“I'm going to miss hearing from Dick Young every month,” said one long-time reader of Intelligence Report, “I’ve been reading his letter for 25 years. He was the best hands-down. He always wrote to me the way he saw things.” That’s a common refrain I’ve been hearing over the last couple of weeks. In an industry littered with opinions, you could always depend on the integrity of Dick Young and Intelligence Report. Since 1998, when I first started working with Dick and Matt Young, prospective clients have been saying: They trust Mr. Young, they’ve followed his advice for years, and now that … [Read more...]

Guess who needs the most of your dollars to survive? You guessed it, Washington D.C. If you're a retiree who has been living and working in Washington D.C. for your entire career, you would without a doubt stretch your dollars further if you moved to a less expensive locale. Washington D.C. is the most expensive place to live in the continental United States. As the Tax Foundation map below makes clear, for $100 of spending in Washington D.C., a consumer only receives about $85.47 worth of goods when compared to the national average. How does a 15% haircut on all your purchases sound … [Read more...]

A new study from Harvard Business School says it's possible money can buy happiness. More specifically using money to buy free time can make people happier. The researchers surveyed people in the U.S., Canada, Denmark and The Netherlands to find out "whether—and how much—money they spent each month to increase their free time by paying someone else to complete unenjoyable daily tasks." Then those surveyed responded to another questionnaire about "time stress." Karen Kaplan summarized the results at the LA Times, writing: Survey-takers were asked whether they paid other people to do … [Read more...]

I’ve spent some time lately discussing states with booming economies like South Carolina, and states that are near bankruptcy, like Illinois. Depending on a state’s fiscal strength, or lack thereof, your earnings could be targeted to fill the gaps. And some states have a cost of living so high, no matter what you’re making, it’s nearly impossible to save. Maximizing your savings early on is the most important thing you can do to jumpstart the power of compounding in your retirement portfolio. But many Americans aren’t making very much money until their peak earning years, from say 45 to 65. … [Read more...]

The $1.5 billion pension fund has 5,786 bus and train divers, track workers, and other employee members, reports the Boston Globe. And there are 6,685 retirees participating in the fund. Those numbers aren’t sustainable. Apart from numbers that look hard to reconcile, the fund is now embroiled in a bit of a scandal. Beth Healy reports at the Globe: Michael Mulhern took home $2.2 million in compensation as chief of the MBTA Retirement Fund in the eight years after the financial crisis, including $216,329 in 2016, when he worked just seven months. The compensation, released in response to a … [Read more...]

Who would have thought you could make money fishing in retirement? I’ll explain. “Hey, E.J., quick question. I’ve got a minute before my next pick-up.” That’s when it hit me. He wasn’t joking about working for Uber. Nice! What a great way to pick-up some extra cash. Why wouldn’t you work for Uber? The money is good. Much better than I had expected. And, he told me, “I’m meeting some incredible people.” He is learning a ton. How many retirees can say they’re meeting new people at a part-time job, having fun, while being the boss? It’s meeting people and getting some fresh ideas that … [Read more...]

I've warned investors for years about the fees hiding in their 401(k) plans. Often employees don't have much say over how their 401(k) savings are invested. Some of the investments in their plans could be loaded with fees that eat away at their returns. A study reported on by Andrew Osterland at CNBC shows that most retirees don't even know what's lurking in their plans. He writes: Are you paying 12b-1 fees in your 401(k) plan? Are you charged front- or back-end loads on the funds you pick for the account? What's the size of the sub-transfer agency fee paid to the third-party service provider … [Read more...]

Originally posted September 7, 2016. UPDATE, March 10, 2017: Since I wrote this back in September of 2016, I have resurrected the Best Investment Newsletter of All-Time, Young's World Money Forecast. Visit the new site by clicking here.  In October 1993, at the peak of the investment newsletter industry, Money magazine authored a Money Newsline feature headlined Big Investment Newsletters Worth The Money. Richard C. Young was pictured on the cover of this special issue of Money and featured inside in a multi-page article, Your Smartest Moves Now. Money analyzed the five biggest … [Read more...]

In an interview with Fidelity Viewpoints, Stanford Center for Longevity founding director Laura Carstensen says the old model of retirement just won't work anymore. Life expectancy throughout most of human evolution was somewhere between 18 and 20 years. Life was short. By the mid-1800s life expectancy had reached the mid-30s in the United States, and in 1900 it was 47 years. By the end of the century, life expectancy had reached 77. It gained 30 years in one century—that’s unprecedented. More years were added to average life expectancy in the 20th century than all the years added in all … [Read more...]