Successful Financial Habits For College Graduates

Dee Kerr, CFP®, CDFA®

It’s that time of year again-- college graduation is upon us. There could be a lot of college graduates that find themselves making personal financial decisions on their own for the first time. This can seem overwhelming and a daunting task at the start.

Full retirement age (FRA) for Social Security benefits is currently between 66 and 67, depending on when you were born. Benefits are determined based on your 35 highest years of earning on record with the Social Security Administration, but will be higher or lower depending on when you file. If you file at FRA, you’ll get your full monthly benefit.

If you thought that retirement started at 65 for most Americans, think again — according to a recent Gallup poll, the average reported retirement age for currently retired Americans is 61. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a person who has made it to their early 60s can, on average, expect to live another 23.3 years.

For the week ended April 12th, 2019 U.S. stocks gained a bit with earnings season slowly beginning and core inflation levels coming in contained.

The arrival of spring has brought warmer weather, longer days, a renewal of life … and the yearly desire to clean out and get organized. It’s also the perfect time to get your financial house in order. Here are some housekeeping tasks you can tackle to help make sure you and your money are headed the right way in the year ahead.

Many of us cringe at the thought of paying for college. How do we even begin to think about that process? It's an incredibly expensive pursuit. The costs are forever rising when it comes to college expenses and that goes for private, public or trade schools.

Stocks ended the week and the quarter on a high note, rising globally. The S&P 500 recorded its strongest quarterly performance in a decade, rising 13% just 3% below its all-time high. The market rebound during the quarter was fueled by the Federal Reserve's pivot in rate hikes, better-than-expected earnings results, and optimism that a U.S.

On the surface, the terms “retirement planning” and “financial planning” might seem interchangeable. But while they are similar in many ways and often do go hand-in-hand, the two are not exactly the same. Each has its own intricacies and fine details that make it unique.

Today’s retirees are finding that retirement requires at least as much psychological and emotional preparation as it does financial preparation. So, retirement planning needs to include a thorough assessment of human assets and liabilities along with an assessment of financial assets and liabilities.

Did you know that your Social Security could be taxed in retirement and that it could also be contributing to your tax rate actually increasing during retirement? If you receive a company pension, it is treated much the same way.

Blind Spot #2 is Depending on Government Programs!

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