Your guide for retirement news, insights, and resources
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The Art of Letting Go: How Simplifying Can Boost Your Retirement Well-Being
When it comes to retirement planning, most of the focus is on saving money, maximizing investments, and preparing for the future. But what about simplifying your life now? Decluttering both physical and mental spaces can significantly reduce stress and improve your focus, giving you the clarity to align your decisions with what truly matters for…
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DIY or Delegate? How to Decide Which Financial Tasks to Take On Yourself
There’s a lot of buzz about taking control of your finances – and for good reason. Knowledge is power, and being hands-on with your money can save you time and fees. But not everything should be a do-it-yourself project. Here’s how to decide what’s worth tackling solo and when it’s smarter to call in the…
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The Emotional Side of Estate Planning: Passing Down Values Alongside Your Assets
By now, you’ve seen how estate planning can save your loved ones from unnecessary headaches and keep your hard-earned money where you want it. But let’s face it: while the financial side of things is critical estate planning is also about something bigger. It’s your chance to leave behind more than just money – it’s…
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The Hidden Costs of Poor Planning: Titling of Assets and Avoiding Probate Pitfalls
So, you’ve got a will, maybe even a trust, and you’re feeling good about your estate plan. But here’s the thing: how your assets are titled can completely derail even the best-laid plans. This part of estate planning doesn’t get much attention, but it’s one of the most critical steps if you want to avoid…
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Charity Scams – Giving Safely as the Year Ends
The holiday season is a time of generosity, with many of us eager to support causes close to our hearts. Unfortunately, it’s also a prime time for scammers to exploit this goodwill. Fake charities and fraudulent campaigns spike at year-end, preying on the uptick in donations. Here’s how to protect yourself while ensuring your contributions…
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The Science of Slow: Why Rushing Less Could Be Your Secret Superpower
For most of your life, rushing probably felt like the default. Deadlines, meetings, family obligations—it’s a constant sprint to keep up. But retirement offers something unique: the opportunity to slow down. The challenge? Many retirees find it surprisingly hard to shift gears. Consider the wisdom of the turtle: a creature celebrated across cultures for its…
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Learning to Say ‘No’ in Retirement: The Hidden Key to Happiness
Retirement is often seen as a time of endless freedom, but for many, it can quickly become a whirlwind of commitments. Babysit the grandkids? Sure. Volunteer for that committee? Of course. Help a friend move? Why not? The reality is that saying “yes” to everything can leave retirees drained, overwhelmed, and far from the happiness…
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Porch Pirates and Fake Delivery Notifications – Securing Your Holiday Gifts
The convenience of online shopping makes holiday preparation easier, but it also opens the door to porch pirates and delivery scams. Here’s how to outsmart them this season. Porch piracy spikes during the holidays when thieves take advantage of unattended deliveries. A single stolen package can ruin the joy of gift-giving and cost you hundreds…
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Gift Card Scams – Don’t Let Scammers Steal Your Holiday Cheer
Gift cards are a favorite holiday gift, but they’re also a favorite tool for scammers. Every year, thousands of people lose money to fraudsters who use clever tricks to steal from unsuspecting buyers. Let’s break down how these scams work and how you can protect yourself. How Gift Card Scams HappenScammers often impersonate someone you…
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The Weight of Worry: Managing Stress as Retirement Approaches
Retirement: a word that conjures dreams of freedom, relaxation, and fulfillment—but also an undercurrent of uncertainty. For many nearing this milestone, worry becomes a persistent companion. Will my money last? How will I fill my days? What happens if my health declines? These concerns are more than fleeting thoughts; they can evolve into chronic stressors…
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Financial Clean-Up Season
The end of the year tends to push people into two camps – those ready to sprint toward resolutions, and those too exhausted to think about it. Instead of resolutions we like to use December as a time for maintenance. No matter where you are in your financial journey, clearing out the clutter can help…
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Money Mindset: Tis the Season of Spending Traps: How to Protect Your Wallet When Everything Says “Buy Now”
If you’ve joined one of our Behavior and Budgeting sessions, you’ve heard us talk about how money stress drives decision-making, and how biases – especially around scarcity and self-worth – shape the choices we make. As we head into peak holiday shopping season, in what remains a deeply challenging economic environment, this is the moment…
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The Real Cost of Kids: Plans, Boundaries, and Holiday Sanity
When people think about starting a family, the big financial questions usually come to mind first: Do we need a bigger home? Can we afford daycare? Should we start saving for college? Those are huge, and they matter. But what most parents discover once kids hit school age is something different – the slow, steady…
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Money Milestones
Over the past few weeks we’ve been laying a foundation. Money Without a Map was about finding your bearings, and The Debt Dilemma dug into how to get out from under the weight of balances. Once you’ve done even a little of that work, the next logical question is: how do I know if I’m…
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The Debt Dilemma: Why the ‘Solutions’ Don’t Add Up
Debt…it’s everywhere, it’s confusing, and it’s dangerous because desperation can make anything look like a solution. Even people who are trying to be careful – who shop on reputable loan sites, who see “FDIC insured” attached to a bank name – can still end up in a mess. FDIC coverage only protects deposits if a…
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Money Without a Map: A Guide to Staying Afloat
Money and health are two of the biggest parts of our lives. But only one of them comes with a system. If you wake up with chest pain, you don’t have to decide on your own whether it’s indigestion or a heart attack. You know you can walk into an emergency room and be told…
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Identity Theft 2.0: Why It’s Getting Worse, Not Better
Last year, we did a subscriber-only issue on identity theft. Since then, the problem hasn’t slowed – it’s escalated. In the past few months alone, several data breaches have been reported, including TransUnion – one of the very credit bureaus that sells consumers monitoring services. At My Retirement Network, track this space closely. We deliver…
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Life Insurance and Long-Term Care: More Connected Than You Think
Life insurance is usually framed as protection for the people you leave behind. It pays a death benefit to your family, helping them cover bills, pay off a mortgage, or replace lost income. But when you look at long-term care, life insurance can sometimes become a tool for the living – a way to access…
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What Long-Term Care Really Looks Like
When people hear “long-term care,” they picture a nursing home late in life. A vague image of wheelchairs and hospital beds, something that only matters in your 90s. The reality is more complicated, more expensive, and much closer than most people think. Long-term care is any help with the basic activities of daily living –…
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Financial Rules of Thumb: Guidelines, Not Guarantees
Rules of thumb exist for a reason. They’re quick, simple, and easy to remember – “save 10% of your income,” “spend no more than 30% on housing,” “withdraw 4% in retirement.” The problem is, life rarely fits into neat percentages. What works as a guidepost can fail completely once you apply it to real situations,…
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Don’t Let Your Financial Recovery Make You Vulnerable: When Help Searches Become Targets
Most people know not to click unknown links or download attachments from strangers. What’s harder to see is how scammers find you in the first place. They don’t need to hack your computer or break into your accounts. They watch your online behavior — the searches you run, the forms you fill out, the ads…
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The Mental Weight of Holding the Line
In every family, someone ends up being the person who keeps an eye on the budget. Sometimes it’s one parent, sometimes it’s both, and sometimes the role shifts depending on the season. But whoever is holding the line knows how heavy it feels. It’s not just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s about emotion, timing,…
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Beyond Policies: Building a Real Long-Term Care Plan
Last week we looked directly at long-term care: what it really looks like, how much it costs, and the hidden burden on families. This week we’ve focused on how insurance connects to that reality – life insurance with its riders and cash value options, and disability insurance that protects income long before retirement. But here’s…
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The Hidden Price of Family Caregiving
When most people think about long-term care, they imagine bills from nursing homes or assisted living facilities. But in the United States, the majority of care is not provided by professionals. It is provided by family. According to AARP, nearly 38 million Americans serve as unpaid caregivers for an adult relative each year. Collectively, they…
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Why Quick Financial Fixes Feel Good – and Why Algorithms Keep Serving Them Up
If you’ve ever searched “how to get out of debt” or “best savings account,” you know what happens next. Your social media feed magically shifts. Suddenly the videos and ads look tailored to your situation: debt relief programs, credit repair offers, high-yield savings accounts, investing hacks. It feels like coincidence, but it isn’t. The algorithms…
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The Risks Your Portfolio Can’t Cover
A retirement plan can tell you how to replace a paycheck, cover your bills, and keep your investments on track. What it can’t do is make sure someone shows up when you need help getting dressed, recovering from surgery, or making it to a doctor’s appointment when you can no longer drive. We like to…
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Keeping Up Without Jumping First
Finance isn’t fashion. You don’t get points for being the first to try the newest thing, and rushing into untested strategies can do real damage. But pretending the landscape isn’t changing is just as risky. The challenge for professionals and do-it-yourselfers alike is knowing when to move from “watch and learn” to “time to act.”…
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Annuity Riders: What They Add, What They Cost, and Who They’re For
Annuity riders get pitched like optional upgrades – just add this feature and your contract does more. More income, more growth, more protection. But what they really do is add complexity and cost, and often shift the conversation from “What does this contract do?” to “What might this contract eventually do under specific conditions?” That’s…
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Mind the Healthcare Gap: Tools for Planning, Catching Up, or Hanging On
Healthcare in the U.S. is expensive, often unpredictable, and full of blind spots – even when you technically have coverage. For some, the challenge is figuring out how to prepare for the what-ifs. For others, it’s about staying afloat when you’re already facing bills and stress you didn’t plan for. Let’s walk through a few…
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Pre-IPO Scams: What Looks Exclusive Is Often Just Fraud
Pre-IPO investing has become a popular marketing pitch – especially over the last year. The idea is simple: get access to a company before it goes public. The SEC has issued repeated warnings about so-called “pre-IPO” opportunities being offered to individual investors. They’re still seeing complaints. And they’re still taking enforcement actions. These are not…
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