Retirement

Retirement plan administrators are noting an uptick in hardship withdrawals. But taking that money out can harm your future financial security. More Americans are raiding their retirement accounts as the cost of living climbs, and experts predict that the number of workers drawing on their 401(k)s to pay for financial emergencies may increase due to

Women who have gone through a divorce often see their savings and retirement depleted. Building back means careful planning. Twenty years ago, when I was pregnant with my daughter, a mom friend predicted my future: The baby will come and — from exhausted necessity — you and your husband will divide tasks, which will fall

Becoming a solo entrepreneur in the years between leaving an employer and claiming Social Security can give your savings a boost. Here’s what to know. Russ Eanes was burning out at his job, and he had just hit 60 — but he wasn’t ready to retire. A former minister in the Mennonite church, he had

With mortgage rates and prices high, first-time home buyers find these competing goals aren’t always doable, at least at the same time. Here are points to consider. Jade Akintola and Brandon Thomas Brown are balancing three competing financial priorities — preparing for the birth of their first child, saving up for a down payment on

Los lectores enviaron algunas de sus preguntas financieras más urgentes sobre temas como la seguridad social y la deuda de los préstamos estudiantiles. Los asesores financieros ofrecieron algunas ideas. La gente suele pensar que la planeación para el retiro es una combinación de ahorrar y elegir una mezcla ideal de inversiones, todo para llegar al

Two French business titans, Bernard Arnault of the LVMH empire and Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers of L’Oréal, are named the world’s wealthiest man and woman. PARIS — France, which has been riven lately by angry protests over income inequality, can now claim to have the world’s richest man and woman: Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of the

Readers sent some of their most urgent financial queries, asking about issues like Social Security and student loan debt. Financial planners offered ideas. People often think of planning for retirement as a combination of saving and picking an ideal mix of investments, all to arrive at just the right size nest egg. But it is

Many older home buyers say ownership was worth the wait, as they finally make a major real estate investment and consider their financial legacy. Danette Jenkins was just about to celebrate her 55th birthday when she closed on her first apartment in New Jersey. Hilary Lensky was 66 when she got the keys to her

Millions of workers open retirement accounts, then ignore or forget about them, leaving thousands of dollars unattended. Are you one of them? Raquel Charles was in her mid-20s when she signed up — begrudgingly — for her first retirement account. Wading through paperwork to start her job at the Administration for Children’s Services in New

Once the worst of the pandemic passed, some of us turned from being savers to spenders — setting ourselves up for potential disaster. In the first couple of months this year, thousands of American workers at companies like Google and Twitter have lost their jobs. Interest rates on car loans, credit cards and mortgages are

Our cognitive biases can get in the way of saving for the future, especially for retirement. Here’s how to recognize and overcome them. Sara Fernandes was 26 when she got her first credit card. “It felt like free money,” Ms. Fernandes said. “Like suddenly I could buy stuff and not worry about paying for it.

You can still put money in an I.R.A. for 2022, and that’s better than not investing at all. But an early start would have given you a great advantage, our columnist says. If you haven’t put money into an individual retirement account for 2022, do it before the April deadline. That’s a standard tax tip

Doing taxes in 2023 feels a lot like it did before the pandemic. Still, there are some meaningful changes to keep in mind. The 2023 tax filing season is probably most notable for what’s missing: After three years of stimulus payments and pandemic tax breaks, nearly all of those extra benefits have faded away —

Kentucky passed a law targeting banks and their climate policies. Bankers sued the attorney general. Whose definition of investment risk should prevail? Bow-tied bankers do not often sue a state’s lawyer in chief. So when it does happen, it’s time to pop the popcorn and gather around to watch. In October, Kentucky’s attorney general ordered

Readers were intrigued by my newsletter last Friday, “The Perfect Retirement Investment Nobody Wants.” It was about a concept, never realized, for a hybrid product combining long-term care insurance with an immediate annuity — a stream of monthly payments that begins right away and lasts as long as you live. Some readers said such policies

Two of your biggest financial risks in retirement involve your health, but they’re almost opposed to each other. One is that you will require expensive long-term care early on. You will probably die young, but not before going broke from nursing home bills. Another is that you will stay healthy enough to live a very

Three big 401(k) administrators are making it easier for workers with accounts of less than $5,000 to transfer the money to their new employers’ plans. Moving retirement savings when switching jobs is about to get easier for millions of workers with small balances. The changes aim to stem what retirement researchers call a “leakage” of

Higher interest rates made annuities more attractive in 2022. Better quality products are increasingly available, but consumers still need to read the fine print. In a kinder universe, retirees wouldn’t need to worry about market volatility or outliving their money. But 2022 was a nail-biter: Bonds plunged alongside stocks, and many people in or nearing

Angry protests over a plan to raise France’s retirement age pile uncertainty on small businesses, but most are siding with the demonstrators. Maxime Clausier stood inside the barricaded entrance of his butcher shop in central Paris and surveyed the swelling crowd of protesters outside his door. He had closed early Tuesday amid the latest demonstrations

New developments that integrate senior housing into age-diverse apartment buildings offer a more affordable alternative to isolated suburban retirement communities. Getting older comes with challenges. For the architect and designer Matthias Hollwich, one of the more taxing ones is something often taken for granted: moving. His point — that leaving behind friends, social connections and