You can give your child a head start in life by opening an individual retirement account (IRA) for them. Allowing it to build interest for decades enables it to grow much more than if you wait until the child is older. Custodial Roth IRAs have some rules that must be followed, but it has many…

By Matt Baisden Employer matching contributions to retirement plans are often seen as costly commitments by business owners. As it stands, 48 percent of private sector workers in the United States don’t have access to a 401(k) or pension plan, according to an AARP study. Yet, for employers, they are worth investing in. Companies are…

By Sandra Block From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance When confronted with a task that’s necessary but joyless, it’s human nature to put it off until the last minute. And for some retirees, taking withdrawals from their retirement savings accounts is another chore that falls to the bottom of their to-do list. Investments in traditional Individual Retirement…

Recent changes to health savings accounts (HSAs) make them much more attractive. These accounts double as health insurance and a retirement account. Previously, they only allowed smaller contributions each year, but the limit has been raised for 2024. Money contributed to a health savings account is tax deductible. It enables money to be available for…

By Lisa Gerstner From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Stashing enough in an employer-sponsored retirement plan to get the full match is a no-brainer—it’s free money toward your retirement. Employers often match contributions up to about 3–5 percent of an employee’s salary. However, figuring out how much to contribute to a 401(k) beyond the match and how…

If you have a pension coming to you when you retire, it could affect your taxes in the future. The biggest problem would be that you put a lot of your retirement money into tax-deferred accounts. As a result, it means that you will have to pay taxes on that money when you withdraw it,…

I did everything backward when I started freelancing. I was fresh out of journalism school. Instead of getting an entry-level job at a newspaper or magazine, I immediately started looking for online gigs. My then-husband and I were up to our eyeballs in student loan debt. He still had years of schooling ahead of him….

As a business owner, you have an assortment of retirement options. These range from the straightforward, think an Individual or Simple 401 (k), to the more complex, such as a Money Purchase Plan or Profit Sharing. However, for many, the creme de la creme is a Roth IRA. Why? Because not only is able to set…

Good savers, beware. The money you’re stuffing into your 401(k) and other retirement accounts has to be withdrawn someday. If you’re not strategic about how you save, you could face unnecessarily high tax bills and inflated Medicare premiums in retirement—plus, you could be saddling your heirs with higher taxes. The earlier you start defusing this…

By Sandra Block Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Congress late last year revised the rules on required minimum distributions (RMDs) that retirees must start taking in their 70s from tax-deferred retirement accounts. Here’s what you need to know: In 2023, the starting age for taking RMDs from traditional individual retirement accounts, 401(k)s, and other tax-deferred plans increases…