‘This has bugged me all my life’: My estranged father gave me $1,000 a month to buy a house in California. My brother cried foul, and told me to stop. Who’s right?
This has bugged me all my life. My father left my family when I was 7. I’m not sure how much in child support he paid my mother. Soon after I graduated college, he visited me for the first time since he left the family. He told me that he wanted to send me money […]
All the ways Wall Streeters are suffering from slashed bonuses
The princes of Wall Street are losing their crowns and tightening their belts.Massive layoffs and diminished bonus checks promise to put a crimp in the high-flying styles of stock brokers, money managers, investment bankers and once-untouchable hedge-fund geniuses. Bloomberg BusinessWeek described Wall Street as being in “retrenchment mode.” Thousands of layoffs either came or are coming and […]
‘He claims it’s his home’: My mother left her Florida house to all of her children. Our brother lives there — and has no plans to move. How do we get him out?
Dear Quentin, My mother passed away three years ago and left the house to my brother, my sister and me. What little was left in her bank account was distributed among the three of us. Our brother is still living in the family home. He pays the taxes, insurance and utilities to live there. The […]
This 72-year-old is hoping to fund her retirement on GoFundMe
GoFundMe campaigns have been raising piles of cash for older Walmart workers who want to retire — but the heartwarming stories about sudden windfalls mask a dark reality about economic security and growing old in America, say retirement experts.“This is not a feel-good story, this is about the failure of our retirement system,” said Teresa […]
Where is Monterey Park and what does the shooting mean to Asian-Americans?
The mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif., stunned the Asian-American community. Not only because the shooting happened on Lunar New Year’s Eve, but also because it happened in Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian city that holds a special place in the Asian-American landscape. On Saturday night, a gunman opened fire at a party inside the… […]
My mother excluded me from her will — before she died, my sibling cashed out her annuity policy, on which I was a beneficiary. Should I sue my family?
Dear Quentin, My mother recently passed away and I was written out of the will, except for a small amount. She and I had several disagreements over the past two years. This change of will occurred 15 months prior to her death, with her executors present. The remainder of her estate is being divided between […]
I’m still working at 75: Do I need to take RMDs from my 401(k)?
Dear Fix My Portfolio, I retired from the U.S. Postal Service in 2004 and have a yearly pension from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). I also work part time at a big hardware chain and have a portion of my salary placed in the company’s 401(k). I have been working there for four years […]
Ending AmazonSmile donations ‘could not come at a worse time’ for nonprofits
The end of Amazon’s charity donation program will be another blow to small nonprofits that are already struggling to make ends meet in an uncertain economy, nonprofit leaders told MarketWatch.Amazon AMZN, -0.11% is scrapping AmazonSmile, the program that lets Amazon customers direct donations to nonprofits while shopping on the online retail giant. Customers who sign […]
Opinion: I took Social Security at 62 and now regret it. Is there a way to increase my Social Security benefit?
Recently I had a conversation with Sue, an acquaintance who started receiving her Social Security benefit at age 62. Sue’s now 63, and she told me that she thinks she might have made a mistake. The problem is that she has realized that starting Social Security early reduced the benefit significantly, and she’d been wondering if it was possible to […]
‘I am angry’: I’m an unmarried stay-at-home mother in a 20-year relationship, but my boyfriend won’t put my name on the deed of our house. Am I unreasonable?
I have been in my relationship for almost 20 years. For personal reasons, we are not married but we have a 10-year-old child. When our child was born, we decided that I would be a stay-at-home parent because my low-paying job didn’t cover the costs of child care, and at the time, we were stretched. […]