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Please click on the thumbnail to the left to see a sample of Page 4 of Your Social Security Statement. The numbers highlighted in red are explained, and expanded upon, in the post below.

Medicare is made up of two separate programs:

• Part A coverage is for hospitalization.
• Part B is for doctors’ services and other services, such as, surgeon fees and physical therapy.

Long term care (LTC) coverage is not included with Medicare and must be purchased separately. As part of the financial planning process, I often model the costs of buying LTC coverage. This is probably the single biggest potential drain on a person’s assets later in life, if they have to self fund a nursing home stay.

Continue Reading “Page 4 of ‘Your Social Security Statement’”

Please click on the thumbnail to the left to see a sample of Page 3 of Your Social Security Statement. The numbers highlighted in red are explained, and expanded upon, in the post below.

In this section you see Wanda’s earnings record. She has been working and paying social security taxes since 1982. You can also see that her 2006 numbers have not been recorded; sometimes this statement goes out before the SSA has had a chance to update it.

You can see a separate column for your taxed social security earnings and your taxed Medicare earnings. Social Security hits you for a 6.2% tax and Medicare hits you for another 1.45%. Continue Reading “Page 3 of ‘Your Social Security Statement’”

Please click on the thumbnail to the left to see a sample of Page 2 of Your Social Security Statement. The numbers highlighted in red are explained, and expanded upon, in the post below.

This is an estimate of Wanda’s retirement benefits if she took:

• early retirement- at age 62 it would be $975 a month
• normal retirement- at age 67 it would be $1412 a month
• delayed retirement- at age 70 it would be $1761 a month

Obviously, the sooner you retire, the lesser the benefit. Benefits are reduced by 5/9 of a percent for every month that a worker begins receiving benefits before normal retirement.

Continue Reading “Page 2 of ‘Your Social Security Statement’”

Please click on the thumbnail to the left to see a sample of Page 1 of Your Social Security Statement. The numbers highlighted in red are explained, and expanded upon, in the post below.

(It’s best to keep 2 tabs open in your browser and bounce back and forth between page 1 of the Social Security document and the highlighted sections in this post.)

Enjoy…

This is your customized social security statement, prepared especially for you.

A summary of what you can expect to find inside this 4 page document.

It’s important that the social security administration has the right earnings information for you. On page 3 of this statement you will see a history of your earnings. If any of those numbers seem wrong, back check the numbers versus your W-2 or tax return for that year. Continue Reading “Page 1 of ‘Your Social Security Statement’”

Do you know what Your Social Security Statement is?

You know, the stylish 4 page booklet (you get each year) with the rich green trim on the top and bottom of the statement.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, let’s see if I can help to jar your memory.

It’s the annual statement you receive from the Social Security Administration, that explains what social security is, how it impacts you and what kind of benefits you can expect to receive in the future.

Continue Reading “Understanding ‘Your Social Security Statement’”

Many mutual funds distribute their capital gains near the end of the calendar year, typically in November and December.

If you’re a mutual fund shareholder, it’s important to check with your fund family to see whether or not your fund is going to have a capital gains distribution at year’s end; if so on what day it will occur.

Many funds will give you an estimate ahead of time, detailing the size of the distribution. Here’s a link to a page that details the different short and long term capital gains for the fund family ING and when the fund distributions will occur.

As you can see, there’s a huge difference between the total capital gains for the ING Diversified International Fund (.17%) and the ING International Small Cap Fund (7.89%). Do you think it might be important to be aware of something like that if you’re an ING fund holder? I’d say so.

Continue Reading “An ETF Tax Swap Idea for the Holidays!”

Since this is a holiday shortened week I won’t be posting much. I plan to put up this mini post, another piece tomorrow, and maybe one more towards the end of the week.

Reassuring clients

Not to mention, there has been a tremendous amount of market volatility lately that has kept me very busy speaking with many of my clients, which brings me to the point of this post.

In my opinion, during rocky times like these, is when a good financial advisor earns his keep. A good financial advisor makes sure clients can always see the forest from the trees.

Continue Reading “Dealing with the ups and downs of this market”

Generation X Finance and my blog have a lot in common. Most of our posts are targeting the same demographic (GenXer’s) and our objective is eerily similar.

His tag line states, “helping a unique generation achieve financial independence.” And my goal is more or less the same thing. Take a look at my About widget over there to the right and see for yourself.

I remember, back in late June, brainstorming different names for my blog and coming across Generation X Finance. For half a second I was disappointed because I thought someone beat me to the idea. Yes I was a bit naive when it came to blogging, but I’m getting better.

Continue Reading “Blog Review: Generation X Finance”

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has been around since early 2005.

The site’s author has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, as well as RealMoney— a site that I’ve read almost every weekday for the past 5 years.

This blog has a different feel than some of the others I subscribe to. This blog is definitely a bit more edgy and the more I read the more I like. Blueprint has a lot more articles that I would categorize under the heading of investment related advice.

Continue Reading “Blog Review: Blueprint for Financial Prosperity”

Moolanomy is a bit smaller than the two previously reviewed blogs, but then again so is every personal finance blog in the universe.

I like the very personal approach he takes to sharing his goals with his audience. I remember the first time I went to this site and saw the ‘road to a million dollars’ widget and the percentage he’d achieved so far.

I thought that was very cool and definitely got me interested in the rest of his site.

A bit of a coincidence

Moolanomy started on July 10th of this year (only one day after my first post) and this guy dove in head first. It’s kind of funny because he only lives 10.1 miles from me (I mapquested it), which means around the 4th of July there were 2 guys walking around Queens, NY bursting with ideas that needed an outlet, getting ready to change the world… haha.

Continue Reading “Blog Review: Moolanomy”