Jill on Money: Europe, retirement, Social Security

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Ryan started us off with a question about how to weigh Social Security when determining retirement asset allocation. He came across an interesting paper published by Marquette University titled "Strategic Asset Allocation for Individual Investors: The Impact of the Present Value of Social Security Benefits", which argued that Social Security is a stream of income that can be valued like a bond. While that may be true, my advice to Ryan was to go back to his situation and try to match his income needs with risk tolerance and let the academics thrash around whether or not their theories can work.

Judy questioned whether my advice to delay Social Security makes sense. As I have said many times, the research on the topic is clear: if you live beyond 78, it makes sense to forgo SS between ages 62-66 and if you live beyond 82.5 makes sense to delay SS until maximum level of 70. Of course, many don't have either of these options and who know when you will die?

Brett is wondering whether to dump a recently-purchased whole-life policy. Considering that he is a 35 year-old single man, we came up with a much more compelling way to use his surplus cash flow.

Bobby: wrote in with a question that I have fielded numerous times over the past three years: how can Greece, that has economy the size of Delaware, cause such a reaction in our stock market?

Here are two posts about Greece and the euro zone crisis:

Europe debt melt-down: How did we get here?

Euro crisis: How to protect your money

It is truly an honor to field questions from those who serve this country. This week, Susan from Alaska called in about her son, who was wounded in Iraq. He receives a pension from the government and has no mortgage. Polli's 23 year old son is a new marine, who needs help getting started with a Roth IRA.

Toby wrote in about his daughter who recently landed her first job and needed help completing her W-2. The IRS withholding calculator is a great tool that tells you how much you need to have withheld.

James is a retired GM employee, who was recently offered a buy-out of his pension. I review the upside and downside of taking the cash versus the stream of payments.

Finally, a few of you have started to ask about specific securities (CMO's, Apple, silver). As a reminder, I am not a stock picker and generally speaking, I don't think that you should try to be one either!

Here are web sites and resources mentioned in this week's show:

-- Jill's Blog

-- NAPFA: National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (fee-only advisors)

-- Social Security estimator

-- When to take Social Security?

-- Life Expectancy Calculator

-- Life Insurance calculator

--Financial documents: What to shred, what to keep

-- Estate Planning: the Documents You Need

Call 855-411-JILL and we'll schedule time to get you on the show LIVE

Send an email: askjill@moneywatch.com

Tweet me: @jillonmoney

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