DMD Staff

Did you know that junk email, malicious emails, phishing scams, and unwanted announcements make up more than four out of every five email messages, according to internet security software company Norton? That’s a staggering statistic. There is no way to stop the flood, and even the best software and filters will only get you so far. But there are ways to minimize the impact that junk emails have on you and your inbox, in the form of some do’s and don’ts. This is important, because spam isn’t just bothersome; it can be criminal. Many spam emails are designed to ultimately separate you from some of your money.  

block email senders that regularly send you junk mail, unwanted offers, chain messages, or other bothersome messages.

 respond to spam emails or interact with them. Most of the big damage spam can do takes place if you click on a link in a spam or scam email. Opening attachments or .exe files can be particularly dangerous, as those can unleash spying software or malware onto your device. Of course, never send passwords or personal information via email, but just as important is this: If you get an email even from a trusted vendor, look carefully before clicking on any of the links. A great deal of spam is designed to look like it came from Target, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, PayPal, and other legitimate vendors. One click can take you to a site designed to look like a retailer, only to have your credit card go to an identity thief.

take advantage of the “unsubscribe” button from legitimate enterprises that send you marketing mail you are no longer interested in. 

 write an unknown sender of an email, asking to be taken off their mail list. Even spammers can’t tell if all the addresses to which they’re sending spam are correct or active. But some interaction in the form of a reply from you lets them know that their email was seen and possibly opened. Now, the spammer has what’s considered a “live” email address, which he or she can add to other lists and sell to other spammers. 

 keep two separate emails, if you’d like to sign up for some offers, fan clubs, shopping clubs, special interest hobbies and the like, but keep most of your personal and business email separate. That way, you can use the one email address for commerce, and really restrict access to your other email address. 

 post your email address where it is publically available, unless you want to be added to a lot of spam lists.

review the privacy policies of websites when you enroll for online banking, shopping or other marketing newsletters. Take a dive into their privacy policies, including whether or not they share your email with vendors. If so, you may want to adjust your security preferences, or if that option is not available, simply not register with the site. Note that many sites—even reputable ones&mdash;have set the default on their registration page so that your email address will receive offers. Change the setting.

forward chain emails. This is always a good policy—and not just because many chain emails contain urban legends, erroneous, and perhaps useless information. Forwarding a chain email may mean that your email address and all those to whom you forward the message may become available for spammers. Any email message warning about a virus that encourages you to “send this to everyone you know,” is, in fact, its own virus! If you and everyone you know sent that email to everyone they knew, it would be a data crisis on an unprecedented level. 

Some of this may seem like common sense, but you’d be amazed how many professional people don’t understand the risks of not keeping clean email policies. Even following these tips, though, you can be susceptible to spam and scam. In Part 3, we’ll look at what to do if you are targeted.

Articles

The sheer volume of spam and malicious email makes computer security a daunting task. Luckily, following a few key tips will go a long way toward keeping you protected.

Scams and Spam: Dos and Don'ts

For investors, the use of electronic financial tools continues to change the way we save and invest.  While the advantages are many, there are some obvious challenges, too, including the possibility of identity theft, direct theft of money or goods, phishing scams, and electronic spam. Over three parts, we’ll look at ways to protect yourself, starting today with the most important aspect of online protection: good password protection and safety. 

Passwords are like an online house key; they must be kept secure at all times. They should also be changed fairly frequently. If you’re like me, you’ve got a dozen or more different log-ins and passwords for a dozen different websites and online accounts. Keeping track of them, and keeping them safe, can be a challenge, but this endeavor should be treated with the same seriousness you apply to not sharing a key to your home. 

Strong passwords contain a mix of numbers, letters (ideally both upper and lower-case), and, if a site accepts them, symbols. Your passwords should have personal relevance so that they’re easy for you to remember, but not too much! Your date of birth is available to hundreds if not thousands of people, as is your home address, and the address of your physician practice. Your pet’s name is probably available through publicly available spaces such as Snapchat or Facebook.

Sharing is great…if it’s a pitcher of lemonade or a bucket of movie theater popcorn. Sharing your passwords is a recipe for trouble. If you share accounts with your spouse, make sure both of you practice good password security. A reputable retailer or financial organization will never ask for your log-in or password over an email, neither to verify the account status or for any other reason. Online scams can be sophisticated, however. Some even include a link that takes you to a site designed to look like a reputable site, such as eBay. Use extra caution when clicking on any email link, even if it looks legitimate.

Some digital security experts recommend writing your passwords down and keeping tight watch over that sheet of paper. This is risky, too, but it may be necessary to keep up with all your different passwords. Why? Because it’s a very bad idea to keep your log-in and password the same for every single site. If discovered, nefarious operators will now have access to everything. If you do write all your passwords down, don’t leave that sheet near your computer or under your mouse pad. Really…don’t do this. 

Although it will involve adding some extra steps every time you log in, take advantage of any additional authentication steps an e-commerce site may have. These may include a second password, security questions, voice recognition, or some real spy stuff, like finger-scanning and iris scanning, among many others. Any of these will add an important layer of security you may be thankful for later. 

Good password security can involve online service, secure password generators, and eye scanners. But it doesn’t have to. Following the steps outlined above will protect you from the vast majority of online financial breaches.

One little alphanumeric phrase -- your password -- is the only thing keeping your financial data safe. Follow these tips to bolster your defenses.

Password Protection Is the Key to Online Security

First, one of the reasons inertia can be difficult to overcome is that the tendency toward inaction builds up over time, leading to a to-do list that itself becomes intimidating and becomes self-perpetuating. This can be true of not just your financial situation, but your dental practice and aspects of your personal life. Dentists can be particularly susceptible to inertia, in part because of the demands the profession entails, including caring for patients, running the practice, and keeping up with the latest techniques and technology.

The best way to break out of inertia — whether it’s financial, professional, or personal – is to get moving, but how can you do that when the list of things you know you should be doing is a mile long?

A lot of self-help strategies recommend overcoming inertia by making to-do lists. Others recommend taking on a small, preliminary task that is easy to complete. The thinking behind that is that because objects in motion tend to stay in motion, completing that first step will get you moving to complete more.

Both of those strategies can be effective, but they both have a pitfall. For some, making a to-do list makes the hill to climb seem that much higher. For others, identifying and completing that one small task, however inconsequential, may seem like enough of an accomplishment for today. That might leave significantly more important tasks put off until another time.

A strategy that might work better is to borrow a concept from each of the two strategies above, but with a twist. Make a to-do list...of one item. Tackle that one task first—but make it the single most important thing you’ve been putting off. Chances are, you have a pretty good idea what that item is. Maybe it’s saving for retirement. Maybe it’s starting the college fund for your children. Maybe it’s thinking of adding a partner or a suite of services. 

You know what your pain point is. You probably already know how to address it. Some obstacle is preventing you from tackling it. That pain point is probably creating either a personal or professional log-jam. By treating that pain point, you may be poised to enter the “object in motion tends to stay in motion” phase. If so, fantastic. If not, at least your biggest pain point will move from the “to-do” column to the completed column.

That’s quite an accomplishment all on its own. 

Thinking about your financial life can be stressful. Here's one strategy to focus your energy and fix your finances.

Breaking Your Financial Log-Jam: What's Your One Thing?

 and how dangerous it can be to many portfolios. You can see the full column here, but the basic idea is that properties at rest tend to stay at rest, while things in motion tend to stay in motion. The relevance to your investing strategy is that doing something is better than doing nothing. Further, doing something—such as saving for retirement&mdash;is much more likely to lead to doing additional somethings, which can include securing long-term care insurance, saving for a child’s college education, or making sure your life insurance needs are addressed.

Doing nothing, on the other hand, is likely to lead to doing more nothing. Here, we’ll take a look at a few common excuses the do-nothings use, and a way to overcome each.

I’ll start saving more when I earn more.

This reasoning falls apart because it has no specified date or timeframe. It’s so undefined, the period of “earning more” can theoretically be put off until the end of your career. This is in part due to lifestyle creep: the more you earn, the more you’re likely to spend. 

The most obvious workaround is to start saving now, but the simple truth is that doing so isn’t an option for all dentists, particularly those who are just embarking on their careers. If you fall into that category, a more useful remedy would be to set a specific income level or date by which you plan to start investing for your future. Then, you’ll need to take baby steps to getting into position to start that investment, such as paying down debt. Most importantly, you’ll need to stick to what you promised yourself.

 I’ll use any bonuses, side income, or investment income as a reinvestment, which will ensure growth!

Like the classic above, the fly-by-night-er keeps things vague enough that getting started investing is more of an idea than a reality. This type of personality really means well, but often finds that the little bits of “extra” income tend to get siphoned off to pay those little bits of “extra” expenditures fly-by-night-ers always seem to encounter. 

. Set specific pieces of your income aside for your investments, regardless of what your expenses are. Then, you can use the “extra” income to more directly pursue the “extra-curricular” activities that invariably arise. 

It will all be fine. We’ll figure it out. A savings plan will come together eventually.

During one of my teen year trips to the dentist during a period of sporadic toothbrushing, my enterprising dentist sat me down in front of one of those gum-decay vides that doubles as a horror film. Boy, did it do the trick. You can use the same strategy—on yourself&mdash;to get past the “bury your head in the sand” mindset that is the root of all investor inertia. Imagine the worst-case scenario, such as an accident that leaves you unable to practice dentistry, or even your own death if it’s what you need to scare yourself straight. How would your family do financially if you don’t have life insurance? What would a forced early retirement mean for your income over the course of the rest of your life? It may sound silly, but this technique really works, because it makes the consequences of denial very vivid.

That last strategy isn’t pleasant, but sometimes we need to get down and dirty to fight our basest tendencies. Whatever gets you in motion—and hopefully staying in motion&mdash;will be worth it. 

Inertia can hold you back, especially when it comes to your investments.

Overcoming Investor Inertia

In the last of our Back to Basics series to commemorate back to school season, we’ll look at a very simple but still important step: doing a regular check-in of your investment performance. If you started saving early and continue with your contributions, increase your contributions as your income increases, avoid taking money out, and invest in ways that are consistent with your overall goals, you should be all set for a comfortable retirement. 

Being well-prepared can mean you’re less likely to take an annual look at your retirement plan performance. But an occasional look under the hood is important, because investments aren’t static—and neither are you. Your financial situation may be different now than when you started investing. Such changes could involve income, dependents, inheritances, unexpected expenses, growth or loss in your dental practice income, and many of the other little curveballs life can throw your way. Consider putting a date on the calendar each year when you look over your retirement investments and consider what, if any, changes need to be made.

Why now? Why not? Most people think of these things around the turn of the calendar, but that time can be hectic with holidays and other things that need to be done annually, like making a list of resolutions you’ll soon ignore. Spring is tax season, and the holidays aren’t all that far away. Now is as good a time as any. The good news is that this review doesn’t have to take long; set aside an hour or two to look through your plan documents, your investment returns, any investment tracking tools your retirement provider makes available, your monthly and annual budget, and your life insurance policy and will. 

Have your contributions kept up with your income? For many dentists, income increases through the early and mid-career, and probably peaks within a few years of nearing retirement. Whether your career follows that same curve or not, chances are you’ve seen some income changes since you set your retirement investing strategy. Is your current strategy still best for you? If not, you might want to consider shifting some investments. 

 handle this shift automatically, but if you elected not to go that route, you may have to make the allocation adjustments yourself. 

Check your investment performance in comparison to other retirement providers and funds. Though it isn’t always easy to follow, you should be able to review your investment performance regularly to ensure that you’re not stuck in a series of investments that just aren’t performing as well as others might be. Even if you have the choice of only one retirement provider, you have fund choices within that provider, and you may wish to make a change if you’re seeing consistently low performance. 

The key here is not get carried away by lower-than-expected returns over a year or two, but rather to look at the long-term picture of returns. As always, make sure the fund’s investing strategy matches your goals. If you’re just starting to save and looking for explosive performance potential, domestic blue-chip stocks and government bonds may not be the right mix for you. 

Update your beneficiary information. If you recently went through a divorce, the death of a loved one, or the birth of a child or grandchild, chances are that updating your financial accounts wasn’t top of mind right then. That’s why a periodic review is important. Make sure that if something happens to you, those closest to you are taken care of in accordance to your current wishes—not what you may have set up when you first started saving. This goes for not just retirement savings, but also establishing a will and living will, and regularly reviewing life insurance beneficiaries.

Even if you are following your investment plans perfectly, it's still important to do a comprehensive check-up at least once per year. Back-to-school season is a great time to do so.

Back to Basics: Periodically Review Your Retirement Investments

Technological advancements have probably had a profound impact both your daily life and on how you practice dentistry, from face-timing and infinite apps, to advanced electronic medical records, advances in imaging, and virtual educational conferences. Beyond your personal life and your practice, though, electronic tools can also contribute to your overall financial health. 

Let’s take a look at some ways you can use technology to budget, save, and invest for your future.

The best investors keep a good handle on where their money is, at what rate it earns, and how much they’re paying in commissions and fees. But even the savvy struggle at times to keep up with exactly how their investments are performing. Have you ever tried to actually calculate your investment returns? Do you double-check that what you’re paying in management fees is the right amount? Do you carefully look through all those investment statements, including the footnotes in six-point font? 

There are several online tools that can help—and many of them are available for free. These tools can link to any investment account, including retirement accounts, and track performance, asset allocation, and fees. Tools from Morningstar, Google Finance, and investment providers such as Fidelity, TIAA, and Vanguard make it much easier to not just view your performance, but to assess and potentially change how your assets are allocated.

Are you working within a budget? (If not…why not?) Online tools and budget planners, including Mint and many others like it, can be tailored to your individual needs can break down your spending patterns and help you set savings targets. 

There is so much financial information available. Unfortunately, much of it is in the form of “clickbait” articles that contain misleading headlines or misinformation. To get your daily fix of financial news or advice, find a few sources or bloggers you trust, and then stick with them as long as their advice remains sound. You’ll develop your own favorites, but some of mine are 

This idea is a little outside the box, but it can lead to real savings. The impact of social media sites on personal relationships is endlessly debatable and can be spun any which way you like. But for the purposes of this article, this means liking (fan clubs), friending (Facebook), or following (Twitter) businesses, fan clubs, and products that you frequently enjoy. If, for example, the local cigar shop or national retailer you always frequent has an online club, you may have unique access to special deals or products that the general public doesn’t. Customer loyalty plays both ways, so many companies give their most fervent supporters access to great deals. One quick caveat: try to limit the number of mailing lists and organizations you support, or your e-mail box could soon become so overwhelming that you’ll miss the special offers that are most important to you.

These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll explore more ways to use online tools to save—and particularly, to invest&mdash;in future articles. As always, though, be on the lookout for scams. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Be careful responding to offers sent directly to you, as many savvy scammers will use some pretty intricate tricks to get you to share personal information or buy a product that never arrives. Always deal with sites you know and trust, and if you’re ever unsure, do the old-fashioned thing and use that old rotary phone you keep around for sentimental reasons before clicking.

The internet offers a wide array of good, and not-so-good, tools to manage your finances. Here are a few good ones.

Leverage (Free!) Financial Tools to Pad Your Pocketbook

Expenses can pile up in the fall, especially if you have college-age children. Gearing up for a big purchase may have you thinking about a loan from yourself, perhaps from a 401(k) or 403(b) retirement account. The Internal Revenue Service collects nearly $6 billion per year from early withdrawal penalties from retirement accounts, meaning that Americans take out almost $60 billion each year from retirement funds before reaching the age at which they could do so without a penalty. 

Withdrawals at any age are added to a taxpayer’s income and taxed at regular rates. The extra 10% penalty for 401(k) plans applies to early withdrawals (disability and certain medical expenses are exempt from the penalty).  But while the early withdrawal penalty is a big reason not to take money out early, it’s not the only reason to think twice. Here are four things to consider if a loan or withdrawal may be part of your immediate plans.

1. If you’re spending, chances are you will stop saving.

Many retirement plans have a provision that prohibit you from contributing to your plan until the loan balance is repaid. Even if your plan doesn’t have this provision, consider that paying the loan back will eat into the funds you normally set aside for saving for your future. 

2. Time is now working against you instead of for you.

Through market appreciation and compound interest, your retirement plan savings are often more than the sum of their parts. If you aren’t making contributions, and if you’ve lowered your contribution level, you’re missing out on potential growth. Saving for retirement is meant to be a long-term endeavor; it’s based on the idea that small sums put aside over a long period will add up, accrue appreciation and interest, and then be a substantial nest egg when you’re ready to start funding your retirement. Taking money out to make a big purchase means rewinding that long-term clock, and you may find it difficult to make up for that lost time. 

3. Uncle Sam always gets his. Don’t let him get his twice.

While you will essentially pay yourself back plus interest if you’ve borrowed from your retirement plan, the rate will likely be much lower than you could experience by leaving the money in the plan. Want more bad news? You’re now re-paying yourself using after-tax dollars. Even worse, those dollars will be taxed again when you start to withdraw the funds upon retirement. That’s a lose-lose.

4. You just raided your contingency plan.

Contingency plans are what they say they are: emergency back-ups. Things might be going smoothly now, but what if a car accident or an unforeseen medical condition clouds the picture? What if your practice income should take a downturn? If you’ve taken out your retirement savings for a non-emergency, it won’t be there in the event that you really need it. 

It’s important to note that there are some circumstances under which a loan or a withdrawal might be a good idea for you, such as using it to pay off high-interest debt. For example, paying off a substantial credit card debt you accrued while in dental school might be worth a look, but paying off low-interest student loans, even if they seem suffocating, likely would not be beneficial to your long-term financial future. 

When your finances get tight, it's tempting to treat your retirement accounts like an emergency fund. Here are four reasons that's a bad idea.

Back to Basics: The Downside of Retirement Account Withdrawals

If your kids are anything like mine, by the end of August, they’re going a little stir-crazy with the boredom and heat of late summer. The turn to September, then, is welcome on several levels. September isn’t just back to school time: It’s also Life Insurance Awareness Month—a crucial need in a country where estimates show that as many as 38% of citizens have no life insurance at all.

How can that be, when the need for life insurance is so obvious? Two factors contribute most heavily to the avoidance of pursuing life insurance. Let’s take a look at both and consider how to break down those barriers.

There’s no way around it: Considering your life insurance needs means confronting the idea of your own departure from the planet. For some, this is too tough a cross to bear. Some rationalize that their finances are in good shape, so their families will be fine if the unthinkable happens. For most dentists, who are likely to be the main breadwinner, this simply isn’t true. Other excuses include being in good health, and saying to yourself that you’ll do it just as soon as you have more time. Each of these excuses is weak.

 Burying your head in the sand and pretending there’s nothing to worry about is always recipe for failure. But equally true is that it’s a recipe for current unease. Many believe that facing down your life insurance challenge won’t benefit you at all while you’re alive, but the simple truth is that the peace of mind that comes from being prepared can lift an albatross off your shoulders. You know you need life insurance. If you don’t have it, take steps today to address the issue. 

It’s true that there are many different kinds of life insurance. The investment vehicle that causes the most confusion among investors—annuities&mdash;are a kind of life insurance product. Terms and phrases like “term life,” “variable life,” and “life with period certain” can be confusing, as can the near-infinite number of options, riders, and requirements that go into first establishing a policy. There is, indeed, a detailed application and health assessment process associated with getting started. 

 on life insurance basics is a great primer on all the things you’ll need to consider, including a look at the different types of insurance, the terms that may confuse you, and circumstances unique to you that should be part of the life insurance decision. This reading won’t make the process shorter, and it won’t make things easy, but it will make the journey less intimidating. 

Start today. Being aware of life insurance is fine, but there’s nothing quite like having it.

It’s true that some families might have enough assets to weather the storm of the loss of an income earner. Most American families need income replacement in the event of an unexpected death. Don’t underestimate the value a life insurance policy can have for your family. Try this 

2. I’m healthy so why waste money on life insurance?

This is one of the most frustrating excuses we hear for postponing the purchase of life insurance. The best time to purchase life insurance is when you are young and healthy. By applying for life insurance while you are healthy you are guaranteeing yourself 

3. I realize life insurance is important. I will get it soon.

If you have a family to support and protect, get life insurance now. Don’t put it off. Procrastination can be a heartbreaking danger when it comes to family protection.

Whether we like to think of it or not, we'll all die at some point. Yet despite the clear benefits life insurance offers, nearly one-third of Americans still don't have it.

Back to Basics: Life Insurance Awareness

Earlier this summer, we looked at the kinds of answers you might look for when 

 about their qualifications and experience. In this column, we’ll zero in on the services the advisor may provide, a really important factor for more reasons than you may think. 

The following are the questions we outlined that you may have for your advisor regarding services:

What categories of financial planning do you offer?

Do they include retirement planning or estate planning? Investments? Life insurance and long-term care insurance?

Do you have experience with education funding plans?

Are you held to a suitability standard or a fiduciary standard?

Why are the services provided so important?

Generally, investors are not aware of the differences between financial professionals, but they need to be. Terminology is part of the confusion. Broker-dealer, advisor, adviser, Certified Financial Planner, life insurance agent—there may be subtle differences between professionals with these titles, but those differences may not always be clear to you. It’s this confusion that drove President Obama’s desire to have the Department of Labor 

pass a new rule addressing conflicts of interest

As an investor, you may not want a life insurance agent being your overall financial advisor, because that type of agent may specialize in selling variable annuities, and may push annuities because it’s the vehicle he is most comfortable with. The way to sort through all this is to find out exactly what licenses your advisor has and what those licenses enable the advisor to recommend to you. Find out if there are potential conflicts of interest between the vehicles you’re most interested in and the vehicles the advisor is most familiar with. Make sure the financial services you need line up with those offered. If you’re single, just starting your dental career, and don’t have a need for life insurance, you’ll want to steer clear of a professional that sells mostly life insurance policies.

Another reason you’ll want to know the full range of products and services your advisor has experience with is that for dentists in particular, trusting someone else with your personal information and your financial future can be a bit of a leap. If you’ve established a level of comfort and trust with your advisor, chances are you’re going to be much more comfortable working with him or her on a regular basis. But if your advisor “doesn’t do” college savings plans, and college savings plans are a big priority for you, that may give you pause. The same is true for life insurance, annuities, mutual funds, lifecycle funds, options, health savings products, and many more investment vehicles. 

You don’t have to know what all those vehicles are and what licenses correspond to having some expertise in them. Ask. Ask again until you understand. Make sure your prospective advisor uses simple, straightforward language in the answers. 

Very few advisors have every license you could ever need, or deep experience in all financial areas. If yours claims to, that should, in itself, be a red flag. The important thing is that the expertise of the advisor matches up nicely with your financial needs. When you ask for references, make sure those people have similar needs and goals, and that they’re happy with the advisor’s ability to deliver on them.

With such a wide range of financial services available, make sure you have a clear idea of a potential financial advisor's true expertise before hiring her or him.

More Considerations for Choosing an Advisor

, we looked at when dentists can begin to collect Social Security. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. For dentists, who tend to earn more in later parts of their career, waiting as long as possible to collect benefits might be your best move. If you don’t experience the factors that make it necessary to collect benefits early, the factors to consider become different. Let’s take a look.

This a very personal decision. Although most dentists don’t find themselves in this situation, if you are having trouble meeting basic expenses as your career winds down, you may not be in position to wait until age 70 to claim benefits. Although your benefit amount will be reduced, you will receive benefits sooner and you will receive more payments—if not more money&mdash;over your lifetime.

Waiting, if it’s feasible for you, can make a big difference. An example cited by the Social Security Administration (SSA) goes like this: If you are eligible to receive a $1,000 per month benefit at full retirement age (which, again, depends on the year you were born), you will receive only $750 per month if you claim benefits at age 62. However, if you wait until age 70 to claim benefits, that monthly payment increases to a little more than $1,300.

What else should factor into your decision?

Health status, of course, may play a big role in your decision. A family history of excellent health and longevity is no guarantee that you’ll experience the same, but if you’re in generally good health and expect to be around to see great-great-grandchildren, factor that into your timeframe for collecting benefits. Consider also what level of benefits your spouse or partner will be entitled to. Working spouses who paid into Social Security will likely have earned their own benefit, but even if your spouse didn’t work, he or she can get up to one half of your benefit amount. Keep in mind that upon the death of your spouse, you will continue to receive the larger of your benefit or your late spouse’s—but not both.

Unlike unemployment, you can continue to work or rejoin the workforce and still receive your benefit, although you need to look into the various income and tax factors you’ll need to know. Consult an advisor or a tax attorney, who can go over your situation and make some recommendations.

And, (although it may seem strange to be taxed on income that is raise through a tax you previously paid), yes, as much as 85% of any Social Security benefit you receive may be taxable. That income will be added to any other income you earn to establish your total tax liability. Be aware that collecting benefits could, in some situations, push you into a higher tax bracket than you would otherwise occupy.

This can obviously complicate things, so schedule some time with a retirement plan advisor to go over your status, your goals, your planned retirement date and your decision on when to collect benefits.

Social Security benefits are an entitlement for workers, but the amount and impact of the benefit could depend on a number of factors.