Back when people got a paper copy of their tax return from their accountant, they would put it in a drawer along with their other important papers and never look at it again. Now that many people file electronically, that tax return is probably sitting in an email inbox ...

New disclosure rules for 401(k)s mean that employees now have more information than ever about their work-based retirement plans. With that new information, some will look at the plan they have at work and wonder if they could be doing something better with their money. Most people believe that ...

Fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, theft (including identity theft), sudden illness, disability or a sudden death in the family—any of these can lead to a financial emergency. Yet most of us are not prepared. We should all have some extra food and water, but it is the financial ramifications that ...

It is that time of year when everyone believes tax planning is happening. But there is a big difference between tax planning and tax preparation. Don’t blame your accountant if you owe money, and don’t praise them if you get a large refund; whatever happens now is just an aftereffect ...

In my last post, I outlined how much has changed since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. Over the past several years, subtle adjustments have been made to health care, with more of the actual rules being written in 2013. Last week, I laid out what the changes ...

This is a transition year for healthcare reform. State legislatures are preparing for health insurance exchanges, while many people are unsure of what their benefits and premiums will look like starting January 1, 2014. In the middle are business owners, who have many new issues to understand about the healthcare ...

U.S. News & World Report just released a list of the top 10 worst places to retire. None of them are very surprising—they all have expensive housing, high taxes and high healthcare costs (New York, San Francisco or Honolulu, for example). Spending is the key to how big your pile ...