Your Most Valuable Asset in Retirement

If you play your cards right, your most valuable asset in retirement will not be your home. It won’t even be the guaranteed lifetime income stream from Social Security, valuable though that “asset” may be — assuming the Social Security system stays solvent, of course.

Rather, your most valuable asset in retirement will likely be your IRA. Surprised? Most people think of IRAs as trifling little accounts because the maximum annual contribution is just $4,000, or $5,000 for people over 50. Saving $4,000 a year won’t make you rich — in fact, it won’t even prepare you adequately for retirement. But your IRA at retirement could end up holding far more than those annual contributions (which, it must be emphasized, do add up and should not be abandoned).

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The High Cost of Raising a Child

Julia Roberts just gave birth to her third child, Henry Daniel Moder. This is the third child for Roberts and her husband Danny Moder, who are already the proud parents of two-year-old twins Hazel and Phinneaus. I wonder if they know how much it will cost to raise the three children to age 18.

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Tax Lessons from Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez

Marc Anthony was recently ordered to pay $2.5 million in back taxes and penalties after failing to file tax returns for the past five years. Ouch! According to the Associated Press, Anthony failed to file tax returns for 2000 through 2004 on $15.5 million in income. He wasn’t prosecuted because he thought his accountant had filed the returns. Two of his associates, including his brother, have pleaded guilty to tax felonies and will pay back taxes and fines.

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Husbands and Wives Approaching Retirement Have Different Understanding of Their Financial Plans

New research published by a major financial firm has revealed that couples heading toward retirement have very different ideas about how their lives will unfold after they stop working. In a survey of 500 people born between 1937 and 1964, more than 30 percent of couples gave complete different answers to questions about what age they will retire, their expected lifestyle in retirement, and whether they intend to continue working in retirement.

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Financial-Planning Lessons from the Gossip Columns

Celebrity gossip can provide valuable financial-planning lessons for the rest of us — especially when they do it wrong. And when a famous person’s financial woes are splattered all over the press, you can be pretty sure somebody did something wrong. Most wealthy people like to keep their affairs private, which is why they hire teams of professionals who not only can keep a secret, they also know how to utilize trusts and other legal mechanisms to minimize publicity when it comes to their financial affairs. Stars may revel in the public eye when they’re on the red carpet, but they’d just as soon not have you reading about their botched investments or ongoing tax troubles in the tabloids.

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