Lost in her latest romance novel, Lydia didn’t notice her husband’s return until he dropped a burlap sack on her lap. She glared at him. “What’s this?” she asked. “Open it,” her husband, Dan, replied. “It’s a gift from my grandfather.” Lydia opened the bag and looked inside. “Guns? He left you guns?” Dan took the bag from her and…
The Golden Years May Have a New Name: The Bankrupt Years In the past month or so, a number of articles in the news have come out showing that seniors are declaring bankruptcy at an increasing and alarming rate. The debt burden on seniors is going up due to student loans, credit cards, and lack of retirement savings. Often, the…
IRAs, 401(k)s and other tax-deferred retirement accounts allow your savings to grow tax-free until you retire. The year after you become age 70 ½, you must begin taking required minimum distributions from your retirement accounts, and you will pay ordinary income taxes on all distributions. The rest of the money that stays in your account continues to grow tax-free until…
Mary hung up the phone and frowned. “That can’t be right,” she said. “What can’t be right?” her husband James asked. He put his newspaper down and gazed at her. “Janice says she heard from Darla who heard from Laura that the End of Life Option Act has been overturned. If that’s true, we are going to need to change…
This is another installment in our very occasional series on estate planning lessons learned from celebrities. The actress Nichelle Nichols, 85, who is most famous for portraying Lieutenant Uhura on the original “Star Trek,” is currently the subject of a conservatorship battle pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. Ms. Nichols’ son, Kyle Johnson, filed the petition for conservatorship in May…
According to new federal data, gathered by Medicare from daily payroll records from more than 14,000 nursing homes in the United States, nursing homes have been under-reporting to the government their nurse and caretaker staffing levels for years. For families with loved ones dependent on nursing home care, this is likely not a surprise. There are nearly 1.4 million people…
Continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) often require new residents to pay an entry fee in exchange for lifetime housing and priority access to healthcare, in addition to a monthly fee. These entry fees can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In many cases, a sizable portion of the entry fee may be refundable to the resident if they move…
