Wealth Insights is our regular financial planning update, generally refreshed on Thursdays. Wealth Insights provides perspective on financial planning topics to help as you consider options for navigating your financial life.
Several financing options are available to you and the buyer of your business. The financing methods you consider and ultimately choose will be affected by many factors, including the identity of the buyer (e.g., family member, corporate entity, unrelated third party), the purchase price, and your own cash needs, tax considerations and flexibility.
Small business owners looking to adopt 401(k) plans are sometimes discouraged by the typically high costs and complicated testing requirements associated with plan administration (see sidebar). Fortunately, over the past few decades, legislators have introduced a number of simplified alternatives to the traditional 401(k) to help encourage more business owners to adopt these potentially valuable retirement benefit programs. Among them are the safe harbor plan, the qualified automatic contribution arrangement (QACA) and most recently, the starter 401(k) plan.
There’s no right time to begin collecting Social Security benefits, but the age at which you begin receiving benefits will affect how much retirement income you have, so you should weigh the consequences carefully.
Yes. If you already receive Social Security based on your spouse’s earnings record, you’ll continue to receive it as long as you live (or in some cases, until you remarry). If you don’t receive Social Security yet, you can apply for a reduced benefit when you turn 62 or wait until your full retirement age if you want to receive an unreduced spousal retirement benefit. If you’ve been divorced for more than two years, you can apply as soon as your former spouse becomes eligible for benefits, even if he or she hasn’t started receiving them (assuming you’re at least 62). However, if you’ve been divorced for less than two years, you must wait to apply for benefits based on your former spouse’s earnings record until he or she starts receiving benefits.
There’s no doubt about it — owning a home is an exciting prospect. After all, you’ve always dreamed of having a place that you could truly call your own. But buying a home can be stressful, especially when you’re buying one for the first time. Fortunately, knowing what to expect can make it a lot easier.
Married couples often decide together that one spouse should be the primary breadwinner while the other stays home to take care of family members. Although this often works out well for childrearing or eldercare responsibilities in the short term, it can present long-term retirement-planning risks for the stay-at-home spouse. For this reason, couples should familiarize themselves with a few spousal rules related to retirement plans.
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