Recently, behavioral economics has become an interest of mine – understanding what motivates people to make the decisions they do about their finances helps me to better direct the advice they seek. I wanted to share the article below about this topic. Perhaps you’ll recognize yourself in one of these categories, and work to make changes to better your financial outlook...

Below is a great article that focuses on one of the key variables of retirement planning – how long are you going to live in retirement? Countless actuarial studies have been run and are updated annually to provide average life expectancies (something the insurance industry relies heavily on) that inform planning process. The key point the author makes is that there is a huge difference between life expectancy from birth and life expectancy at a certain age...

The latest cost of living adjustments have been released by the Social Security Administration. More detail is given in the article below, but once again, the adjustment amounts to less than 2% for the third year in a row...

Household Income In America – (see full article and interactive graph here, courtesy of NPR’s Planet Money Team)

The graph reveals a striking pattern. After adjusting for inflation, income was basically flat for households in the bottom half of the economic ladder. Right around the middle, income starts to pick up — and the higher you go up the income ladder, the more income growth you see...