Social Security

The Medicare alphabet soup of options reminds me of that old Abbott & Costello routine, “Who’s on first?” where Abbott’s list of the baseball team’s players – Who, What, etc. – is also a non-responsive answer to Costello’s questions. Don’t remember that? Good for you, Medicare is probably years away. Chuckle, like me, when you think of that bit? Probably need to pay attention to this.

A woman stole my Social Security number but got bupkes for her trouble because I had frozen my credit. When I received a phone call from a Lexington Police detective a couple weeks ago telling me they were questioning someone who had obtained my Social Security number, along with several others, I told him I had frozen my credit and he immediately said, “You have nothing to worry about.” While it was disturbing to hear that someone could somehow steal my number, I have to say it was also quite satisfying to know I had shut her down faster than a church picnic with no potato salad.

A new federal law that goes into effect today, September 21, makes freezing your credit, thawing your credit and protecting the credit of your underage children easier and less expensive. Here are some steps to take to protect you and your family from identity theft:

Financial planning would be much simpler if our clients would tell us exactly how long they plan to live. Is that really too much to ask?

When to take Social Security is one of the key retirement planning decisions one must make and can be complicated, stressful and confusing. While each person’s decision will depend on their own, specific circumstances, here are 6 steps to consider when crunching those numbers.

When Equifax allowed the Social Security numbers of 145 million people to fall into the hands of thieves last year, I froze my credit at the three major credit reporting agencies to help prevent someone from stealing my identity. It wasn’t difficult, it didn’t take long and it was very cheap. Here’s why and how I did it, and what it means.