Financial FAQs – The 4 Things We Get Asked the Most
We’ve heard a lot of great questions at Cobblestone over the last three decades, some more often than others. We’re here to give you the answers to the ones we hear the most – before you even ask.
We’ve heard a lot of great questions at Cobblestone over the last three decades, some more often than others. We’re here to give you the answers to the ones we hear the most – before you even ask.
It depends. As a general rule, you should be trying to save 15 to 20 percent of your income. Your age, how much you make, how much you already have saved, how much you can afford to miss out of your paycheck, and the lifestyle you are looking for in retirement all come in as variables to determine how much you should be saving.
You are eligible at age 62. However, if you have enough other income, you may want to delay for up to eight years in order to increase your monthly benefit. The Social Security Administration offers a Retirement Estimator to give you a rough idea of what your benefit will be at different ages. When retirement is getting closer, talk to a trusted financial advisor to walk you through the benefits of the best time to collect social security.
A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged education investment account. It makes savings easy with automatic transfers. With the average cost of college increasing substantially each year, parents can decide what they can reasonably afford as a monthly contribution to their children’s future college plans. Even a small dollar amount to start that increases over time as salaries increase will make a big difference in the long term.
Your safest bet is to have three to six months’ worth of your total living expenses. This way if you lose your job or fall upon hard times, you can maintain your lifestyle without racking up debt. But even $1,000 is a good start. That’s enough to cover a few pop-up bills like car repairs or broken appliances. Open a separate account and have a set amount directly deposited each month to make it easy.
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Investments in securities are not insured, protected or guaranteed and may result in loss of income and/or principal.
Nothing in this communication is intended to be or should be construed as individualized investment advice. All content is of a general nature and solely for educational, informational and illustrative purposes.