Welcome to Retirement Scan, our daily roundup of retirement news your clients may be talking about.
Seniors are better off finding a new direction and new challenges in retirement rather than quitting their career altogether, especially if they enjoy their work, says journalist Bill Marimow in this article from Forbes. "The bottom line is that you’re going to miss your work,” Marimow says. “If you feel a sense of fulfillment in retirement it will blur or lessen the nostalgia you might feel for the career you’ve left.”
Up-front fees and high foreclosure rates make reverse mortgages unpopular among seniors, however such an option can provide protection against dwindling home prices and the risk of outliving assets, writes wealth management expert Benjamin Harris in this article from The Wall Street Journal. A reverse mortgage "can be a lifeline for retirees with a lot of home equity and not much else," he writes. It is "also a unique way to take the risk out of retirement, and can be worth thousands to borrowers willing to take a strategic approach to borrowing."
Women have a median household retirement savings of $23,000, significantly lower than the $76,000 saved on average by their male counterparts, according to this CNBC article, citing a report from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. Nearly one-third of women also claimed that they have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, the report adds. To address the retirement savings gap, women are advised to be more involved in their finances, fund a tax-advantaged IRA if they have no access to a workplace plan and discuss finances with family and friends.
These employers offer plans that pay as much as $6.52 per hour in contributions.
Clients who want to start a business after the age of 50 have the option of dipping into their 401(k) savings to raise the funds, according to this MarketWatch article. Borrowing against a 401(k) is advised as a last-resort option, but it can give them more control of the money than sourcing funds from a lending institution. They can transfer 401(k) funds into a new plan created purposely for the new business without extra debt and tax penalties. They may also opt for rollover for business startups, which “allows [them] to do a partial rollover from a retirement account as [their] cash injection to get [their] business started — tax-free and penalty-free,” says an expert.
