement. These articles are so prevalent that it may seem like retirement planning is entirely about getting people to save.  Actually, retirement planning concerns much more than that.

Every day, people die intestate. In legalese, that means without a will. This opens the door for the courts to decide what happens with their estates.

Saving for retirement may seem a thankless task. But you may be thanking yourself later.

You can probably envision how most of your retirement money will be spent. Much of it will be used on living expenses, health care expenses, and, perhaps, debt reduction.

Saving for retirement takes decades and demands the investment of significant amounts of your income. As this major effort unfolds, you should recognize that some subtle factors and seemingly minor decisions could end up making a sizable and positive impact on your financial future.  

Some people mistake investing for financial planning. Their “financial strategy” is an investing strategy, in which they chase the return and focus on the yield of their portfolio. As they do so, they miss the big picture.