Accounts & Vehicles
Insurance you still need and insurance you do not
Retirement changes which risks need transferring, and several policies bought during working life stop being necessary.
Accounts & Vehicles
401(k)s, IRAs, Roth conversions and where money should sit.
Accounts & Vehicles
Simplifying a portfolio you already have
Most portfolios accumulate holdings rather than being designed, and reducing the number is generally an improvement.
Accounts & Vehicles
Investment costs and what they actually take
Fees are the one element of investment returns that is knowable in advance, and they compound the same way returns do.
Accounts & Vehicles
Catch-up contributions and the last decade of saving
The years between fifty and retirement offer higher limits and, for many people, the highest capacity to use them.
Accounts & Vehicles
Saving when you are self-employed
The available accounts allow much larger contributions than an IRA, and most self-employed people use none of them.
Accounts & Vehicles
Consolidating accounts, and when not to
Most people accumulate accounts across a career, and combining them helps in several ways with a few genuine exceptions.
Accounts & Vehicles
Target date funds, examined
The default investment in most workplace plans, and a reasonable one, with differences between products that matter.
Accounts & Vehicles
Taxable accounts and why they matter more than people think
The account with no special tax status has several features that make it valuable in a retirement plan.
Accounts & Vehicles
Pensions, lump sums and the choice between them
A one-off, irreversible decision with a structure that can be analysed properly rather than guessed at.
Accounts & Vehicles
Health savings accounts as a retirement vehicle
The only account with three layers of tax advantage, and most holders use it as a spending account instead.
Accounts & Vehicles
IRAs, and the rules people get wrong
Individual retirement accounts have a set of eligibility and deduction rules that trip people up in predictable ways.
Accounts & Vehicles
Employer plans and what to check in yours
Most people accept the defaults in a workplace plan without examining them, and several of the defaults are worth changing.
Accounts & Vehicles
Traditional or Roth: what the decision actually turns on
The choice reduces to a comparison of tax rates now against tax rates later, with several complications that matter more than the headline.