Life After Paychecks

1. 1

   The Money Map: Six Ideas in Fifteen Minutes

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   A quick tour of the six money moves (earn, spend, save, borrow, grow and protect) and how retirement changes which ones matter most.

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2. 2

   Three Tax Buckets: Taxed Now, Taxed Later, Never Taxed

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   Taxed now, taxed later or never taxed: how each account type decides when you pay tax, and why money in more than one bucket gives you choices.
3. 3

   Know What You Have: Your One-Page Money Map

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   Put everything you own, owe and receive on one page: accounts, income, debts, beneficiaries and key papers, updated once a year.

+2 more lessons coming

1. 1

   What Will Retirement Cost?

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   Rules of thumb are only a rough start. See which costs drop, which rise, how to split essential from flexible, and why a trial run helps.
2. 2

   How Long Is Long? Planning for a Long Life

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   Life expectancy is an average, so about half of people live longer. Learn why planning for a long life protects you from running out of money.

+8 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Your Retirement Paycheck: Know Each Stream

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   Your retirement paycheck is several income streams added together. Learn the traits that matter: rising with prices, lasting for life, and after a death.
2. 2

   Social Security 101: What It Is and How Your Check Is Figured

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   Social Security is insurance paid for with every paycheck. See how work credits, your top earning years and zero years shape your monthly check.
3. 3

   When to Claim: Early, Full or Late

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   How the Social Security claiming age changes your check for life, how break-even works, and which reasons point to claiming early or waiting.
4. 4

   Married? Claim as a Team

   For married couples, the best claiming plan looks at the household and protects whoever lives longer. Learn spousal checks and deemed filing.
5. 5

   Survivor and Ex-Spouse Benefits

   Social Security can keep paying after a death or a divorce. Learn survivor checks, switching between benefits, and checks on an ex-spouse’s record.
6. 6

   Working While You Collect

   Before full retirement age, earning over a yearly limit holds back some Social Security checks. Learn what counts and why that money isn’t lost.

+7 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Medicare ABCD

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   Medicare has four parts: A for hospital stays, B for doctors, C for private plans and D for drugs. Learn what each covers and the big gaps.
2. 2

   Sign Up on Time: Medicare Windows and Penalties

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   Your first Medicare sign-up window is short, and missing it can mean a penalty for life. Learn the window, the job-coverage rule and the COBRA trap.
3. 3

   Medigap or Medicare Advantage?

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   Medigap costs more each month and less when you’re sick. Medicare Advantage costs less each month, uses networks and costs more when you’re sick.

+9 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Floor and Upside: Cover Needs With Steady Income

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   When guaranteed income covers your essential bills, a market drop can’t threaten the basics. Learn to find your gap and the ways to close it.
2. 2

   Pension Choice: Monthly Check or Lump Sum?

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   A pension lump sum trades a lifetime paycheck for a pile of money. Learn to compare the two, and what each one protects you against.
3. 3

   Pension Survivor Options

   Taking a smaller pension that keeps paying a spouse is a big, hard-to-undo choice. Learn single-life, joint-and-survivor and pop-up options.
4. 4

   Annuities 1: Buying a Paycheck for Life

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   An income annuity turns savings into a lifetime check, like a pension you buy. Learn immediate and deferred annuities, pooling and how to shop.

+5 more lessons coming

1. 1

   A Fixed-Income Budget

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   Build a retirement budget on the paycheck you pay yourself: start from net income, match essentials to steady income and set aside for yearly bills.
2. 2

   Inflation: The Slow Leak

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   Inflation quietly shrinks a fixed check. Learn the rule of 72, which incomes get raises, your personal inflation rate and ways to keep up.

+3 more lessons coming

1. 1

   How Much Cash to Keep

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   How retirees size a cash reserve from their spending gap, when to refill it, and why too much cash quietly loses ground to inflation.

+2 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Pay Off the Mortgage Before You Retire?

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   Weigh paying off a mortgage before retiring: the guaranteed return and lower bills against lost cash, flexibility and the IRA tax trap.

+4 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Sequence Risk: Bad Timing Hurts Most at the Start

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   Why the order of good and bad market years matters once you start withdrawing, why the years around retiring are the danger zone, and the defenses.
2. 2

   How Much Can I Safely Spend? Rules of Thumb

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   What the well-known 4% rule says, the research behind it, what it leaves out, and why your own number depends on age, income and flexibility.
3. 3

   Trim Line, Raise Line: Spending That Flexes

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   Set a trim line and a raise line for your savings ahead of time, so you know when to cut flexible spending a little and when to give yourself a raise.

+5 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Your Retirement Tax Bill

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   How each kind of retirement income is taxed: IRA withdrawals and pensions, capital gains, Roth money and Social Security, plus marginal vs effective rates.
2. 2

   Which Account to Spend First

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   Why the order you draw from taxable, tax-later and Roth accounts changes lifetime taxes, and how blending them each year can keep taxes lower.
3. 3

   RMDs: When the Tax-Later Bucket Says "Now"

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   How required minimum distributions work: which accounts need them, how the amount is figured, the first-year option and its trap, and the penalty.
4. 4

   Roth Conversions: Paying Tax on Purpose

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   How a Roth conversion works, why low-tax years and outside money matter, the RMD-first and pro-rata rules, and the side effects on income.

+7 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Long-Term Care: What It Is and Who Pays

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   What long-term care is, why Medicare mostly doesn’t pay for it, the “admitted or observation” trap, and how savings, insurance, Medicaid and the VA fit in.

+6 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Stay, Downsize or Move?

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   Compare staying, downsizing, moving or renting in retirement by true yearly cost, accessibility, access to care and closeness to people, not just price.

+5 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Helping Family Without Hurting Yourself

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   How to help grown children and grandchildren without risking your retirement: gift or loan, why cosigning is risky, fairness and kind ways to say “not now.”

+5 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Spot the Scam: Pressure, Secrecy, Strange Payment

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   Spot the three signs of most scams, from fake grandchildren to fake bank calls: pressure, secrecy and a strange way to pay. Then hang up and call back.
2. 2

   Lock Down Your Identity

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   A few free locks stop most identity theft: credit freezes, your own Social Security account, an IRS PIN and a careful look at Medicare statements.
3. 3

   Planning for Memory Changes

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   Spot early money signs of memory changes, simplify accounts, choose helpers with a power of attorney, and plan for Social Security and VA benefits too.

+9 more lessons coming

1. 1

   The Must-Have Documents

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   The papers that speak for you when you can’t: a will, a durable financial power of attorney, a healthcare proxy, a living will and a HIPAA release.
2. 2

   Beneficiaries, TOD and POD

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   Why beneficiary forms beat your will, the spouse rule for workplace plans, backup beneficiaries, POD and TOD, and the risks of adding a child as joint owner.

+9 more lessons coming

1. 1

   Widowed: The First 90 Days

   A calm guide to the first months after losing a spouse: the few must-dos, the few dates to note, and why most big money decisions can wait.
2. 2

   Widowed: The First Year and the Single-Filer Squeeze

   After the first months: retitle accounts, choose what to do with a spouse’s IRA, plan for single-filer taxes and Medicare premiums, and re-plan alone.
3. 3

   Your Yearly Retirement Check-Up

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   A simple yearly rhythm for retirees: benefit letters and taxes in winter, Medicare in the fall, year-end deadlines, and a plan you compare each year.

+3 more lessons coming