Income Over Wealth

Medicare sets your premium from the tax return you filed two years earlier, so the taxable profit on a home sale can follow you into your first year of coverage. That makes 63 the year that decides your premium at 65, while a sale at 62 lands on a year Medicare never charges you for. This episode covers who actually gets caught, what the surcharge costs in 2026, and what to do before you sell.

• The $250,000 and $500,000 home sale exclusion, and why a cap frozen since 1997 now catches ordinary long-time owners
• What the surcharge costs at each 2026 tier, and the two-year window that protects a surviving spouse
• Why the SSA-44 appeal will not work for a home sale

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDBP5XD6Po8

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Most of the money taken from Americans over 60 is taken by someone they already know. That changes what money boundaries with your own family are actually for. This episode walks through six specific things worth keeping to yourself after 60, the mechanism behind why each one backfires, and what to do instead in every case. The point is keeping your retirement under your own control so you can help your kids from a position of strength.

• Why adding your child's name to your bank account exposes that money to their creditors and their divorce, and how it can cut your other kids out
• What long-term care actually runs per year, and how a few years of it can erase an inheritance you already promised out loud
• The line between telling your kids a plan exists and showing them what's in it, and why announcing the split early invites the exact fight you're trying to prevent

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URH6jRBXhFg

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

The idea that retirement starts a clock is one of the most repeated fears people carry into it. The studies built to test that idea find no spike in death risk on the day you retire, and the first year looks closer to a honeymoon. What the research does point to is a slower danger, and it shows up for people who leave a job for an empty calendar.

• Where the famous "retire at 65, dead by 66" statistic actually comes from, and why the scary version sticks in your head anyway
• The habits that keep you out of that group, including volunteering, phasing out of work, and having a retire-to plan
• The first-year trap, and why the risk builds after the honeymoon ends

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRlZgX0OKQA

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

If you've ever paid a mortgage, you already understand half of this. Someone on the other end held a piece of paper and got paid every month, with the house standing behind it. This episode walks through how that works when the person holding the paper is an individual instead of a bank, and how to evaluate a note deal yourself before a dollar moves.

• The two documents behind every note, and why the recorded one decides who gets paid first
• What happens when a borrower stops paying, and why the same default takes five months in one state and over five years in another
• Ten questions to run on any note deal, plus the scam pattern that should end a conversation on arrival

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0DFg8f--Fo

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

The purchases that drain a retirement plan are rarely the obvious splurges. This episode walks through seven of them, from the oversized house and the new luxury car to the vacation home, the timeshare, and the remodel right before you retire. You get the real math on each one, plus the honest exceptions worth making.

• Why the biggest house the bank approves is built for the bank's interest, and the smarter number to buy at
• The true weekly cost of a vacation home you use only a few weeks a year, and when renting is the better deal
• The one question that decides whether a purchase pays you or costs you for the rest of your life

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7xJ5Dp4CjU

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Losing a job before retirement can leave you better off than walking away on your own terms. Severance and unemployment only show up when the company ends it, and a single line on your exit paperwork decides whether you collect either one. This episode covers what that paperwork has to say, what to keep quiet about while the package is still in play, and how to turn a funded runway into a bigger retirement.

• The difference between fired, laid off, and quitting, and what it does to your severance and unemployment
• Why claiming Social Security the month you lose your job can cut your check about 30% for life
• How a year without a paycheck lets you move traditional savings into a Roth at a fraction of the tax you paid while working

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebcET1G2gFk

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Most families learn how nursing home costs work too late, usually in a hospital hallway. This episode breaks down the two parts of the trap: the Medicare coverage gap and Medicaid estate recovery. It also covers what the healthy spouse gets to keep and why one popular move, gifting the house to the kids, usually backfires.

• What Medicare actually covers in a nursing home, the 100-day cliff, and why it pays nothing for daily custodial care
• How Medicaid spend-down and estate recovery can put a lien on your "exempt" home after death, and what the healthy spouse keeps
• Why gifting the house away usually backfires, and the trust and five-year timing that actually protect it

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KINAVcLhNEo

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

This is the plain-English walkthrough of how a self-directed IRA actually works: what it can hold, what it really costs, and the prohibited-transaction rules that keep you safe. You'll see why operating a rental inside one is usually the wrong move, and why secured mortgage notes fit those same rules so well.

• Why your IRA can legally hold real estate, private mortgage notes, and private loans, plus the short list of things it can't
• The fee most people never see: how a "free" brokerage IRA can cost more than a self-directed custodian's flat fee
• Why running a rental inside an IRA wastes depreciation, 1031 exchanges, and capital-gains rates, and what to hold instead

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMpuNi_MDQY

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Retiring overseas gets sold as the move that makes a smaller nest egg work. This episode walks through the costs that don't show up on the cost-of-living blogs: healthcare, US taxes that follow you for life, currency swings, account access, visas and property, and the price of coming home, with the real numbers on each.

• Why the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion shelters almost none of a retiree's income, and what you still owe the IRS every year abroad
• How dropping Medicare to save money triggers a permanent penalty that can double your premium for life
• The exchange-rate and account-access traps that can erase the cost-of-living savings you moved for

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWd_5NDXuVw

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

The day your earned income stops, a whole stack of things disappears at once. Some you can rebuild in a year. A few close permanently, and the only time to deal with them is while you still have a paycheck coming in. This episode sorts twelve of them into what you can rebuild and what's gone for good.

• Which retirement-account and insurance doors close for good the day your earned income stops
• Why a market loss you'd shrug off while working can turn permanent once you retire, and the income floor that prevents it
• The 2026 ACA subsidy cliff (around $62,600 single / $84,600 for a couple) and why your bridge-year income decides which side you land on

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frLNdk0Seu8

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.