Do you have a burning question about family, friends, colleagues, and your finances? Here's your chance to get some great advice.
In "Readers to the Rescue," a feature that runs in each issue of MONEY, the magazine answers tough questions from people who are grappling with challenging situations involving money, manners and ethics. One recent question, for example, was from a man wondering how to limit his family's spending on junk food. Another questioner wanted to know what purchases he could make without consulting his spouse. Other questions have addressed touchy financial issues such as dividing up an inheritance, collecting on a loan to a relative, splitting a dinner check and asking for a raise.
For these and other problems in "Readers to the Rescue," we ask our readers for their advice, then gather together the best ideas from readers and a financial expert who weighs in as well.
So, have a difficult problem you'd like some help with? Fill out the form below, and we'll try to answer it in a future issue of MONEY.
Thanks!
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Are you living a successful retirement? Share your story in MONEY magazine!
Read just about any survey about Americans' retirement readiness, and you might worry that you'll be stuck at your desk forever. A study released recently by the Employee Benefit Research Institute concludes that even delaying retirement may not be enough to make up for paltry savings; many Americans, especially lower-income Americans, will have to keep working into their 70s MORE
Jul 30, 2011 8:55 AM ET
Are you a retiree who has a smaller nest egg than you'd planned for — but who is still enjoying a high-quality, satisfying retirement? If so, MONEY magazine would like to interview you for an upcoming story.
Maybe you had a setback — your investments took a big hit in the market downturn, or you retired early because of a health issue or job loss. Maybe you just tired of the MORE
Donna Rosato - Jul 12, 2011 11:51 AM ET
Once you retire and roll over your 401(k), you are more likely than ever to be the target of sales pitches touting financial products or services. Some of these products don't make sense for most people. While elderly folks have more at stake than ever, research continues to show that the aging process sometimes introduces problems sorting through complex financial issues. This leaves some older people vulnerable to paying higher MORE
Lisa Gibbs - Apr 27, 2011 4:08 PM ET
Got a burning question about personal finance? Get your answer from MONEY magazine's Help Desk.
Apr 7, 2011 1:05 PM ET
People with 401(k) plans got a nice tax break last month, but they'll have to wait for some red tape to be cleared out of the way before they can actually take advantage of it.
Thanks to a provision in the Small Business Jobs Act, which President Obama signed into law last month, 401(k) plan participants will be permitted to roll their accounts over into Roth 401(k)s. MORE
Susie Poppick - Oct 24, 2010 10:32 PM ET
The number of working women earning six-figure salaries is climbing at an impressive rate. But once you get out of that rarefied atmosphere, women, whether in the workforce or retired from it, still have a lot of catching up to do.
MP Dunleavey - Oct 14, 2010 2:38 PM ET
It has a whiff of buried treasure about it: Somewhere out there are billions of dollars in unclaimed funds just waiting to be unearthed. And part of that money might be yours.
State treasuries and other agencies are holding some $32.8 billion in unclaimed assets, including bank accounts, pensions, savings bonds, CDs, escrow accounts, insurance checks, 401(k) funds and more.
MP Dunleavey - Oct 4, 2010 4:16 PM ET
The problem is a common one in the arena of personal finance: You're approaching the age at which you've planned to retire, but you don't have enough money saved. What do you do?
The solution is a common one, too: Work longer. You'll hear it from financial planners — and from Washington as well. A White House commission investigating ways to keep Social Security from running out of money is considering MORE
Beth Fenner - Sep 13, 2010 5:58 PM ET
You'd never fall for an email hawking shares in a diamond mine in Nigeria, but what if your own trusted broker tried to sell you a stake in a vodka enterprise in Moscow?
You might not be so suspicious. These so-called "off the book deals" — offered by an adviser you consider reliable, in an off-the-record kind of way — are among this year's top investor traps, according to the National American MORE
MP Dunleavey - Aug 16, 2010 12:50 PM ET
Only a fraction of Americans contribute to an IRA, but the ones that do tend to take it to the max.
That's one of the findings from a recent study of 10 million individual retirement accounts conducted by the Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund industry trade organization. The study — which also indicates that women are more likely to contribute to an IRA than men are, that the wealthy MORE
Anne C. Lee - Aug 2, 2010 2:18 PM ET
Having hit the midpoint of 2010, we're doing a week-long spree of tax planning posts this week (check out the earlier one on figuring out if you'll be square with Uncle Sam). As any tax pro knows, a little foresight can go a long way toward making your next April 15 a little more pleasant.
Today's topic: Investing strategy.
If you sold an investment in '07, '08, or early '09 for MORE
Margaret Magnarelli - Jul 7, 2010 3:51 PM ET
What's the most irritating fee charged by banks, airlines or other businesses? The time is winding down for letting us know.
Following up on our story about 15 irritating fees — and how to avoid them — MONEY is on its way to crowning the biggest loser: The Most-Hated Fee of All. This week, we've been asking you to narrow down the field of 15 outrageous fees by picking your least-favorite MORE
A Money Editor - Jun 17, 2010 11:22 AM ET
It's taken a few years, but Americans are finally giving up on the dream of an early retirement. A new poll by the Gallup organization found that for the first time more Americans say they will work longer than age 65, rather than call it quits in their 50s or early 60s.
The change is dramatic. More than a third of those surveyed said they would retire after 65, compared with MORE
Penelope Wang - May 2, 2010 5:16 AM ET
A new survey out today from Hewitt Associates finds that 401(k) investors haven't been very busy lately. Just 16% of participants made any kind of fund transfer in 2009, vs. about 20% the year earlier. In other words, relatively few people noticed the 27%-return rally in the works and said to themselves, "Hey, I should jump back into stock funds." That's good... and it's bad. And it's an opportunity to MORE
Pat Regnier - Apr 20, 2010 3:47 PM ET
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