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Grad School: Higher Degrees of Debt
Glenn Ruffenach
The New Retirement
How to Take Control of Your 401(k); Ruffenach: Chances are good the funds in your 401(k) yield only about 2 percent.
SmartMoney.comThis may surprise you, but there's a good chance you can take direct control of your nest egg at work, choosing investments beyond the two dozen or so mutual funds that most employers offer in their savings plans. Doing so can be risky, but ...
Talking to Mom About Alzheimer's and Her Money; Ruffenach on Alzheimer's impact: lost money, damaged credit, even foreclosure.
SmartMoney.comIncreasingly, my friends and I -- most of us in our mid- to late 50s -- are starting to see the same thing: elderly parents who are grappling with memory loss and finding it difficult to manage their finances. And most of us, I'm learning, ...
MLPs Offer Income, but They're Not Without Risks; Ruffenach: Master Limited Partnerships inspire many income seekers to drool. But foolproof, they're not.
SmartMoney.comI can't help but wonder if the insatiable appetite for income in later life is starting to cloud people's judgment. Case in point: master limited partnerships.
Strategies to Max Out Social Security Benefits; Ruffenach: Find out which Social Security claiming strategy will pay the most over a lifetime.
SmartMoney.comMuch of my mail these days seems to start with the same warm greeting: "What planet are you from?" That's invariably the case when I suggest that readers consider ways to maximize Social Security benefits instead of grabbing ...
Is the 4% Rule Still Viable? Ruffenach: A fresh look at the so-called 4% retirement-withdrawal rule.
SmartMoney.comSo ... you've put the finishing touches on your retirement plan, and you're set to withdraw 4% from savings each year, because that's what financial planners (and columnists) have long advised.
Some Long-Term-Care Insurance Is Better Than None; Ruffenach: Why shooting for the moon with long-term-care insurance might shoot you in the foot.
SmartMoney.comThe best is the enemy of the good. Or so said Voltaire, the French philosopher. I could be wrong, but...I think he was talking about long-term-care insurance -- and how to fix what is probably the biggest hole in your plans for retirement.
How to Get Your Retirement Back on Track; Ruffenach: 2012 should give you several chances to patch up plans for the future. Here's what to look for.
SmartMoney.comIf you weren't crazy about what 2011 did for your retirement finances, don't fret: The new year will offer some opportunities to get back on track.
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Financing Your Future; Taking Charge of Your Assets; Estate planning today calls for an early start, knowledge of your state's laws—and lots of flexibility
WSJ.comMany of the emails we receive from readers touch upon estate planning, a source of confusion and concern. With that in mind, we recently spoke with Rachel Emma Silverman, an editor and reporter at The Wall Street Journal and author of a new ...
How to Minimize Retirement's Hidden Costs; Some expenses never make it into our retirement calculations. How to plan for curveballs .
SmartMoney.comWhen I was a freshman in college, I took boxing classes. (It's a long story.) One fight, in particular, stands out in my memory: A right hook I never saw coming left me flat on my back. (It's fair to say I was no Mike Tyson in the ...
The Case for Downsizing Your Home; A lot of boomers want to wait til the housing market improves before downsizing, but the savings of a smaller home make long-term sense.
SmartMoney.comDo you love your home? I hope so. That said, chances are good you need to consider leaving it. Believe me, I don't enjoy writing that. But two critical failings in many retirement plans -- one you're all too familiar with, and one ...
Do-It-Yourself Annuities: A Blueprint; Income for life sounds pretty good, but traditional annuities lock up cash and can shortchange your heirs. How to craft one yourself.
SmartMoney.comFinancial advisers (and columnists) like to tell investors to build things. Build a portfolio. Build a bond ladder. Build an estate plan. One suggestion you're likely to hear more often is to build your own annuity. It's not ...
The New Rules of Estate Planning; Best moves for getting your estate in order, after the Tax Relief Act of 2010.
SmartMoney.comYou have to hand it to Congress: It's doing its best to turn one of the more wearying parts of retirement planning -- getting your estate in order -- into something of a party. The challenge for you and me is to stay clearheaded.
Retirement: It's Not All a Crapshoot; Fretting about Medicare and Social Security? Here are some aspects of your retirement you can control.
SmartMoney.comWant to hear some good news about retirement? You have more control over your future than you think. So much about retirement planning today is marked by doubt: We don't know whether our savings will see us through old age. We ...
Is Your Adviser Still Right for Your Retirement? The financial pro who gets you to your golden years may not be the right one to get you through them. Here's how to tell.
SmartMoney.comLet's say you get a call from your financial planner, who, concerned that markets are significantly overvalued, has decided to park 20 percent of your portfolio in cash. Your first reaction might be, "Sure, that sounds ...
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The good life; Tools to Help the World; Harvard is opening its doors to veteran leaders—and possibly changing higher education forever
WSJ.comSix years ago, three professors at Harvard Business School tackled a far-reaching question: How might the mission of a university change in the 21st century?
Medicare Won't Cover All Drug Costs; How to limit spending on prescription drugs and set aside more money for future health costs.
SmartMoney.comLooking to lower what promise to be some hefty health care expenses in later life? Focus on prescription drugs. You may already have seen some of the estimates about just how big your out-of-pocket medical bills could be after you leave the ...
The Best Way for Retirees to Leave the Workforce
SmartMoney.comLast year at this time, Ken Bottoms, senior vice president at First Horizon National, was working his usual five days a week at the Tennessee-based financial-services company. Last summer, though, he reduced his schedule to four-and-a-half ...
How to Test-Drive a Retirement Plan
SmartMoney.comHardly a week goes by without a new study landing on my desk indicating that a large number of workers—as many as 60 percent, according to one survey—are pushing back their retirement dates. I hate to say this, but that's likely a good ...
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Did You Hear the One About the Retired Real-Estate Agent? He became a stand-up comedian. And he has never been happier.
WSJ.comIt's an unseasonably cold night in early December in Buford, Ga., about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta. Temperatures outside the Buford Variety Theater, a comedy club, are in the low 30s, and the mood of the small crowd seated inside ...
The Medicare Cavalry
SmartMoney.comMy wife and I recently had our house painted. I might have been able to do the job myself; I even thought about it for a few crazy moments. In the end, though, given the time involved and the risks (I once took a nasty fall from a ladder), ...
How to Keep Cash Coming in Retirement
SmartMoney.comChances are good you have a large-cap fund as part of your nest egg—say, one based on the S&P 500. So, two quick questions: First, what direction has that fund been going in the past few months? (Up? Down? Sideways?) Second, what’s the ...
Don't Get Complacent With Retirement Funds
SmartMoney.comIf you look closely, you’ll see some good news these days about retirement finances. And that has me worried. I say this from the vantage point of The Wall Street Journal, where I’ve been lucky enough to cover the retirement beat for the past ...
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Four Simple Ways You Can Boost Your Nest Egg
WSJ.comMost investors know (or should know) the tried-and-true methods to help nest eggs grow. Shift money automatically from your paycheck to a savings plan; take advantage of your employer's matching contributions to 401(k) plans; eliminate ...
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Glenn Ruffenach
Glenn Ruffenach developed and now edits Next, The Wall Street Journal's guide to retirement planning and living.
Ruffenach joined the Journal in 1982 and has been a staff reporter, features editor and deputy bureau chief.
He is co-author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Wall Street Journal Complete Retirement Guidebook" and writes the New Retirement column for SmartMoney. He is a graduate of West Point.
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