You can collect Social Security on an ex-husband’s or ex-wife’s earnings record. You do not need their permission, you do not need to tell them, and they will never find out from…
An account you are not using can still cost you money, and in a small number of cases it can be emptied and handed to the state. Both of those things surprise people, and both are…
Social Security gets things wrong. Not often as a share of everything they process, but they handle an enormous volume, and when they get yours wrong it is a hundred percent of…
The letter that arrives from the Social Security Administration when the earnings test catches you is a masterpiece of bad writing. It tells you your benefits are being withheld….
Every September a document lands in the post from your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, and almost everyone throws it away. It is called the Annual Notice of Change, and it is…
A pension is taxable income. The tax is not deducted automatically at the right rate, because nobody at the plan knows what else you have coming in, and the amount they hold back…
I have explained an overdraft fee several thousand times, and I would guess a quarter of those were fees that should never have been charged.
Two houses on the same street, same hail storm, same damage, same insurer. One homeowner gets a cheque for twenty-two thousand dollars. The other gets eight.
Nobody reads the second page of a cable bill. The companies know that, and the second page is where the money is.
The benefits booklet from your old employer and the Medicare handbook will each describe a complete system of coverage. Read them separately and you would think you have two full…
The business model is not complicated. Charge a small amount monthly, make cancelling slightly inconvenient, and rely on the fact that people do not audit their own bank…
A water bill is one of the few bills that will tell you something is physically wrong with your house, if you know which number to look at.