Most of life’s costlier occasions have prescribed financing options: buy a home, get a mortgage; send a kid to college, save in a 529 plan or get student loans; need a new car, sign a lease or take out a car loan. But what do you do if you want cosmetic surgery? In 2010, 13.1 ..

Jean Dorrell knew something was wrong when the birthday card her father usually sends two weeks ahead of schedule didn’t arrive in the mail. “This past year he forgot my birthday and he forgot my brothers’ birthdays, so we realized he was slipping pretty fast,” says Dorrell, a certified financial planner and founder of Senior Financial ..

The possibility of living into my 90s seems like a gift on most days – one that, if I’m lucky, I’ve inherited from my long-living ancestors. But it can also feel like a burden. At age 45, I can still call my grandmother to hear stories about the Great Depression. She turned 97 this year. ..

Reaching retirement can be a wonderful thing — except when it catches you by surprise. Say, for example, when you’re in your late 50s and the boss gives you the boot. Or you might fall victim to downsizing at a newly merged company. The culprit could even be an illness that interrupts you in the ..

Soon after her mother died a decade ago, Susan Martin realized it was time to rethink her own finances. “I was shocked to see she was invested in things inappropriate for her,” said Martin, 56, who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and owns a business coaching and consulting firm called Business Sanity. “That got me ..

Getting into the investing game for the first time can be intimidating. New investors might think they have to spend hundreds of hours learning about stocks and mutual funds, and constantly watch their portfolios to make sure they’re on track. Hooey, many experts say. “To think that by trading individual stocks you’re going to beat ..

Practically Painless Guide To Managing Money In our time-starved lives it can be tempting to give our finances short shrift. People are juggling multiple checking, savings, investing and credit card accounts, and it gets more complicated when you add mortgages, tax and insurance concerns into the mix. Each of these comes with an abundance of ..

I’m hardly Dear Abby, and I don’t normally turn something left in the comments section into a story, but this message, left in the comments section of a recent post I wrote, grabbed me and I couldn’t turn away: I have been married for 12 years and have just been told by my husband that he ..

Five out of five financial planners think you should have one, and 70 million Americans do. This clock-puncher says they’re all wrong. By Ashlea Halpern Photograph: Roxana Marroquin So here I am, 26 years old, and I haven’t saved a penny for retirement. Like many folks my age, I have a litany of excuses for ..

Employee benefits have become vital to the success of businesses. Good benefit plans help lure high-quality employees who can keep organizations competitive. But rising costs, particularly on the medical side, mean that employers must be careful when putting packages together. Plans should be attractive without being overly expensive. The importance and growing complexity of the ..