Sick and tired of worrying about health “reform”? Let me divert your attention with another “yuge” problem — Social Security. Social Security’s trustees just released their annual report. It’s a very long document, with the most important part buried deep in appendix table VIF1.
Frank and Sharon Sawyer are an entirely made-up 70-year-old retired couple living in Connecticut. Their financial situation looks pretty good, but it’s actually pretty bad. I’m going to see if I can help them with some money magic.
Are you 62 or over, house poor and barely making ends meet? If so, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claims to have the answer. It’s called a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, or HECM. HUD regulates HECMs, or at least it says it does.
We all have to decide when to call it quits. But it’s a very tricky decision. So let me give you a way to make it easy, via the following illustration.
In taking over Scott Burns’ column, I promised to perform some money magic — to show you ways to better manage your finances and safely raise your living standard. I can’t do this on a one-on-one basis.
Social Security is far more complicated than most people realize. In fact, it is so complicated that even PhD economists are losing tens of thousands of dollars because they don’t know how to maximize the benefits the system owes them.