Adapted from Broadridge Investor Communication Services

If you’re like a lot of people, retirement won’t be the world of gardening, golfing, traveling, and tennis you once envisioned. Rather, retirement will mean relaxing and working. Maybe you’ve retired from your “regular” job and started a business, or perhaps you want to work part-time to stay busy. However, if you work after you start receiving Social Security retirement benefits, your earnings may affect the amount of your benefit check.

How your earnings affect your benefit

Your earnings in retirement may increase your retirement benefit

Your monthly Social Security retirement benefit is based on your lifetime earnings. When you become entitled to retirement benefits at age 62, the Social Security Administration (SSA) calculates your primary insurance amount (PIA) upon which your retirement benefit will be based. Later, your PIA will be recalculated annually if you have had any new earnings that might substantially increase your benefit. So if you continue to work after you start receiving retirement benefits, these earnings may eventually increase your PIA and thus your retirement benefit.

When your child first started school, you doled out the change for milk and a snack on a daily basis. But now that your kindergartner has grown up, it’s time for you to make sure that your child has enough financial knowledge to manage money at college.

Lesson 1: Budgeting 101
Perhaps your child already understands the basics of budgeting from having to handle an allowance or wages from a part-time job during high school. But now that your child is in college, he or she may need to draft a “real world” budget, especially if he or she lives off-campus and is responsible for paying for rent and utilities. Here are some ways you can help your child plan and stick to a realistic budget:

• Help your child figure out what income there will be (money from home, financial aid, a part-time job) and when it will be coming in (at the beginning of each semester, once a month, or every week).
• Make sure your child understands the difference between needs and wants. Your child should understand how important it is to cover the needs first.
• Determine together how you and your child will split responsibility for expenses. For instance, you may decide that you’ll pay for your child’s trips home, but that your child will need to pay for art supplies or other miscellaneous expenses.
• Warn your child not to spend too much too soon, particularly when money that has to last all semester arrives at the beginning of a term.
• Acknowledge that college isn’t all about studying. While you should include entertainment expenses in the budget, encourage your child to stick closely to the limit you agree upon.
• Show your child how to track expenses by saving receipts and keeping an expense log. Knowing where the money is going will help your child stay on track.
• Encourage your child to plan ahead for big expenses (the annual auto insurance bill or the trip over spring break).
• Caution your child to monitor spending patterns to avoid excessive spending, and ask him or her to come to you for advice at the first sign of financial trouble.

The need to outpace inflation doesn’t end at retirement; in fact, it becomes even more important. If you’re living on a fixed income, you need to make sure your investing strategy takes inflation into account. Otherwise, you may have less buying power in the later years of your retirement because your income doesn’t stretch as far.

Your savings may need to last longer than you think

Gains in life expectancy have been dramatic. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, people today can expect to live more than 30 years longer than they did a century ago. Individuals who reached age 65 in 1950 could expect to live an average of 14 years more, to age 79; now a 65-year-old might expect to live for roughly an additional 19 years. Assuming inflation continues to increase over that time, the income you’ll need will continue to grow each year. That means you’ll need to think carefully about how to structure your portfolio to provide an appropriate withdrawal rate, especially in the early years of retirement.

Ask your 5-year old where money comes from, and the answer you’ll probably get is “from the bank!” Even though children don’t always understand where money really comes from, they realize at a young age that they can use it to buy the things they want. So as soon as your child becomes interested in money, start teaching him or her how to handle it wisely.

Investing always involves a degree of risk. If you plan to buy securities such as stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, or bonds, it is important to realize you could lose some or all of the money you invest. Finding an investment profile that fits your risk tolerance while still allowing you to reach your goals can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. The first step is finding out what type of investor you are.

No. Medicare coverage comes with deductibles and significant co-payments or coinsurance costs for many types of treatments, including hospitalizations. Typically, the deductible amounts are increased each year.

If you’re not prepared to pay these expenses out of pocket, you may want to consider a Medigap policy (a supplemental medical insurance policy). Medigap insurance policies are sold by private health insurers. These policies are standardized and regulated by both state and federal law.