Money Matters Articles

Should You Make IRA Contributions After 65?

  As I was listening to my voicemail on a Saturday morning, I picked up a message from a relative. "Christine, I have some extra money to invest," she said. "I put some cash into my traditional IRA earlier this year, but this time I wonder if I should make a Roth...

The Working Class Can’t Afford the American Dream

  The national conversation in the U.S. is focused squarely on improving the lives of people in the working class. The debate revolves around exactly how to do that. Politicians and pundits have all sorts of ideas, from efforts to save jobs, create tax cuts,...

Here’s what health care will cost you in retirement

My husband and I were dreaming about what we would do if we won the recent $758 million Powerball jackpot. (We didn’t.) I told him he should keep working his federal government job so that we could hold on to the insurance into retirement. “I think with that much...

Your Financial Life Is Complicated; Your Portfolio Shouldn’t Be

The uptake of index products has been widely hailed as an expression of investors' preference for low-cost investments. And a quest to lower total portfolio costs and cut out higher-priced, underperforming funds may well be the main driver of the enormous asset flows...