RetirementRevised

The podcast is back this week with the first new episode since February.

I’m breaking my radio silence with a special guest. Jill Schlesinger reports on personal finance for CBS television and radio, and she’s the host of the very popular radio show Jill on Money. She has just published The Great Money Reset - Change your Work, Change your Wealth, Change Your Life, a book about how to re-think - well, everything in the wake of the pandemic.

I interviewed Jill for a recent New York Times story about starting a business later in life. That story was about how solo entrepreneurship can improve your retirement, by helping you delay a Social Security claim and saving and investing. These strategies are a central theme of Retirement Reboot.

Jill offered some wonderful insights about how to engineer a transition like that from a financial standpoint. But her book goes much wider than that. In this podcast interview, we discussed some of the transitions that have been meaningful in Jill’s own life, and I made sure to get some good financial tips that I hope you’ll find helpful.

I’ll be back with more podcast episodes later in the summer, and the newsletter will be arriving in your inbox periodically between now and Labor Day. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jill Schlesinger.

Click the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to our conversation.

Retirement Reboot: The podcast

Earlier this year, I produced a series of six podcast episodes focusing on the key themes of Retirement Reboot. It includes episodes on Social Security optimization, navigating Medicare, saving for retirement and more. You can find all six episodes here, or Apple Podcasts, Spotify or IHeart Radio.

What I’m reading

Social Security COLA for 2024 is estimated at 3.1% . . . Moving is a big task for many older Americans - these organizers can help . . . Thoughts from Steve Vernon on how to recession-proof your retirement.

This week, the newsletter features the last episode of the Retirement Rebootcast - the special podcast series on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. 

Retirement Reboot is chock full of practical strategies for your retirement plan. But in the last chapter of the book, I argue that we also must pay attention to public policy on our key social insurance programs. And, I lay out my vision for expanding Social Security and pushing back against the growing privatization of Medicare - something I regard as antithetical to the very concept of social insurance.

My guests for this episode are two top experts on Social Security and Medicare who have a terrific sense of the historical trajectory of both programs. Judith Stein is the executive director and founder of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, one of the nation’s most important consumer protection and policy organizations working on Medicare. Nancy Altman is president of Social Security Works, which advocates for protection and expansion of Social Security. Nancy is one of the most knowledgeable people in the United States on Social Security. She is the author of several authoritative books on Social Security, and she serves on the Social Security Advisory Board, a nonpartisan federal agency that advises the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security.

I invited Judy and Nancy to join me for a discussion of social insurance - past, present and future. Click the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to the episode. You also can find the RetirementRevised.com podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The entire six-part podcast series is now online. I hope you’ve enjoyed all of these conversations with experts on key retirement topics, but in case you missed any of them, here are links to earlier episodes.

* Introduction: An overview of the book featuring a conversation with Chris Farrell, senior economics contributor for Marketplace, the public radio program. Chris wrote the foreward to Retirement Reboot.

* Let’s Make a Plan. Far too many people don’t take the time to make an actual financial plan for retirement – and that’s a real misstep.

* Optimizing Social Security. For most of us, Social Security will be the most important retirement benefit – full stop. Decisions about when to claim can make a big difference in your lifetime income.  

* Navigating Medicare. Along with Social Security, there’s nothing that will have a more important impact on your retirement security than making smart choices about navigating Medicare. The centrist thinking on social insurance reform that really isn’t

* Building Savings. Starting as early as possible is the name of the game when it comes to saving for retirement. But if you’re getting close to retirement and haven’t been able to save much, don’t despair: it is still possible to build significant savings late in the game.

* Toward a New Social Insurance Era. The argument for expanding Social Security, and for pushing back against the growing privatization of Medicare (today’s episode).

Beware the centrist arguments on Social Security reform

The Washington Post published an editorial this week laying out an approach to reforming Social Security and Medicare that typifies what passes for “centrist” thinking about these programs in Washington these days. It’s wrong in so many ways, but here are the most egregious elements that caught my eye:

* The Post seems to favor a behind-closed-doors "super-committee" tasked with proposing solutions for up or down vote. That’s just a way for lawmakers to avoid accountability - we need transparent, open debate on these issues so we know where each and every politician stands. The "super-committee" idea allows lawmakers to "hold hands and jump off the cliff together," as they like to say, making unpopular and unwarranted cuts to social insurance programs. Let's debate the issues in the open and see who wants to cut benefits, and who does not.

* The editorial conflates the financial issues facing these two programs - but they are very different. Social Security is funded mostly from payroll tax contributions, while Medicare funding is a hybrid of payroll taxes (Part A), and general revenue and premiums (Part B and Part D). The financial pressures affecting these two programs differ, and need to be thought about and addressed separately.

* The Post seems to think that raising the Medicare age is a reasonable idea, suggesting that this would simply mirror the Social Security full retirement age (67 for those born after 1960.). But unifying the retirement ages for the two programs really makes no sense. Workers could still file for Social Security anytime from 62 to 70, and that wouldn't change.

There will be a push at some point to increase the Social Security full retirement age further, to age 70. Any change of that type most likely will affect younger workers, not people nearing retirement or already retired. And younger workers really need to pay attention this. The 1983 reforms that boosted the Social Security retirement age to 67 from 65 already has cut benefits by 13% for everyone born 1960 or later. GenX, Millenial and younger generations should realize they're already on track to get less out of the program than previous generations did. And younger workers certainly should oppose a higher Medicare age, which would push millions into higher-cost and less robust ACA policies after they retire while waiting for Medicare at 67.

The underlying idea that "everyone is living longer" and therefore "we all will be working longer" is false. Yes, higher-educated, more affluent people are living and working longer. But that's not true across the board. Vast majority of workers have filed for Social Security by their full retirement age.

Retirement Reboot in the news

There are no miracles, quick fixes for retirement saving. Chris Farrell reviews Retirement Reboot in his Minneapolis Star-Tribune column.

What I’m reading

The next retirement communities won’t just be for seniors . . . Target date funds had a rocky 2022 . . . Fed's interest-rate hikes make T-bills an attractive, safer investment . . . GoodRx leaked health data to Facebook and Google . . . Why states need master plans for aging . . . Government lets health plans that ripped off Medicare keep the money . . . Short on cash, more Americans tap 401(k) savings for emergencies . . . The market tanked, but Americans kept piling money into their 401(k)s . . . Mark Cuban and Amazon are shaking up generic drugs . . . Green funds cost three times more than you think . . . SEC puts dual-registered advisors on notice in risk alert . . . Retirees lost millions to romance scams during the pandemic . . . Navigating the first year of retirement, a couple hops on a tandem bike . . . The medicine is a miracle, but only if you can afford it.

Hello, and welcome to the Retirement Reboot-cast. That’s what I’m calling this special podcast series on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. The book was just published in January , so I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the show to talk about some of its key ideas. 

I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything - for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.

The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. 

But on this episode, let’s talk about investing for retirement - even if you’re getting a late start. The chapter of Retirement Reboot that addresses this topic walks through a simple approach to saving for retirement, focused on very-low-cost passive index funds. And, it illustrates that it’s possible to accumulate a meaningful nest egg even if you’re playing catch-up. That’s because the goal line is not the day you retire - your investing and returns from it continue well into retirement. My guest is Christine Benz, director of personal finance at Morningstar, one of the premier companies for analysis and research on investing.

I chatted with Christine about investing basics like the importance of diversification and balance and keeping fees low. We also get into a few of the more advanced topics, such as asset location and safe withdrawal strategies.

Click on the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to the podcast. You can also find the program on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (search for “Retirement Revised”).

Listen to the Rebootcast series

Next week, I’ll be airing the last episode in this limited-edition series about my new book, Retirement Reboot. I hope you’ve enjoyed all of these conversations with experts on key retirement topics, but in case you missed any of them, here are links to earlier episodes.

* Introduction: An overview of the book featuring a conversation with Chris Farrell, senior economics contributor for Marketplace, the public radio program. Chris wrote the foreward to Retirement Reboot.

* Let’s Make a Plan. Far too many people don’t take the time to make an actual financial plan for retirement – and that’s a real misstep. If you don’t have a plan, it’s impossible to know whether you are on track to meet your goals. My guests are Steve Chen, the founder of New Retirement, and Steve Vernon, the well-known retirement educator and author.

* Optimizing Social Security. For most of us, Social Security will be the most important retirement benefit – full stop. Decisions about when to claim can make a big difference in your lifetime income. For this episode, I invited two of the most knowledgeable people I know on the topic of Social Security claiming. Mary Beth Franklin is a contributing editor at Investment News magazine, specializing in Social Security, Medicare and Retirement income. Bill Reichenstein is a professor of investment management at Baylor University, a co-founder of Social Security Solutions – a company that has developed a terrific set of online software tools that help individuals and financial professionals sort through claiming decisions. He is the co-author of a book titled Social Security Strategies: How to Optimize Retirement Benefits. 

*  Navigating Medicare. Along with Social Security, there’s nothing that will have a more important impact on your retirement security than making smart choices about navigating Medicare. Joining me are two top Medicare experts: Tricia Neuman, executive director of the Medicare program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Fred Riccardi, president of the Medicare Rights Center.

Retirement Reboot in the news

I was a guest on the terrific Friends Talk Money podcast, which is hosted by Rich Eisenberg, Terry Savage and Pam Krueger. The video is below, or listen here. Rich also interviewed me about my six core ideas for improving your retirement outcome for his MarketWatch column.

I also joined Chuck Jaffe on his Money Life radio show to talk about the book. Here’s the episode, our conversation starts around the 17-minute mark. Or listen to it below:

Checked your Social Security statement lately?

If you have not yet claimed Social Security, and haven’t downloaded your Social Security statement lately, this would be a good time to do it. The statements have been updated to reflect the historic 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment, so your projected benefit just got significantly larger. The new number should be plugged into whatever retirement planning software you (or your financial planner) are using.

If you are 62 or older, your future benefit is adjusted to reflect the annual COLA.

If you haven’t set up your free online account with the Social Security Administration, go ahead and do that. This is where you can access your statement, claim benefits and transact other business with the SSA.

What I’m reading

The art of asset location . . . Senior housing that seniors actually like . . . An alternative, optimistic take on population decline . . .Politicians want to keep money out of ESG funds, but it might backfire . . . Did your health plan rip off Medicare?

Welcome to the Retirement Rebootcast. That’s what I’m calling this special podcast series on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. The book is out this month, so I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the show to talk about some of its key ideas. 

I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything - for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.

The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. I also discuss strategies for building savings, even late in the game, and tapping home equity. From there, I go on to discuss managing your career late in the game, the value of professional advice, how to manage long-term care risk and how to approach the idea of aging in place. 

For this episode, let’s have a conversation about Medicare. Along with Social Security, there’s nothing that will have a more important impact on your retirement security than making smart choices about navigating Medicare. And this actually is a more complicated challenge than claiming Social Security. Medicare is a great program, and most seniors love it once they enroll. But the program has evolved over the last couple decades in ways I think are unfortunate. There has been an enormous amount of needless privatization of coverage, whether that’s the Part D prescription drug program, or Medicare Advantage, the commercial managed care alternative to traditional Medicare. 

In Retirement Reboot, I walk readers through my somewhat counterintuitive argument about the choice between traditional Medicare and Advantage. The Advantage program has been growing quickly in recent years, but I lay out reasons why you’re much better off in the traditional program - assuming you can afford the somewhat higher upfront premium costs.

For this episode, I invited two of the most knowledgeable Medicare experts I know to join me. Both played a critical role in helping to review and comment on the Medicare chapter of Retirement Reboot. My guests are Tricia Neuman, executive director of the Medicare program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Fred Riccardi, president of the Medicare Rights Center. Kaiser is one of the most important, authoritative sources of research and information on health care in the U.S. And the Medicare Rights Center is a leading advocacy and consumer assistance organization.

This episode of the podcast runs a little longer than usual - around an hour. But I hope you’ll stick around for the entire conversation, because Tricia and Fred offer some terrific insights. We talked about the pitfalls to avoid when you first sign up for Medicare, the key differences between traditional Medicare and Advantage, how to pick a Medigap policy, where to get expert help with Medicare choices - and a whole lot more.

Click the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to the podcast. You can also find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (search for Retirement Revised).

Liked the book? Do me a favor - please review it!

If you’ve already read Retirement Reboot, please do me a small favor and review it on Amazon. You need not have purchased your copy at Amazon to leave a review there - and positive reviews are one of the most important factors driving in book sales. You can find the button to leave a review in the lower third of the Amazon page for Retirement Reboot.

A new Retirement Reboot excerpt

Morningstar published an excerpt from the chapter of Retirement Reboot that examines strategies for optimizing Social Security. In this excerpt, I explain why Social Security benefits are so valuable, the annual cost-of-living adjustment, how benefits are calculated and how to time your claim of benefits. If you missed last week’s podcast on this topic, you can find here. The episode featured a conversation with two of the country’s best experts on Social Security - Mary Beth Franklin of Investment News and William Reichenstein of Social Security Solutions.

What I’m writing

2022 was a consequential year in Washington, D.C. for changing retirement systems in the United States. But the changes are a mixed bag—some are very good, while others nibble around the edge of root problems. And some reforms will assist only the most affluent households who need help least.

What I’m reading

Medicare will begin penalizing nursing homes that give residents a false label of schizophrenia, a practice that many facilities have used to skirt restrictions on antipsychotic drugs, which can be especially dangerous for older people . . . Nurses are burned out and fed up, with good reason . . . How to make a caregiving plan . . . Older And disabled Americans are languishing for years on waiting lists for home-based care.

Welcome to the third edition of the Retirement Rebootcast! This is a special limited-edition podcast series focused on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. The book is out this month, so I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the program to talk about some of its key ideas. 

I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything - for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.

The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. I also discuss strategies for building savings, even late in the game, and tapping home equity. From there, I go on to discuss managing your career late in the game, the value of professional advice, how to manage long-term care risk and how to approach the idea of aging in place. 

For this third episode of the series, let’s have a conversation about how to get the most from Social Security. For most of us, Social Security will be the most important retirement benefit - full stop. Decisions about when to claim can make a big difference in your lifetime income. Especially for couples, there can be some interesting choices. Making smart choices has never been more important, especially because Social Security benefits are less generous than in the past. The gradual increases in the full retirement age put in motion by the reforms of 1983 are close to being fully phased in - and that effectively raises the bar on what it takes to generate income from the program.

For this episode, I invited two of the most knowledgeable people I know on the topic of Social Security claiming.

Mary Beth Franklin is a contributing editor at Investment News magazine, specializing in Social Security, Medicare and Retirement income. She’s been a financial journalist for more than 40 years, covering everything from federal budget and tax policies as a Capitol Hill reporter to consumer finances at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. One unusual twist for Mary Beth as a journalist - in 2015, she became a Certified Financial Planner in 2015. She is the author of “Maximizing Your Social Security Retirement Benefits.” 

William Reichenstein is a professor of investment management at Baylor University, a co-founder of Social Security Solutions - a company that has developed a terrific set of online software tools that help individuals and financial professionals sort through claiming decisions. He is the co-author of a book titled Social Security Strategies: How to Optimize Retirement Benefits. 

Along with claiming strategies, I asked Mary Beth and Bill to talk about Social Security's financial challenges and public worries about the program's future. We also talked about how Social Security might change in the years ahead.

Click the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to the podcast - or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (search for “Retirement Revised”).

The Retirement Rebootcast will have six episodes. Next week we’ll take a deep dive into navigating Medicare. My guests will be Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Fred Riccardi of the Medicare Rights Center.

Retirement Reboot in the news

In a new essay for Newsweek, I explain the possible cuts facing Social Security - and why we need to move in the opposite direction by expanding the program and shoring up its finances. This is adapted from the chapter of Retirement Reboot titled “Toward a New Social Insurance Era.” I also spoke with Kerry Hannon of Yahoo! Finance about the need to make Social Security bigger - not smaller - to improve retirement security.

Join me for an interactive workshop on retirement planning

I’ll be discussing Retirement during an interactive, online workshop on January 24th. I hope you’ll join me!

The 90-minute workshop, hosted by Bookends University, will offer practical strategies for improving your retirement prospects, even if your savings are meager and retirement is looming! It will draw from material in Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track.

We’ll walk through core decisions to make now to improve retirement outcomes, including

* Timing Your Retirement

* Optimizing Social Security

* Navigating Medicare

* Tapping Home Equity

* Building Savings

* Financing long-term care needs

Tuition for the event is $45, which includes a copy of Retirement Reboot. Bookends University is sponsored by Bookends & Beginnings, my favorite independent bookstore. You can pick up your copy at the store if you’re local, or have it mailed to you. 

Welcome to the second edition of the Retirement Rebootcast! This is a special limited-edition podcast series focused on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. On this podcast series, I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the program to talk about some of its key ideas. 

The book’s official publication date is today - January 10th!

I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything - for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.

The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. I also discuss strategies for building savings, even late in the game, and tapping home equity. From there, I go on to discuss managing your career late in the game, the value of professional advice, how to manage long-term care risk and how to approach the idea of aging in place. 

On this second episode, let’s talk about the importance of making a plan for retirement. It’s something far too many people don’t take the time to do - and that’s a real misstep. If you don’t have a plan, it’s impossible to know whether you are on track to meet your goals. A plan is not a crystal ball, but it provides a context, and a set of tools for decision-making. And it’s very important to approach the plan holistically - it’s about much more than saving and investing.

For this episode, I invited two experts to join me to help illustrate two important points from Retirement Reboot that I want to get across about planning. Steve Chen is the founder of New Retirement, an innovative low-cost online service that has developed a terrific set of planning tools. Steve’s company illustrates how planning isn’t just for the wealthy anymore. I also invited Steve Vernon to join me. Steve is an actuary, and a retirement educator and author. He’s a leader in developing holistic approaches to planning - he’s joining us here to explain why too many people confuse investing and planning, and why a holistic focus is essential.  

Click the player icon the hear the podcast - or listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Retirement Rebootcast will have six episodes. Next week we’ll take a deep dive into getting the most out of Social Security. My guests will be two of the most knowledgeable Social Security experts in the United States - Mary Beth Franklin of Investment News, and Bill Reichenstein, cofounder of Social Security Solutions and an emeritus professor of finance  at Baylor University.

Retirement Reboot in the news

The New York Times ran an excerpt from Retirement Reboot last weekend. It was adapted from the chapter on the value of financial planning advice . . . I joined Christine Benz and Jeff Ptak for a conversation about the book on the Morningstar podcast The Long View . . . And, I chatted with Marc Miller, host of the Career Pivot podcast, about broad themes of Retirement Reboot.

Join me for an interactive workshop on retirement planning

I’ll be discussing Retirement during an interactive, online workshop on January 24th. I hope you’ll join me!

The 90-minute workshop, hosted by Bookends University, will offer practical strategies for improving your retirement prospects, even if your savings are meager and retirement is looming! It will draw from material in Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track.

We’ll walk through core decisions to make now to improve retirement outcomes, including

* Timing Your Retirement

* Optimizing Social Security

* Navigating Medicare

* Tapping Home Equity

* Building Savings

* Financing long-term care needs

Tuition for the event is $45, which includes a copy of Retirement Reboot. Bookends University is sponsored by Bookends & Beginnings, my favorite independent bookstore. You can pick up your copy at the store if you’re local, or have it mailed to you. 

Happy New Year - and welcome to the first edition of the Retirement Rebootcast!

That’s the slightly tongue-in-cheek name I’ve given to this special limited-edition podcast series focused on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. The official publication date is January 10th, and I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the program over the coming weeks to discuss some of the key ideas explored in the book’s chapters. 

I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything - for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.

The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. I also discuss strategies for building savings, even late in the game, and tapping home equity. From there, I go on to discuss managing your career late in the game, the value of professional advice, how to manage long-term care risk and how to approach the idea of aging in place. 

For this first episode, I wanted to provide an overview of the key themes of the book. So, I decided to turn the tables - and invite another journalist on the show to interview me.

Chris Farrell is the senior economics contributor for the national radio program Marketplace. He seemed like the ideal choice to do the interview - since he wrote the forward to the book. Listen to our conversation by clicking the player icon at the top of the newsletter. Or, subscribe to the program on Apple Podcasts or Spotify - just search for “Retirement Revised.”

The Retirement Rebootcast will have six episodes, released weekly through January and early February. Next week, we’ll consider the importance of making a plan for retirement. My guests will be Steve Chen, founder of New Retirement, and Steve Vernon, an actuary, author and retirement educator.

Retirement Reboot in the news

WealthManagement.com published an excerpt from one of my favorite chapters in Retirement Reboot - Toward a new social insurance era. The chapter traces the history of social insurance in America, arguing that we have strayed too far from the roots of these signature policy achievements for the United States. And Mitch Tuchman of Rebalance reviewed the book for Marketwatch, writing: "Any complete retirement planning bookshelf needs a copy of Retirement Reboot. If you’re just beginning your journey, it’s a great place to start.”

Join me for an interactive workshop on retirement planning

I’ll be discussing my new book during an interactive, online workshop on January 24th. I hope you’ll join me!

The 90-minute workshop, hosted by Bookends University, will offer practical strategies for improving your retirement prospects, even if your savings are meager and retirement is looming! It will draw from material in Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track.

We’ll walk through core decisions to make now to improve retirement outcomes, including

* Timing Your Retirement

* Optimizing Social Security

* Navigating Medicare

* Tapping Home Equity

* Building Savings

* Financing long-term care needs

Tuition for the event is $45, which includes a copy of Retirement Reboot. Bookends University is sponsored by Bookends & Beginnings, my favorite independent bookstore. You can pick up your copy at the store if you’re local, or have it mailed to you.

I get questions from time to time about retirement strategies from my own children. They’re all young working adults, and they are starting to navigate the world of saving and investing - and they have plenty of questions about Social Security. So on this edition of the podcast, I invited my kids to send in their questions about retirement - and a couple that came in from my nieces. 

The questions:

* How should I balance my saving in retirement accounts and other savings that can be accessed for emergencies or other spending needs?

* How can I save for retirement if I don’t have access to a 401(k) plan?

* How can I save for retirement while also making socially-responsible investments?

* Should I worry about the future of Social Security?

* How will my Social Security benefit be calculated?

* When does it make sense to accelerate mortgage payments?

* Looking back, what do you wish you had known about retirement when you were in your twenties or thirties?

One thing I’ve noticed about young people is that they really are thinking ahead about retirement. That’s more than I can say for myself at that age. And there’s nothing more powerful than getting an early start on saving.

This will be the last newsletter and podcast of 2022 - I’ll be back right after New Year’s with the first installment of a six-part series on the key ideas in my new book, Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. The book goes on sale January 10th, and it’s already available for pre-order everywhere. 

Click the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to the podcast. You also can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify - just search for “Retirement Revised.”

Background reading for this podcast

Blackrock’s pitch for sustainable investing antagonizes all sides . . . The hidden cost of IRA rollovers . . . Seven tips for young retirement savers . . . Towards a new social insurance era . . . Should you pay off your mortgage?

The podcast is back this week with a look at the historic cost-of-living adjustment in Social Security benefits announced this morning.

The Social Security Administration announced that benefits will rise by 8.7% in 2023. That’s a big raise for more than 52 million retired Americans, and another 18 million who are survivors of covered workers or recipients of disability benefits or Supplemental Security Income. The maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax will increase to $160,200 from $147,000.

I published an in-depth story about the Social Security COLA in the New York Times this week that’s been drawing a lot of traffic, comments and questions. It answers a variety of questions about the COLA. The story explains why the 2023 COLA will be so high, and it discusses the accuracy of the COLA in tracking inflation for seniors. I even get into how the inflation hike might impact your taxes.

For the podcast, I invited a panel of experts on Social Security to join me to talk about the COLA. We took a dive into the history of the COLA and why it is so important to the well-being of seniors. We also got into the question of adequacy of benefits. With such a big headline COLA figure, it’s tempting to think that seniors are living on easy street. But keep in mind that the COLA does no more than keep seniors even with inflation. The reality is that about half of seniors struggle to meet their basic living expenses.

Joining me are three guests.

Nancy Altman is president of Social Security Works, one of the most important advocacy groups working to protect and expand Social Security. Nancy also is an appointed member of the Social Security Advisory Board - a bipartisan, independent federal government agency that advises the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on Social Security programs.

Ramsey Alwin is president and CEO of the National Coalition on Aging, one of the key organizations that advocates on behalf of seniors. Much of Ramsey’s work has focused on economic security and seniors, with a special focus on poverty.

Bill Arnone is the CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance. NASI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization made up of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance. Bill’s professional background also includes expertise in taxes and employee benefits.

Listen to the podcast by clicking the player icon at the top of the newsletter, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts.

Also see this Times story on how the COLA will bring relief to millions of seniors.

Medicare open enrollment gets underway this weekend

Open enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th, and my Morningstar column this month examines the barrage of marketing seniors face each fall for Medicare Advantage plans. Some of that advertising has sparked a surge in consumer complaints about deceptive claims, and new rules from Medicare aimed at curbing deceptive advertising practices by third-party marketers of Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D plans.

An update on vaccination

I found this update on vaccination in the U.S. from the PBS NewsHour especially helpful.

The number of confirmed and reported COVID cases in the U.S. is at its lowest point since last spring. But the average number of deaths associated with COVID remains at more than 350 a day. Public health experts are increasingly concerned that too many Americans are missing out on a chance to get new boosters and avoid a worse winter.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that awareness of the updated boosters is relatively modest, with about half of adults saying they’ve heard “a lot” (17%) or “some” (33%) about the new shots. About a third of all adults (32%) say they’ve already gotten a new booster dose or intend to get one “as soon as possible.”

What I’m reading

Congress may boost catch-up contribution limits . . . A new frontier for hearing aids . . . In-depth guide to over-the-counter hearing aids . . . Older storm victims face an uncertain future . . . Work remotely from anywhere.

This week on the podcast, we take a wide-ranging look at important changes going on in Medicare. My guest is a top expert on the program - Phillip Moeller. Phil is an award-winning financial journalist and author who has studied both Medicare and Social Security very closely. He’s the co-author of one of the best books on Social Security, called Get What's Yours - The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security. And he is the sole author of two other volumes in the Get What’s Yours series, including Get What's Yours for Medicare: Maximize Your Coverage, Minimize Your Costs. Phil also writes an excellent newsletter on Substack, the same platform that I use to bring you my newsletter and podcast.

I talked with Phil about an important set of changes to the Medicare Part D prescription drug program that Congress seems about ready to approve. We should have news about the legislation by the end of this week, or perhaps over the weekend, and if it does become law, I’ll be writing more about it. 

The bill would allow Medicare - for the first time - to negotiate the prices of the most expensive brand-name prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies. That’s a big deal, and it could save quite a bit of money for enrollees and taxpayers over time - Medicaid and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs have been negotiating drug prices for years, and they generally pay about 30% less for drugs than Medicare does.

The legislation would also place a $2,000 cap on enrollees’ annual out-of-pocket costs. And it incents drug makers to avoid large price increases by penalizing them for increases that exceed the general inflation rate in the economy.

Here’s an overview of what the legislation would do, and when, courtesy of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

I also spoke with Phil about the ongoing privatization of Medicare through the Medicare Advantage program - and the next big potential privatization wave which is coming in the form of Accountable Care Organizations for people enrolled in traditional Medicare.

Finally, we speculated a bit about what the Part B premium and Social Security COLA will look like in 2023.

Click the player icon at the top of the newsletter to listen to my conversation with Philip Moeller.

What I’m reading

The mental health benefits of doing nothing . . . The benefits of paying off a mortgage . . . Pope Francis, slowed by aging, finds lessons in frailty . . . Factoring the costs of climate change resilience into retirement planning.