Jane Bryant Quinn

An updated and expanded edition of the top-selling consumer guide to Medicare. It explains how to choose the best plans, especially during Medicare’s annual enrollment period, how to use Medicare’s extensive health benefits, and changes to Medicare that are expanding what it will cover and moving care from hospitals into the home. Medicare is the primary insurance plan for 70 million retired and disabled Americans. Understanding how Medicare works is essential to their health and well-being. However, Medicare has become more complicated—and more confusing. Get What’s Yours for Medicare is the authoritative consumer Medicare guide. It includes detailed chapters on when to enroll in Medicare, how to evaluate the often-bewildering choice of Medicare insurance plans, and, most importantly, how to use Medicare to find high-quality, affordable health care. The book also explains important upcoming changes to Medicare so consumers will know what to expect. Medicare in 2024 is far different from the program described in the first edition of Get What’s Yours. The first part of this book discusses Medicare policies that affect the medical care you need now. The second part examines how Medicare is changing. These changes are part of the shift toward what is called managed care, which includes private Medicare Advantage plans. The newly updated Get What’s Yours for Medicare explains managed care in detail to clarify any questions about these programs. Get What’s Yours for Medicare is the definitive guide to help you get the most out of your healthcare and ultimately alleviate the stress surrounding the complicated world of Medicare.

AS SEEN ON PUBLIC TELEVISION The complete action plan from Ed Slott, "the best source of IRA advice" (Wall Street Journal), to help you make sure your 401(k)s, IRAs, and retirement savings aren't depleted by taxes by the time you need to use them. If you're like most Americans, your most valuable asset is your retirement fund. We diligently save money for years, yet most of us don't know how to avoid the costly mistakes that cause a good chunk of those savings to be lost to needless and excessive taxation. Now, in the midst of a financial crisis, there is more need than ever to protect your assets. The New Retirement Savings Time Bomb, by renowned tax advisor Ed Slott, shows you in clear-cut layman's terms how to take control over your retirement savings plan. This easy-to-follow plan helps you place your assets to avoid the latest traps set out by congress in addition to any that might be set down the road, so you can keep your hard-earned money no matter what. And, it's fully up-to date with information on the SECURE Act and everything you need to know about how the coronavirus relief bills will affect your savings down the road. This book is required reading for every American with savings and investments who is planning to retire, be it five years from now or fifty.

Did you know that there is more than one way for retirees to meet their financial goals? Not everyone is comfortable relying on stock market returns from their investments. This book explains a different approach that first builds safety through a floor of reliable lifetime income. This is the meaning of safety-first retirement planning. In this book you will learn: How risk-pooling through insurance worksWhy risk pooling is a source of additional spending that is competitive with potential stock market returnsHow commercial annuities provide this risk pooling in the same manner as Social Security or traditional company pensionsHow replacing some bonds with insurance-based risk pooling assets can improve the odds for retirees to meeting their spending goal and to support more legacy at the end of lifeI walk you through this thought process and logic in steps, investigating three basic ways to fund a retirement spending goal: with bonds, with a diversified investment portfolio, and with risk pooling through annuities and life insurance alongside investments. I describe the potential role and underlying workings for different types of annuities including simple income annuities, variable annuities, and fixed index annuities. I explain how different annuities work and how readers can evaluate their options and make a choice about which way to go. I also examine the potential for whole life insurance to contribute to a retirement income plan. When we properly consider the range of risks introduced after retirement, I conclude that the integrated strategies preferred by safety-first advocates support more efficient retirement outcomes. Safety-first retirement planning helps to meet financial goals with less worry. This book gives you the knowledge to evaluate different insurance options and implement these solutions into an integrated retirement plan. How did I come to write this book? After completing my Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University with a dissertation about Social Security reform, I become an economics professor who studied the pension systems in different countries. Eventually I gravitated toward individual retirement planning and now work with unique job title of "Professor of Retirement Income" and as director of the Retirement Income Certified Professional® designation for financial advisors. This requires me to be agnostic and to search for the best with different retirement income styles. If the safety-first approach isn't for you, you might also check my explanation about probability-based alternatives in How Much Can I Spend in Retirement?

*This is the Revised 2024 Book Edition published in January 2024* Reverse mortgages are an important retirement planning tool. This book provides an up-to-date understanding about reverse mortgages and how to use them as part of a complete and responsible retirement plan. I am a professor of retirement income. I may be the only author of a reverse mortgage book who does not work within the reverse mortgage industry. My focus is on finding ways to build strong retirement plans, and this is the perspective I bring to reverse mortgages. I know that reverse mortgages can look expensive in isolation. But reverse mortgages should not be viewed that way. We need to focus on their overall contribution and interactions with other retirement assets as well. Retirement is different from what people are accustomed to when working. Risks change. Retirees must sustain spending while not knowing how long their funds need to last, while managing the risks of a market downturn that can permanently derail a retirement portfolio, and while also being ready to manage unexpected spending surprises. Reverse mortgages can help to manage these retirement risks by providing an additional resource to support spending and to coordinate with other investments assets. My overarching interest is in building efficient retirement income plans to support the most spending potential for assets, both during life and as a legacy for the next generation. I demonstrate with case studies how reverse mortgages can contribute to better retirement outcomes in numerous ways: - Coordinate between spending from the investment portfolio and from the reverse mortgage to better protect investments from market volatility - Avoid the additional burden of fixed mortgage payments in retirement by refinancing a traditional mortgage with a reverse mortgage - Pay for home renovations to help you comfortably age in place with the home you love - Build a bridge to support getting the most lifetime value from Social Security benefits - Use the reverse mortgage as a tax-free spending resource to better manage your taxable income - Use the growing line of credit as a protective hedge for your home value or as a source of reserves to cover unexpected spending needs This book provides the basics for how reverse mortgages work, why they work better when interest rates are low (unlike every other retirement tool), what their growing line of credit means, and how they help to manage investment volatility. Reverse mortgages---when used correctly---can provide an added layer of security for retirees by creating flexibility for their assets. Opening a reverse mortgage earlier in retirement and using it in a thoughtful manner is generally more effective that treating it only as a last resort option. Those who understand whether and how to fit a reverse mortgage into their retirement plan will have an important edge in achieving a financially secure retirement. This book shows you how.

Larry Swedroe, the author of The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need, has collaborated with Joe H. Hempen to create an up-to-date book on how to invest in today's bond market that covers a range of issues pertinent to any bond investor today including: bond-speak, the risks of fixed income investing, mortgage-backed securities, and municipal bonds. The Only Guide to a Winning Bond Strategy You'll Ever Need is a no-nonsense handbook with all the information necessary to design and construct your fixed income portfolio. In this day and age of shaky stocks and economic unpredictability, The Only Guide to a Winning Bond Strategy You'll Ever Need is a crucial tool for any investor looking to safeguard their money.