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Articles by Sheyna Steiner
How I paid off over $40,000 in debt
I spend a lot of time thinking about saving money—saving for retirement especially. But if I’m being totally honest, I’ve never been much of a saver. Until, that is, a startlingly obvious observation hit me: My only long-term money goal, retirement, is being delayed by my spending. If I could spend less, I could retire sooner. The only problem? I had no idea how much I was spending. Sign up for Fidelity Viewpoints weekly email for our latest insights. I did know that I was burning through money.
8 ways to ruin your chances to retire
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict , this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here’s an explanation for If 50 is the new 30, then 80 must be the new 60. Good thing, because otherwise a lot of people won’t be retiring before they draw their last breath. Last year Bankrate’s Financial Literacy survey found that one in five people expect to work until they die.
Survey: How Do You Pay For Unexpected Expenses?
The washing machine broke, you chipped a tooth and the dog needs to visit a heart specialist. And that was just Tuesday. Unexpected expenses are almost guaranteed to occur, but few Americans are budgeting for them by stashing money in savings each week or month, the latest Money Pulse survey from Bankrate.com has found. Bankrate commissioned Princeton Survey Research Associates International to conduct its Money Pulse survey on budgeting and unexpected expenses.
Great Reasons For Investing In Stocks
Jan Cobb Photography Ltd/Getty Images 6 reasons to stop dawdling and invest Investing in the stock market is the only way most people have of building real wealth. The benchmark S&P 500 stock index has climbed 7.6 percent in the past six months, and strong economic data point to robust earnings for companies. The right stock investments: Keep pace with inflation. Reach your financial goals with the right mix of investments. Reduce investing risk with a solid asset allocation strategy.
Index Funds: How To Invest Like the Pros | Bankrate.com
Lucky you, if you’re in an index fund. The best-known market benchmarks, the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500, have been soaring to record highs, taking index-fund investors along for the ride. Investing is a straightforward process once you understand that index funds are a smart option for your portfolio. Index funds are mutual funds or exchange-traded funds that track an index, such as the S&P 500.
5 Alternative Asset Classes to Consider
Is alternative investing for you? If you're sick of stocks and bored by bonds, the universe of nontraditional investments could be for you -- or for part of your portfolio. In general, investments beyond the traditional stocks, bonds and cash are known as alternative asset classes and some experts say they could give your investing an edge. Alternative asset classes offer a wide range of possibilities, from racehorses and classic cars to commercial real estate and private equity.
Health savings account rules and regulations
For healthy people with a neat row of financial ducks and plenty of cash, health savings accounts, or HSAs, could be a retirement gift from the tax gods. It’s no secret that the body begins to break down in old age, likely leading to an abundance of medical expenses. A study by Fidelity Investments put the average dollar amount needed for this purpose for a couple who retired in 2015 at a jaw-dropping $245,000.
7 retirement investing mistakes to avoid at all costs
Getting ready to graduate and wondering if there’s a place for you at BlackRock, even with a liberal arts degree? Trust us, there is!
How to withdraw penalty-free from IRA or 401(k)
When unexpected expenses pile up and the emergency fund has been drained, where can you turn for money? For many people their biggest stash of savings is hidden away in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Unfortunately, the government imposes a 10 percent penalty on any withdrawals before age 59 1/2. Some early distributions qualify for a waiver of that penalty -- for instance hardships, higher education expenses and buying a first home.
Great Reasons For Investing In Stocks - Bankrate
Losing money in the stock market is not the biggest threat to your wallet. People without a large amount of money saved for retirement run the risk of outliving their savings. Those who invest only in very safe investments risk losing purchasing power to inflation.
9 IRA secrets every supersaver should know
IRAs are complicated retirement vehicles, which is why it's so easy zone out or get confused by their rules. Some misconceptions are harmless, while others can lead to serious tax blunders. Don't feel bad though; even financial advisers get tripped up by the intricate rules of IRAs. Figuring out how the accounts work and what's allowed could be a full-time job. As a result, the list of things most people don't know about IRAs could fill a book.
Generating income from a $500,000 portfolio
Throughout your career, the emphasis in retirement planning is on saving and investing. Once you retire, how do you make that pile of money last for 30 or 40 years? That’s a much bigger conundrum. Reconfiguring your investing strategy for retirement can be tricky. Unless you have the wealth of an oil magnate and can coast by on interest, gearing your portfolio for retirement is really a balancing act of growing investments, preserving capital and generating income.
10 Commandments Of Retirement Planning | Bankrate.com
Certain types of debt are toxic to building wealth. High-interest credit card debt can fester in your finances and cost more than can possibly be regained through saving and investing. Still, if you have access to a retirement account at work, take advantage of it.
Mortgage: Tips for first-time home buyers can bring success
You've decided to go for it. You know mortgage rates are enticingly low. Buying a home can be thrilling and nerve-wracking at the same time, especially for first-time home buyers - it's difficult to know exactly what to expect. Take these steps to make the process go more smoothly. Your credit score is among the most important factors when it comes to qualifying for a mortgage.
Pros And Cons Of Investing In Annuities | Bankrate.com
At face value, annuities offer a solid deal: guaranteed income for life. But they are not the most straightforward of products. Annuities can be a cash cow for insurance companies and the people who sell them -- making it important for you to understand them and trust your source of information. There may be less costly ways to reach the same outcome with another investing tool.
Pros and cons of annuities
Make money last: How to buy a pension By Jean Chatzky It's complex stuff, but here's a simple explanation: Imagine that 10 people at age 75 all invest $1,000 at 5 percent interest. Mortality credits should be viewed as a threshold investment return that is required to beat the income from the annuity, wrote Moshe Milevsky, associate professor of finance at the Schulich School of Business at York University.
Buy a Luxury Smart Toilet that Sells for $4,000?
Potty, loo, commode, porcelain throne. The toilet has many names but only one purpose, until now. Enter the luxury smart toilet. The future of the bathroom will be automated. Innovative new commodes come with washing and drying functions in addition to a host of high-tech and water-conserving features. Wait, Luxury Toilet? You may have been unaware that since 1989, Japanese plumbing product manufacturer Toto has been selling a line of toilet seats that double as bidets to American consumers.
What Is the Roth IRA 5 Year Rule?
The cinema provides movie goers with certain tenets to live by. From Gremlins: "Don't feed Mogwai after midnight." From Ghostbusters, "Don't cross the streams." And definitely, "Don't talk about Fight Club." These are the rules and everyone knows them. One rule that may be less well known is the 5-year rule for Roth IRAs. Breaking this rule won't turn your adorable pet into a gremlin, explode the molecules in your body or thrust you into an existential paradox. It can, however, be expensive.
How To Determine the Risk Capacity Of Your IRA Accounts
IRA investing is an entirely individual endeavor. Everyone's journey -- through the accumulation phase during their career, into the distribution phase during retirement -- is fairly unique. But there are some common themes. For instance, young people can often afford to take some risks in their retirement account, as it will be a very long time until the money is needed. At the other end, people nearing their retirement date typically avoid excessive stock market exposure.
Asset Location In Taxable Accounts
"To understand how you should be allocating or locating investments, is to understand the account types," says Phillip Christenson, CFA, financial planner and portfolio manager at Phillip James Financial in Plymouth, Minnesota. Retirement accounts such as Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s give investors tax-free income in retirement. Investments in these vehicles are made with money that you've already paid taxes on. "In a traditional IRA, the opposite would happen.
Stock Market Basics For Beginners
For beginners, the stock market can seem incredibly lucrative, risky and confusing. Following a few stock market basics can protect you from common pitfalls and keep you excited about learning to invest. Look at your entire financial picture Turning a profit on an investment is a great feeling. But investments don't exist in a vacuum. They're a piece of an overall financial life. People should operate their finances like a business, says Fabian Knopfler, founder of Lions Wealth Management of David A.
Mortgage: How does credit score affect your mortgage rate?
Mortgage: How does credit score affect your mortgage rate? The most influential determinant of your mortgage rate is your credit score. Borrowers with high credit scores tend to get lower interest rates on mortgages than borrowers with low credit scores. A credit score of 740 or higher qualifies for the best interest rates from most lenders. It is difficult, but possible, to get a mortgage with a credit score under 620.
Is Your Financial Adviser Tech Savvy Enough For You?
Is your financial adviser tech savvy enough for you? Welcome to the future. If your financial adviser isn't a cyborg, he or she may soon be. While your adviser won't have any robotic body parts, the best financial advisers in the very near future will offer the convenience and connectivity of robo-advisers with the traditional warm and fuzzy feelings of a human relationship. Want the traditional monthly or quarterly statement in the mail and a yearly check-up with the adviser?
How Your Credit Score Affects Your Mortgage Rate -- Mortgage Basics
The most influential determinant of your mortgage rate is your credit score. The higher your credit score, the lower the interest rate. Monthly principal and interest payments on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for $200,000 Not only is a high credit score vital in getting a low mortgage rate, it influences whether you can get a home loan at all. Buyers below a certain threshold, typically a FICO score of 620, have a better chance of striking oil in their bathtub than securing a mortgage.
What Is the Gross Profit Margin Formula?
Investors usually buy companies they believe will make money, preferably lots of money at the lowest possible cost to the business. Knowing that a company earns oodles of money selling gadgets or gizmos isn't enough, though. Investors need to know how much it costs to make those sales, for instance, in the form of purchasing inventory or production.
The Fed puts rates on ice
After raising interest rates in December for the first time since the financial crisis and Great Recession, the Federal Reserve has gone into a January freeze. The central bank on Wednesday announced no change in interest rates, meaning the target for the Fed's benchmark federal funds rate will remain between 0.25% and 0.50%, the range set last month. For consumers, the outcome of this week's meeting means more of the same.
Save Cash By Reuse Food Containers To Save Cash
It can be frustrating to buy things that don't get used, even more so when the unused purchases are food. Every scrap of waste is like throwing money into the trash. Pope Francis put it in even more succinctly in 2013 when he said that "Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry," according to the online version of the Daily Telegraph.
Crowdsourced index beat S&P 500
One year isn't enough time to declare victory in the investment world, but it is enough time to stir up some intrigue. Since its inception 1 year ago, a new index powered by crowdsourced investment ideas outperformed the S&P 500 by nearly 1.5%. The CrowdInvest Wisdom Index is harnessed to an app that lets users vote on investment ideas. The index is open to all stocks listed in the U.S. with an average daily trading volume of $15 million or more over the preceding 20 days.
Where To Open An IRA: Bank, Fund Firm Or Broker Dealer?
Nearly every financial institution allows you to open an IRA. "A traditional bank, or online brokers like E-Trade or a traditional mutual fund company or broker dealer -- all of those offer IRAs," says Jamie Hopkins, professor of retirement at the American College. "A traditional bank is fine if you want a CD, but CDs aren't for many people now.
Naming a Trust as Your IRA Beneficiary
Trusts and individual retirement accounts are complicated. When they converge -- for instance, when someone names a trust as a beneficiary to an IRA -- things can go very wrong, and that can be very expensive. "The first thing I tell clients to do is not to do it," says attorney James Davis, a shareholder and practice leader at Gunster, a law firm headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida. "Trusts as beneficiaries of IRAs can be very complicated.
IRA Accounts For Newbies: Everything You Need To Know
Eat more vegetables. Exercise 3 times per week. Save for retirement. Unlike restrictive diets or torturous yoga positions, saving for retirement can be relatively painless with the use of tax-advantaged individual retirement accounts, or IRAs. What is an IRA? An individual retirement account, or IRA, is a type of investment or savings account that comes with tax benefits to help you save for retirement. The specific tax benefit depends on the type of IRA: Roth, traditional or nondeductible.
Fed gives the economy a ‘B’
It's a big country and various parts of it are doing better than others. Overall though, according to the Beige Book from the Federal Reserve, economic activity is mostly expanding. The B-grade economic report card from the nation's central bankers will factor into their deliberations on interest rates later this month. The Fed is widely expected to leave rates alone, following last month's first rate increase in nearly a decade.
DOL to continue fiduciary fight in 2016
Last year was notable for many reasons, but people in the advice-giving business may remember 2015 as the year the fiduciary fight got real. The fiduciary standard put forward by the Department of Labor is extremely important for retirement investors, but few people seem to tune in to regulatory skirmishes for some reason. People in the financial industry are unhappy with the rule that was proposed and are all waiting with bated breath for a resolution.
Retirement Success - What Does It Take To Enjoy Retirement?
Retirement brings a whole new dynamic to life. People who prospered in the workplace may feel overwhelmed by the wide-open spaces of retirement. On the other hand, those who were not happy with the nine-to-five grind can flourish in the freedom that retirement offers. Without the daily hustle of commuting and deadlines at work, retirees may find that their new job is figuring out a fresh identity and discovering what makes life meaningful and enjoyable.
Will I Save Money By Swiping Condiments and Napkins?
Swiping condiments will not put you ahead when purchasing prepared food. For instance, here's the math on a cup of coffee: That comes out to about $0.23 per cup of homebrewed coffee. Adding 1 ounce of sugar to the cup costs about $0.04. Even factoring in higher prices for fancier sweeteners, it's a losing proposition to pay dollars for something that costs pennies to make at home. No number of sugar packets can make up for it.
Bowie pioneered asset-backed securities
The world got shocking news on Monday with the report that music icon David Bowie died after battling cancer for 18 months. His official Twitter account broadcast the news. Though he pushed boundaries in music and fashion, David Bowie wasn't just a musical pioneer. He also experimented with financial innovations, linking Wall Street and rock and roll. In 1997 Bowie sold the rights to future income from the 25 albums he recorded before 1990.
Survey: How Do You Pay For Unexpected Expenses?
The washing machine broke, you chipped a tooth and the dog needs to visit a heart specialist. And that was just Tuesday. Unexpected expenses are almost guaranteed to occur, but few Americans are budgeting for them by stashing money in savings each week or month, the latest Money Pulse survey from Bankrate.com has found. Bankrate commissioned Princeton Survey Research Associates International to conduct its Money Pulse survey on budgeting and unexpected expenses.
Bond Rates To Edge Higher In 2016
What will happen to bonds in 2016? Next year may be a bumpy ride for fixed income. In 2016, the drivers of volatility will be the Fed and the economy. "We are expecting a lot of uncertainty around the path of rates and when the Fed will hike rates (again)," says George Rusnak, co-head of global fixed income at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. He forecasts that 10-year U.S. Treasury notes will end 2016 from 2.5% to 2.75% after hitting 2.24% in late December 2015.
Correct an IRA Mistake With a Private Letter Ruling
With the goal of doing a 60-day rollover, you have a check cut from your IRA. As you make your way to the new broker, space aliens whisk you away to party on their ship for 3 months. After a harrowing trip home, you realize you have missed the 60-day deadline the IRS imposes for once-a-year IRA rollovers. Is this the end of your tax-advantaged retirement account? You may not be entirely out of luck -- though your detour may be difficult to prove to the IRS.
Are You Making One of These Common IRA Mistakes? | Bankrate.com
The most widely used types of IRAs are the Roth and the traditional IRAs. Both accounts allow annual contributions of $5,500 in 2016, but they receive different tax treatment. In a nutshell, Roth IRA contributions are made with after-tax money, while contributions to a traditional IRA may qualify for a tax deduction for the year the contribution was made. Contributions to an IRA for the 2016 tax year must be made by the tax-filing deadline in April.
10 Retirement Tips For 2017 | Bankrate.com
Call it an assessment, checkup or discovery, but a key part of planning for retirement is taking an overall look at what's going on. See where your money is invested, check the performance and scrutinize your contributions. Online tools, such as Bankrate's best retirement calculator or retirement income calculator, can help you to see if you are on track to accumulate enough money to meet your expenses and the live you want to live in retirement.
Spend Retirement Savings To Get Social Security At 70?
Waiting until age 70 to claim a Social Security benefit gives retirees a big pay raise. There's a whopping 76% difference between the monthly benefit paid at age 62 and the benefit paid at age 70, according to Steven Sass, Ph.D., program director at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. It's a big leap for a risk-free, inflation-proof paycheck. But what if you want to quit working before age 70?
Branch Banking Still Strong Among Americans
Going to the bank is basically like traveling to California by stagecoach or having milk delivered to your door straight from the dairy. A relic from another time, right? Not so much. Despite the shift to online and mobile banking, bank branches continue to exist and many people still go to them. In fact, only about 1 in 5 Americans has gone an entire year without visiting a bank branch, Bankrate's Financial Security Index for December shows.
Avoid IRA Missteps, Misadventures And Calamities
What not to do with your IRA Sometimes bad money judgment hurts no one. The pricy suit that was purchased and never worn or the expensive dinners bought for the person you now despise may cause pangs of regret. But your future is basically no worse off in the wake of these questionable choices. Bad decisions in your IRA account, however, can have lasting effects that can haunt you to your grave. An IRA is basically a time capsule, sealed up now for future use to fund your life after you leave work.
Fed delivers highly anticipated rate hike
Interest rates are on the way up after 7 full years near 0%: The rate-setting group at the central bank has voted to raise the federal funds rate, the Fed's benchmark interest rate. It's the first increase in rates since 2006, more than a year before the breakout of the financial crisis that led to an era of rock-bottom borrowing costs. The short-term rate controlled by the Fed will now target between 25 and 50 basis points, up from 0 to 25 basis points. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1%.
Is Investing In a Gold IRA a Good Idea?
Some conspiracy theorists speculate that humans were put on Earth to mine gold for aliens. That would partly explain people's fervent obsession with the stuff, including investing in gold. As jewelry, gold shines. But as an investment, the track record is mixed. "From a return basis, the return on gold has been less than other investment asset classes and is volatile and cyclical," says Matt Rinkey, founder and president of Illumination Wealth Management in San Diego.
Eating Less To Save Money?
Recently, researchers at the University of Southern California found that periodic fasting, or a diet that mimics it, can slow some of the symptoms of aging. "Some recent studies show that short-term fasting, as well as calorie restriction, can greatly reduce levels of body chronic inflammation that contributes to many diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, insulin resistance, Alzheimer's disease and others.
The 411 on Roth 401(k) conversions
When President Barack Obama signed a bill in September 2010 allowing conversions of 401(k) funds to a Roth 401(k), plan participants faced a decision: Should they convert their 401(k) or 403(b) plan to a Roth? If you're considering this move, it may or may not be available to you. In the first place, your employer plan must include a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b) option for all its workers. Many still do not. And separately, your plan must allow such a conversion.
The 411 on Roth 401(k) Conversions
When President Barack Obama signed a bill in September 2010 allowing conversions of 401(k) funds to a Roth 401(k), plan participants faced a decision: Should they convert their 401(k) or 403(b) plan to a Roth? If you're considering this move, it may or may not be available to you. In the first place, your employer plan must include a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b) option for all its workers. Many still do not. And separately, your plan must allow such a conversion.
Expect Retirement Health Care Costs To Be Outrageous
Expect retirement health care costs to be higher than you think An American hoping to retire soon can look forward to spending more than a quarter of a million dollars on health care over the rest of his life. People who are young now will probably spend a lot more than that. That's just a base line: The couple of hundred grand you'll drop on health care does not include extras such as dental care, vision and hearing. How much will health care cost in retirement?
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