Category: Retirement

According to a study conducted by Bank of America, while they are superior at making investment decisions, the rate at which women make investments remains low compared to their male counterparts. Time and time again, the data proves the advantage of women in self-control, conducting research, and even determining risk aversion when it comes to investing. With only 46% of women feeling as though they have a small degree of influence over investing, it’s no wonder they are held back by obstacles. What are some of these roadblocks, and how are younger women pioneering future generations toward an open conversation about finances?

Financial freedom is dependent upon both short-term and long-term financial planning and the confidence to progress in that direction. Long-term finances happen to be one of the biggest issues faced by women of today. Up to 94% of women feel they will become solely responsible for finances within their lifetime, with only 28% of said women feeling empowered enough to succeed. Among the women within this study, 44% struggle to pay down debt, with other issues including emergency funds, retirement savings, and the ability to build wealth.

When it comes to financial independence, though, just 47% of women recognized paying off debt as the cornerstone of financial freedom. Additional concerns include unexpected expenses, funding education for future generations, and caring for aging parents. Putting money away for retirement is another concern for men and women alike, with over 40% of women feeling uncertain about enjoying a comfortable retirement. Unfortunately, most women beginning to reach retirement age have already resigned themself to relying solely upon a fixed income through Social Security benefits.

As pioneers toward open conversations regarding finances and investing, younger women may be the key to changing the course of history for themselves and future women. Women between the ages of 22 to 39 feel more comfortable conversing over finances with others, such as financial advisors, than their aging counterparts. Could this be the cause behind upwards of 65% of younger women freely willing to discuss new investment opportunities, whereas 59% are more confident in requesting raises throughout the workplace?

This isn’t just a problem in the United States, but a worldwide struggle for women alike. Words such as “male-dominated,” “patronizing,” and “untrustworthy” are just a few of the more prominent phrases used by women with a strong aversion to the stock market. Shockingly enough, although most of the women who participated in another British-based study were solely responsible for the majority of the household finances, not one had ever invested in stocks. Ultimately, more than one-third of the women who chose to participate in either study noted the availability of a trustworthy source for financial advice could mean a world of difference.

Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 2129517376

Bio:
M. Dutton and Associates is a full-service financial firm. We have been in business for over 30 years serving our community. Through comprehensive objective driven planning, we provide you with the research, analysis, and available options needed to guide you in implementing a sound plan for your retirement. We are committed to helping you achieve your goals. Visit us at MarvinDutton.com . Tel. 212-951-7376: email: [email protected].

Pursuing your retirement goals is challenging without making specific, frequent, and easily preventable errors. Here are eight significant blunders to avoid, if at all possible.

1. Not taking taxes into account

In a letter addressing French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, Benjamin Franklin penned what may have been his final significant remark. It reads as follows:

“Our new constitution is now in place, and everything seems to indicate that it will be strong; yet, in this world, only death and taxes are certain.”

The taxes you will have to pay on withdrawals from your retirement accounts should be considered when you make retirement planning decisions. Retirement distributions from standard 401(k) and IRA accounts are taxed as ordinary income. The tax bracket in retirement will determine how much you’ll pay in taxes. It’s crucial to make plans for these tax payments so they don’t come as a surprise, even if you think your marginal tax rate would be lower in retirement than it is today.

2. Poor preparation (or no planning)

You are not immediately entitled to retirement when you reach a specific age. After you quit the job, you will need income because relying just on Social Security may not be sufficient.

The total reserves of the trust funds that pay out retirement and disability benefits will run out by 2035, according to the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees’ 2020 annual report.

Nevertheless, Social Security will still exist at that point since ongoing taxes will be sufficient to pay for 79% of the benefits provided to retired and disabled workers. But it implies that you might not want to rely on government services to ensure your retirement.

Poor planning can be expensive. Completely failing to plan for retirement can hurt your future. A recent survey from the US Federal Reserve found that almost 25% of Americans have no pension or retirement savings. Although saving for retirement is a lifelong effort, it is easy to lose sight of it when retirement is decades away.

3. Quitting a job before receiving 401(k) vested benefits

In a retirement plan like a 401(k), vesting refers to acquiring ownership of the account’s money. Employer payments are not always 100% owned by you, even though you always contribute your own money to the plan.

You acquire a larger percentage of your account each year (or own). You will own all the money in that account once you have reached 100% vesting.

Your employer won’t be able to forfeit or take the money back at that point for any reason. However, if you quit a job before you have fully vested, you will lose the employer contribution to your 401(k).

You can be forced to quit a job before earning all your benefits due to circumstances beyond your control. Maybe you’re just not the right fit for the job. However, leaving voluntarily means leaving money on the table because you don’t yet possess 100% of the money in your account.

To avoid losing out on those additional funds if you have to leave your work, think about how much you have invested.

4. Taking a payout too soon

Cashing out your retirement funds early could be unavoidable amid severe financial difficulties. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated this. Thank goodness the senate enacted the CARES Act, which exempts qualified individuals from paying the 10% early withdrawal penalty that would normally apply to payouts up to $100,000.

Cashing out your retirement savings is often a costly error unless there is an emergency. Your future retirement savings are lowered if you withdraw money from the market too soon. Mainly, this is because you lose out on compound growth, drastically reducing your earnings. Unfortunately, the compounding interest impact is lost if you miss it. Avoid withdrawing your retirement funds before retirement unless it is essential.

5. Put aside the bare minimum

You estimate the amount you’ll need for retirement and how much you’ll need to save to meet your financial objectives using online retirement calculators. You should consider various variables while making these projections, including your expected retirement age, potential additional income sources, the expected returns on your investments, and inflation, among others. With some preparation, you can calculate how much money you’ll need to attain your retirement objectives. However, life does happen.

The minimal required quantity of savings might not be sufficient in practice. You might not receive enough money from your investments, Social Security can stop paying benefits, or you might incur unanticipated medical expenses that cost more than you had saved. Even though you might be able to meet your retirement goals by saving only the bare minimum, it’s better to leave yourself some breathing room.

Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 2129517376

Bio:
M. Dutton and Associates is a full-service financial firm. We have been in business for over 30 years serving our community. Through comprehensive objective driven planning, we provide you with the research, analysis, and available options needed to guide you in implementing a sound plan for your retirement. We are committed to helping you achieve your goals. Visit us at MarvinDutton.com . Tel. 212-951-7376: email: [email protected].

Veterans Affairs Life Insurance (VALife) will be launched in January 2023, and it will give the guaranteed acceptance of full life insurance coverage to veterans aged 80 and under with any level of a service-connected disability. Some veterans aged 81 and up may be eligible as well.

What is Guaranteed Acceptance Whole Life Insurance, and how does it work?

Guaranteed acceptance is a policy that covers you for the rest of your life and does not require a medical exam or health inquiries. It also does not have a two-year registration period. Whole life insurance covers the rest of your life as long as the premiums are paid on time. Premium rates are fixed for the policy’s life and do not increase as the policyholder matures, unlike term insurance.

What advantages does it provide?

The new program, established by Public Law 116-315, covers the requirements of service-connected veterans who may not have previously qualified for VALife insurance. VALife offers whole life insurance with the assured acceptance that lasts for the rest of a person’s life and includes the following features:

• All services are interconnected. Veterans aged 80 and under with a VA disability rating of 0% to 100% are eligible.

• Online enrollment is fully automated, with quick approvals.

• Premiums are competitive – or better than what is offered in the private sector, and coverage is available in $10,000 increments up to a maximum of $ 40,000. Full face value coverage takes effect after a two-year waiting period.

• There are no medical criteria for participation.

• After the first two years of enrollment, the policy’s cash value grows over time.

• The earlier you join up, the better the rates. Premiums will never go up after they’ve been locked in.

Who is eligible to participate?

Veterans who are 80 years old or younger and have a VA disability rating of 0% to 100% are eligible for VALife, and there is no time limit on when they can apply.

Veterans aged 81 and over may apply for VALife within two years of getting a new service-connected disability rating if they meet the requirement.

What effect will this have on other VA life insurance programs?

More service-connected veterans than ever before can now get life insurance via VALife. VALife, unlike Service-Disabled Veterans Life Insurance (S-DVI), has no medical qualifications and a two-year waiting period if a veteran is under age 80.

Veterans with an S-DVI policy can keep their coverage or apply for VALife when available. If the application is submitted between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2025, veterans can keep their S-DVI policy until the full coverage of VALife begins two years following enrollment.

After December 31, S-DVI will no longer accept new students. Even if they plan to register for VALife in the new year, veterans interested in S-DVI should apply by this date.

How do you go about applying for both?

On January 1, 2023, the VALife application will be available. Keep an eye out for updates on VALife and the application process. The application will be available online at https://www.benefits.va.gov/insurance/VALife.asp once the program is launched.

Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 2129517376

Bio:
M. Dutton and Associates is a full-service financial firm. We have been in business for over 30 years serving our community. Through comprehensive objective driven planning, we provide you with the research, analysis, and available options needed to guide you in implementing a sound plan for your retirement. We are committed to helping you achieve your goals. Visit us at MarvinDutton.com . Tel. 212-951-7376: email: [email protected].

The primary reason we contribute to our Thrift Savings Plan account is so that we can begin withdrawing from it at some point in the future. In addition, most of us view our TSP balance as a source of monthly income to augment our government annuity and Social Security (both of which are also paid monthly).

If we want to replace 80% of our pre-retirement income (as many financial advisers recommend), the great majority of us will fall short of that objective if we rely only on an annuity and Social Security. As a result, many retirees choose to receive TSP payments regularly.

In fact, over half of the separated employees choose a TSP withdrawal option that offers recurring income. Two income-generating withdrawal options are available: installment payments and a TSP life annuity. Installment payments can be made monthly (most common), quarterly, or annually. With installment payments, your money will stay in the TSP, where it’ll (hopefully) grow. A TSP life annuity involves withdrawing money from your TSP account and using it to buy a single premium immediate annuity (paid monthly) from MetLife; you can use all or part of your TSP balance to buy the annuity.

So, what’s the distinction between installment payments and a life annuity? Though both options allow us to collect recurring payments, the rules are significantly different. The most significant distinction is that a TSP Life Annuity is an irrevocable option, whereas installment payments can be altered frequently. Individuals who use installment payments can start and stop payments at any time and adjust the amount of the installments many times per year.

The TSP life annuity ensures that you won’t run out of money over your lifetime; you won’t have to look after your investments. But unfortunately, there’s no guarantee with installment payments, and you must watch after your withdrawals to verify that you continue receiving payments.

Both installment payments and life annuities allow you to receive payments based on a certain amount of money (level payments) or your life expectancy (increasing payments).

The Thrift Savings Plan has various calculators, including the TSP Payment and Annuity Calculator, with which we came up with the following examples. Due to the ongoing repercussions of the Thrift Plan’s new system, this calculator is no longer available on TSP’s website (as of July 2022). In our calculations (completed in April, before the new system’s implementation), we estimated that a 57-year-old retiree had $350,000 in their TSP when they started withdrawals upon retirement. We also assumed they would live to be 90 years old and that any money remaining in their TSP account would grow at a rate of 5% per year. The annuity interest rate index was 2.075% – the rate for TSP annuities in February 2022.

Level monthly payments of $1,750 would remain until death at 90, leaving a $4,244 balance in the TSP account.

Monthly benefits would begin at $1,045 and would have reached $2,247 at 90, according to the IRS life expectancy chart. As a result, $295,069 would stay in the TSP account.

A monthly annuity with a basic level payment would earn $1,394 and keep paying that amount throughout the individual’s life. At death, there would be no funds left.

A basic increasing payment annuity would have started at $998 and grown to $1,887 at 90. At death, there would be no money.

Which option is most popular among separated federal employees? Monthly payouts are significantly more common than life annuities. Separated employees appear to prefer the opportunities for continuous development and the freedom to adjust their payouts that monthly payments provide over the certainty of the Life Annuity.

According to recent research, there are 1.2 million fewer workers than before the pandemic. However, it also said that if the pre-pandemic worker growth rate had remained, there would be 3.5 million more employees in the workforce today.

Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 2129517376

Bio:
M. Dutton and Associates is a full-service financial firm. We have been in business for over 30 years serving our community. Through comprehensive objective driven planning, we provide you with the research, analysis, and available options needed to guide you in implementing a sound plan for your retirement. We are committed to helping you achieve your goals. Visit us at MarvinDutton.com . Tel. 212-951-7376: email: [email protected].

All TSP participants will need to create a new login for the new My Account after the transition in June. This one-time setup process will guide you through the steps of verifying your identification, creating a username and password, updating your contact information, and securing your account. You’ll notice a new design, additional tools, and expanded functionality to help you manage your account once you log in to My Account:

– The configurable, user-friendly homepage will provide rapid access to the information you want to see first.

– You’ll be able to see all the information for both accounts in one spot if you have both a civilian and a uniformed services account. This includes your overall total amount.

– You’ll have the option to use your device’s identification software, such as fingerprint access and facial recognition, to add an extra layer of security when you access My Account from your mobile device.

– If you need tailored assistance, you can utilize our virtual assistant, AVA, to ask account-specific inquiries and connect directly to a Thrift Line Representative for a live chat session during business hours.

The window for mutual funds

TSP participants who want more investment freedom may look into the mutual fund window. You can choose from a pool of over 5,000 mutual funds if your account fulfills specific qualifying conditions. This flexibility comes at a cost, as it does with most mutual funds:

TSP participants who do not utilize the mutual fund window pay a $55 yearly fee to ensure that using the mutual fund window does not increase TSP administration expenses.

The annual maintenance charge is $95

Distributions and withdrawals

The process for requesting a withdrawal or distribution will be more efficient and time-saving with the improvements coming in June:

– We’re providing the opportunity to use electronic signatures and submit many requests online, just like we do with other transactions.

Support choices have been expanded.

With our increased support options, you’ll have more opportunities to have your issues answered starting in June:

– On our website and in the TSP Mobile App, you’ll have 24/7 access to help through AVA, a virtual assistant (coming in June). AVA will provide a secure place for you to ask questions regarding your account and, if necessary, will link you to a live ThriftLine agent through chat during office hours.

Online transactions that are quick and easy

We’re providing new ways to perform most transactions and requests online to save you time and reduce paperwork:

– You’ll be able to request transactions, upload forms and documents, and electronically sign your name in the new My Account.

Other useful information

You’ll be able to submit beneficiary information online through a new tool in My Account or by calling the ThriftLine. There will be some modifications to the way beneficiaries are designated:

– You’ll be asked to confirm beneficiary information once a year to ensure it’s accurate.

– You can easily designate equal distribution to beneficiaries using the online option for providing beneficiary information through My Account, without having to list precise percentages unless you choose to.

Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 2129517376

Bio:
M. Dutton and Associates is a full-service financial firm. We have been in business for over 30 years serving our community. Through comprehensive objective driven planning, we provide you with the research, analysis, and available options needed to guide you in implementing a sound plan for your retirement. We are committed to helping you achieve your goals. Visit us at MarvinDutton.com . Tel. 212-951-7376: email: [email protected].