Blog

[VIDEO] "Hey Mike": Can You Avoid Probate Without a Trust?

The Estate Plan That Should Have Worked

Imagine you're in your 80s. You've raised a family, built a life with your spouse, and accumulated more money than you'll ever spend. Wanting to leave a blessing rather than a burden, you hire a qualified estate-planning attorney and...

The Hard Knock Life

Few things are as durable for journalistic fodder and in social analysis as generational warfare. Generational friction affects us all, since, at the very least, we have parents and grandparents. Many of us have children of our own....

That’s Not the Real Problem

Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see, poet Edgar Allan Poe is said to have recommended. He might well have advised you to withhold belief from part of what you read as well.This struck me recently when I dug into...

[VIDEO] Should You Convert to a Roth IRA? A Framework for Evaluating the Tradeoffs

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[VIDEO] Should You Convert to a Roth IRA? When the Math Says No

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The Financial Life Examined

Popular financial planning and philosophy author Morgan Housel has a new book out: The Art of Spending Money (2025). Some of you will be familiar with his blockbuster The Psychology of Money (2020). Housel is an excellent writer and...

[VIDEO] "Hey Mike": Can I Put My IRA Into a Trust?

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Don’t Blow It at the End

It’s time to contemplate our deterioration and death.How’s that for a happy opener?Welcome to my second essay in 2026.My goal here is to introduce the next--and what I expect will be--the final intellectual focus of my career: managing...

[VIDEO] "Hey Mike": Should Divorced Spouses Delay Social Security?

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End of Year Money Moves: Classic Plays, New Rules, and 2026 Curveballs

It’s the time of year when the holidays aren’t the only things that deserve attention. Before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, a little tax‑engineering can save you serious money — or build a nest egg that makes the future you very...

[VIDEO] Market Drops Are Normal: Why Every Investor Needs a Plan B

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[VIDEO] "Hey Mike": Market Drops Are Normal: Why Every Investor Needs a Plan B

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[VIDEO] What Elite Athletes Can Teach Us About Investing

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[VIDEO] Good Debt vs. Bad Debt: A Smarter Way to Think About Borrowing

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[VIDEO] Income Too High for a Roth IRA? 3 Strategies to Consider

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[VIDEO] Retirement Healthcare Costs: Why Your Expenses May Be Lower Than You Think

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Paying Rent in the Wrong Kind of Hotel: Part One

The fantastically prolific and always insightful Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR) recently released a study focusing on the actual and perceived risks of paying for health-related expenses in retirement.[1] Using...

[VIDEO] Why Smart Investors Still Can Fall for Financial Scams

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Paying Rent in the Wrong Kind of Hotel: Part Two

In part two of his series, Michael Lynch explores real-world strategies to protect your assets from long-term care costs—beyond insurance—and why the right plan can mean the difference between security and spend-down.

[VIDEO] Children as IRA Beneficiaries - Hey Mike! Episode 07

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[VIDEO] 403(b) and Roth RMDs! - Hey Mike! Episode 08

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[VIDEO] The Rule of Thirds

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[VIDEO] Too Much of the Wrong Debt?

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[VIDEO] Are You Too Rich for Roth?

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[VIDEO] The 401k Rollover Mistake

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[VIDEO] Living Trust Inherited IRA - Hey Mike! Episode 06

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[VIDEO] RMD Annuity - Hey Mike! Episode 05

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[VIDEO] Taxable Portion of Roth Conversion - Hey Mike! Episode 04

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What's Next?

In my last column, I explored how to make your working days numbered by calculating your personal number. That is, the amount of assets you must amass to retire confidently and comfortably. I ended it with a profound planning question:...

We've Got Your Number

What’s your number? Which number, you may ask? My waistline, IQ, daily caloric intake? This world is filled with numbers to track. Please clarify. I’m glad you asked. Your financial independence number--the amount...

Managing RMDs in Tough Times

By Michael W Lynch Sarah had been on a bad run. She’s an equity zealot, hates all bonds, and focuses her entire portfolio on U.S. stock. She was 73 and faced the dreaded required minimum distributions (RMDs) based on December 31, 2021...

Year End Moves

As we begin the end of 2024, I want to point out a few simple year-end strategies that may have a big financial impact on you. Given that taxes are the largest expenses of most of my clients, it’s no surprise that most strategies focus...

[VIDEO] Treat Your Parents Well

[VIDEO] Hey Mike! - Medicare Part B Premiums

[VIDEO] Hey Mike! - Convert Roth IRA?

[VIDEO] Planning for Healthcare in Retirement

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[VIDEO] Meet Michael W Lynch

[VIDEO] What's Your Plan B?

[VIDEO] You Need Life Insurance

[VIDEO] Hey Mike! - Back Door Roth IRA

Summer is Going, Going, Gone!!!!!

As hard as it is to believe and accept, summer will soon be on its way out. I hope each of you is making the most of it. Hello football, falling leaves, and, for those working for large institutions, open enrollment for benefit...

Fundamentals of Finance

We Americans, as a collective, underperform in our financial lives. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’re bums. Quite the contrary. We’ve created the world’s most dynamic economy; we produce life-enhancing innovations at a pace that...

Pay a Little Now or a Lot Later

Your Worst Accounts for Taxes While Working May Be Your Best in Retirement I’m gonna tell you something few others will. It’ll cost you a bit today, perhaps, but like a habit of taking regular trips to the gym in your 30s and 40s,...

From Scarcity to Abundance: Two Types of Planning

For most of our lives, people practice the financial planning of scarcity. The fundamental questions we ask: Will we have enough? How much do we need? How can I best accumulate what I need? We apply these questions to life’s journey....

The Great Pension Heist

Retirees, fasten your seatbelts. Prices are marching upward, with the Consumer Price Index rising at an annualized rate of 8 percent from April through June 2021, with no end in sight. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the keeper...

Tales from the Trenches

Life insurance, notes industry expert Barry Flagg, is America’s worst managed asset. This is not good. One in two Americans own at least one life insurance contract.[1] One in five Americans own a contract with cash value.[2] There is...

It is Always a Problem: Heads It’s Bad and Tails It’s Even Worse

Ever get the feeling that you just can’t win, that nothing ever goes right? As a daily reader of the financial press, I felt this way for years. It always seems to me that regardless of the state of the world, the apparent solution...

Better to Go Direct

The time comes in most retirees’ lives when they are struck by an “ah ha” moment that changes everything. After a working life of systematic saving that often came at the expense of luxuries and adventurous experiences, they realize...

Paying for Health in Retirement: You’ll Be Surprised How Little You May Spend

Ask a room of aspiring retirees, as I often do, to name their number one worry as they approach calling it quits and the overwhelming consensus will be the affordability of health care. This seemingly primal fear is both reflected and...

Four Lessons to Maximize Your ROY: Returns on Yourself

It’s a cliché, but perhaps that’s why I employ it with prospective clients. “What’s your largest asset?” is the query. “My home” is a common but incorrect reply, a delusion fueled by the real estate industry. “My 401(k)” is a close...

New Year’s Numbers

For some, fall is fantastic for its colors. For others it’s football, October baseball, or the few weeks when basketball overwhelms sports fans with viewing choices. Farmers bring in the harvest which we all celebrate with festivals...

Future Pensioners Alert: Act Now or Potentially Lose Thousands!

Future Pensioners Alert: Act Now or Potentially Lose Thousands! The traditional defined benefit pension may be on its way to extinction. But according to the Congressional Research Service, 24 percent of civilian workers still have one...

Take Your Job and Shove It

“A Harvard-trained economist says ‘early retirement is one of the worst money mistakes—here’s why you’ll regret it,’” blared a masterfully crafted clickbait headline. I couldn’t resist. I clicked. The author is prominent economist and...

Changes Gonna Come

Investments, retirement plans, taxes and estate and gift taxes make a confusing stew in the more stable of times. These times, as you know, aren’t stable. The pandemic, a party-changing election, and resulting massive government...

Summer’s Gone

As hard as it’s to believe and accept, Summer 2021 is on its way out. I hope each of you made the most of it. Hello football, falling leaves and, for those working for large institutions, open enrollment for benefit elections. It’s...

Sarah’s Questions: Is a Donor Advised Fund or a Qualified Charitable Distribution better for me?

My client Sarah (name changed for obvious reasons) is a personal finance enthusiast. As I shared in my first “Ask Sarah” post, she reads broadly in the field and graciously sends me clippings with sophisticated questions that send me...

Sarah’s Questions: Should I Use an Annuity Strategy to Reduce my Taxes?

My client Sarah (name changed for obvious reasons) is personal finance enthusiast. She reads broadly in the field and graciously sends me clippings with sophisticated questions that send me sprinting to my spreadsheets and deep...

Sarah’s Dilemma: Caught between A Long-Term Care Policy and a Hard Place

Sarah, a longtime financial planning client, recently called me with a conundrum. Like thousands of other retired and soon-to-be retired Americans, she’d received an unwelcome letter regarding her long-term care insurance policy she’d...

My Three Sons: Equal Isn’t Always Optimal

The SECURE Act passed and signed into law in the waning days of 2019, upended traditional legacy planning relating for retirement plans. Since these never-taxed assets account for the bulk of most Americans non-real estate wealth,...

The Double Play

Financial planning is for everyone has always been a motto at our practice. It may be true that more money means more money problems, but the reality is that there are probably just as many strategies available at the lower end of the...

Risking it All

Some experiences are hard to shake. That’s the case with my meeting of Joe, an eighty-year-old retiree donning a fedora and a splendid smile. Our paths crossed at a Christmas party hosted by my client and his friend. “You’re a...

Pay as You Go May Be the Way to Go

“Should I purchase or rent my primary residence?” is one question I’m rarely asked as a financial planner. Homeownership, after all, is as American as baseball, apple pie and watching World Cup Soccer at work. Like attending college...

Tax Me Never, Yeah Baby!

Want to accumulate a bucket of money that will never, ever, ever be taxed? Here’s a strategy: sign up for a health savings account. The health savings account is the holy grail of taxes. It avoids all federal income and payroll taxes...

[VIDEO] Strategy #5 - Refinance Your Mortgage

[VIDEO] Strategy #4 - Manage Your Income for Free Money

[VIDEO] Strategy #3 - No Penalty for Hardship Withdrawals

[VIDEO] Strategy #2 - RMD to Roth

[VIDEO] Strategy #1 - No RMDs for 2020

Silver Linings

Heavyweight champ Mike Tyson famously quipped, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Well the coronavirus has certainly landed a blow to our collective jaw. And the collective has responded with vigor, from health...

Financial Education

Excited about my learning, freshman year in college, I relayed to my dad a version of economist Lord Keynes “paradox of thrift.” Keynes postulated that although a healthy economy relied on people forgoing present consumption and saving...

Are you Ready for Retirement?

A half a century ago Jimi Hendrix asked boomers, “Have you ever been experienced.” Today, those same boomers are being asked, and are asking themselves, are they ready to retire and enjoy their experiences? Just under one in two can...

Curing the Parking Disease

Anyone’s who’s ever lived in an impacted city can relate to the parking disease. This is the affliction that attacks a person who purchases a car to make life easier but then learns quickly it’s stressful to use it due to the...

[VIDEO] Don't Fear the Recession

Taxing Health

Blowing out 65 candles has traditionally been a liberating milestone for Americans. Not too long back it marked the traditional retirement age at which Social Security could be collected with no reduction and a job could be left behind...

Planning for Health

This just in, straight from the good-news department: You may spend far less on health care in retirement than you think, according to a study by the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI) that tracked actual spending by actual...

[VIDEO] Gouveia Vineyards 2018

The Shocking Truth About Retirement: You Won’t Run out of Money

Call it the crisis that isn’t. I’m talking about the “retirement crisis,” heralded by experts proclaiming that many Americans are woefully under-saved for retirement, the end result being they’ll run out of money before thee run out...

[VIDEO] You've Got To Stay In It To Win It

[VIDEO] The Carpenter Blaming the Tool

[VIDEO] Volatile Stock Market

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - 529 Changes

Know the Enemy

Taxes may be the price we pay for civilization, as Oliver Wendell Holmes noted. Paying taxes may also make us feel proud, even patriotic, as we are contributing to a society that has supported the success that makes our ability to pay...

Old Formulas Collide with a New Reality

Group exercises are fun, especially when they bring diverse people together into a shared experience. That’s why I always encourage the adult students that populate my financial planning classes to fill in the blanks to this admonition...

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - Taxable Portion

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - Can Roth Conversion Effect Medicare Premium

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - RMD Annuity

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - IRA Withdrawal and Social Security

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - IRA Contribution Rules

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - Living Trust Inherited IRA

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - Inherited IRA to Roth IRA

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - After Tax Money to Roth IRA

[VIDEO] Monthly Questions - Children as IRA Beneficiaries[VIDEO]