With Jane Bryant Quinn, AARP Bulletin Personal Finance Columnist and Expert, Author of Making the Most of Your Money NOW
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Jane Bryant Quinn is an AARP Bulletin Personal Finance Columnist, expert, and an author of multiple books on personal finance, including a new book out in January 2016 titled “How to Make Your Money Last” where she advises everyone on how to stretch their money in retirement as life spans continue to expand. She also talks about the financial issues around the benefits of wedded bliss, emotions apart… with tips such as marriage benefits for retiree finances such as survivor’s benefits, medical decision-making power, tax benefits on IRAs, etc. – things you cannot do if you are a single retiree.
But while there are marriage benefits, there also are a few pitfalls such as being liable for the other’s medical or long-term care bills – which you can navigate around through things like long-term care insurance. Jane talks about how remarriage impacts your social security benefits. She also talks about how Congress dropped a bombshell with changes in social security laws that close a lot of earlier loopholes – so those heading into retirement should make sure they educate themselves on these changes and plan ahead.
Jane has had a wonderfully colorful life, with a good measure of financial missteps and misfortune along the way, but through it all, she’s managed to come out ahead and has used her experience of triumph over loss to motivate others to make the most of their money and save enough for a comfortable retirement.
Jane say, she’s writes about personal finance because she’s a lot smarter now. First because she saved a lot of money and learned how to invest it well. Second, to show that everyone makes mistakes. The trick is to learn from them, grow strong and do better. And third, to abolish the myth that you have to be born with a math book in your mouth to be good at making decisions about your personal money.
As she puts it, personal finance has nothing to do with math. It’s all about understanding simple principles (such as automatic savings), knowing where to find the advice and tools you need (on her website and in her books) and choosing low-cost, plain-vanilla financial products (because they’ve proven to be superior to everything else over time).
