On Retirement Daily – Benefits Implications When You Start a New Job
You can find Tina’s next article with Retirement Daily published today, “Benefits Implications When You Start a New Job“.
Understanding Your Paycheck Stub
This article was originally published in, and has been reprinted with permission from, Retirement Daily. What does your pay stub tell you, and how can you better optimize your financial situation based on it? Financial educator and paraplanner Tina Wood-Wentz explains how to use this tool to your benefit. By…
What does the new COVID-19 stimulus bill mean for you?
The new COVID-19 stimulus bill has passed both the House and the Senate at lightening speed, and is on to the president’s desk for his signature. Assuming he signs it, we get a 4th Trump administration major tax overhaul in his 4 years (not evenly distributed, of course; TCJA in…
December action item: look at the effects of the November pension lump sum re-calculation
Obviously, I’m a data nerd. Add to that being a money data nerd, and I’m out looking at my pension estimate every October and December. Why am I looking at my pension estimate at those two time frames? In November every year, my employer re-assesses the interest rates, and locks…
Should I sign up for a HCFSA or an HSA?
First of all, that primarily depends on which health care plan you’re signing up for, they bundle separately. If you sign up for a traditional health insurance plan, you can elect a HCFSA. If you sign up for a high deductible health insurance plan, you can elect a HSA. Then…
What should I know for Open Enrollment?
Open Enrollment November 2020: Planning for 2021 We’re half way through the Open Enrollment period at many companies. Open Enrollment is the time in which you get to make benefit elections for the following fiscal year. (For many companies, the fiscal year is the same as the calendar year. But…
As COVID-19 surges again, I’ve been laid off. Now what?
COVID-19 is surging in the upper Midwest, Minnesota, and Olmsted County. Hospitals are restricting visitors and deferring elective procedures. Companies that had been doing better during the summer months are once again facing income squeezes, and with that comes new rounds of furloughs and/or layoffs. It’s not necessarily your fault…
Should I cash out my pension?
Last time we talked about why you can’t peer into the future, to see what the value of your lump sum payout would be if you retired on a certain (post-November) date. This time we’ll talk about why you might or might not want to cash out your pension, based…
Did my employer remove the lump sum pension payout option?
If you’re planning to retire at the end of this year, and your pension has both an annuity and a lump sum payout option, you may be confused as to why you can’t look at the lump sum value for your planned retirement date. First, some background. A 403b or…
Is it a bad thing that my employer is refusing to participate in the payroll tax deferral?
So first, what is this payroll tax deferral? As part of the CARES act for economic relief during COVID-19, employers can choose to not withhold employee contributions to Social Security (6.2%) or Medicare (1.45%) for some employees, for a while. Is it a bad thing if my employer is refusing…