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The surprising move this week by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to intervene in Treasury markets to lower the cost of government debt undercuts the credibility of Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh to make interest-rate policy, experts said.
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Your life insurance monthly premium can start looking less and less appealing once you've retired. It's a scenario Dan Simon, a retirement planning adviser with Daniel A. White & Associates in Middletown, Del., has seen quite often, even with his own parents. "The cost of the insurance had risen to the point where it was getting unaffordable. They were wondering do we really need to keep this coverage now that the kids are all grown up?"
If you stop paying your premiums, you lose your life insurance coverage, and your heirs wouldn't get anything back for what you've paid in. If you cancel a policy that has cash value, a reserve of money built up in some types of life insurance, the insurer sends you a check for that amount, though it will be far less than the listed death benefit.
Over the past 20 years, a third option went mainstream: selling your policy to a company, a practice known as a life settlement, with the buyer getting the death benefit when you die.
SEE MORE Don't Fall for That Life Insurance Ad on TV
"It's kind of morbid when you think about it. A group buys boatloads of policies from people that have fallen on hard times and can no longer afford their insurance," profiting from the seller's death, says Simon. "In theory, they want you to die tomorrow. If you live another 20 years, it's a bad investment for them."
Selling a life insurance policy generally isn't a great deal for you either, and there are better alternatives worth exploring. Simon finds that people typically turn to selling a policy when they're desperate. Usually, it's because they've spent down their other retirement assets, or they might be dealing with high medical bills. "It's a measure of last resort, like taking a reverse mortgage. I rarely see them working out well for people, and they could en
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When professional baseball player Austin Barnes extended his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers for another two years, he specifically included in the agreement a commitment on his part to make charitable donations.
That was a generous move and a financially savvy one all at the same time. He can put his money to work helping causes he believes in, while also enjoying tax advantages.
SEE MORE Which Type of Donor-Advised Fund Is Right for You?
Most of us don't have multimillion-dollar professional sports contracts like Barnes, but there are ways to increase your own donations and, at the same time, reduce your tax bill.
After all, you probably have a cherished cause — a church, an animal rescue organization, a homeless shelter or some other nonprofit — that you want to help. With charitable donations, you can choose specifically how your money is put to use, which isn't the case with your tax dollars, which just go into the big tax pot in Washington.
Think of it this way: If you were told that you aren't going to be able to keep $10,000 anyway, wouldn't you prefer to have a say in exactly how it is spent?
With that in mind, here are five ways to make charitable giving a key part of your financial plan:
1. Set up a donor-advised fund (DAF)
This is a strategy that isn't put into play often enough, in part because many people don't know about it. A donor-advised fund allows you to make a sizable charitable donation that you can claim immediately as a tax deduction. The money isn't donated immediately, though. Inste
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