Retirement

Most Americans finance their retirement with a certain amount of faith: Investing will help their savings keep pace with inflation, institutions will continue to work as they always have, it will all work out in the end. It’s challenging to maintain that optimism in moments like these, when it seems just about everything is at…

Women break into their savings to cover all kinds of expenses: home down payments, repairs, medical bills. That can hurt them years later. Vickie Elisa was already playing catch-up with her retirement fund when she withdrew $17,000 to fix a plumbing disaster in her Atlanta-area home. The bleeding from that Roth individual retirement account had…

And a SoftBank-backed start up that wants to save your 401(k). Ready to act.Daniel Roland Europe finally takes on inflation The European Central Bank increased its benchmark interest rates today for the first time in a decade, as inflation surges across countries that use the euro. The bank’s benchmark interest rates, before the increase, had…

A new report finds that I.R.A.s may charge seemingly modest higher fees than workplace retirement accounts. But over time, the difference can add up to tens of thousands of dollars. Americans who are moving money from a workplace retirement plan to an individual retirement account may be tripped up by seemingly modest increases in fees…

A bear market can be great for your future wealth, if you use broad, low-cost funds to buy stocks and bonds steadily for decades, our columnist says. I wouldn’t wish this bear market on anyone. A lot of people have been losing a lot of money — not just billionaires, but ordinary working people who…

You can’t leave money in your I.R.A. forever, as dictated by I.R.S. rules. This can put retired investors in a tough spot. Financial planners warn investors against trying to time the market. It is notoriously difficult to guess exactly when sentiment on Wall Street will reverse course — even professionals are likely to get it…

Steep downturns of stocks by 20 percent or more are relatively rare, but how long they last could portend damage — for you and the economy. The S&P 500 on Monday dropped into its second bear market of the pandemic, crossing a symbolic and worrisome threshold as stocks plunge following a meteoric rise over the…

You can’t leave money in your I.R.A. forever, as dictated by I.R.S. rules. This can put retired investors in a tough spot. Financial planners warn investors against trying to time the market. It is notoriously difficult to guess exactly when sentiment on Wall Street will reverse course — even professionals are likely to get it…

But there are rules around opening one for a child. First: The child must have earned income. Has your teenager landed a summer job? Good! Now, consider putting your child’s earnings to work long term by opening a Roth individual retirement account. It may seem odd to think about retirement savings when your child could…

After leaving the labor force in unusual numbers early in the pandemic, Americans approaching retirement age are back on the job at previous levels. When Kim Williams and millions of other older Americans lost their jobs early in the coronavirus pandemic, economists wondered how many would ever work again — and how that loss would…

Their houses are piggy banks, their retirement accounts are up and their bosses are eager to please. When the boom ends, everything will change. This is an era of great political division and dramatic cultural upheaval. Much more quietly, it has been a time of great financial reward for a large number of Americans. For…

There may be years when you have to drum up your own work — and create your own retirement plan. Cecile Corral had been feeling optimistic about her retirement savings. For a decade, she was making good use of an employer-sponsored 401(k), contributing 6 percent of her salary and receiving a match of as much…