Preparing for Retirement: Financial Surprises You May Not Have Anticipated

Ryan Ermey: Living in retirement comes with twists and turns, no matter when you retire. But life has been particularly chaotic for retirees of late. Former Kiplinger's editor and current retiree Janet Bodnar joins the show, to tell us how retirees can navigate turbulent times, in our main segment. On today's show, Sandy and I remind you to reverse your required minimum distributions (RMDs) before the imminent deadline. And the new edition of Wild Pitches, features folks moving out of state, and used private jets. That's all ahead on this episode of Your Money's Worth. Stick around. 

• Episode Length: 00:30:36
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Ryan Ermey: Welcome to Your Money's Worth. I'm Kiplinger's associate editor Ryan Ermey, joined as always by senior editor Sandy Block. Sandy, we are going back to some -- let's not call it a well trod territory -- but something that we've talked about on the show before, which are RMDs... as we know the requirements for RMDs in 2020 were waived.

Sandy Block: Right, if you're 72 or over, you're usually required to take a minimum amount out of your IRAs every year. In the beginning of the year, back in March when the market was really in a lot of trouble, that was grievous for people who didn't need the money, because you don't really like to take money out of your accounts, when the market is down. So in March, Congress enacted a law that waived required minimum distributions for a certain period in 2020. And that's what created a lot of consternation and confusion.

Ryan Ermey: Right, because people wrote in to us and said, "Well, what if I already took it? Can I now put it back in?" And the good news was yes. You can actually return your RMDs this year and the reason that we bring it up again is because the deadline for that is coming up rapidly. August 31st. Now, we were thinking about doing this in next week's episode, but that literally would have been-

Sandy Block: That day.

Ryan Ermey: ...on the day.

Sandy Block: You would've had to stop listening and run to your broker.

Ryan Ermey: Put your headphones down and call your financial advisor.

Sandy Block: So we're giving you a heads up right now.

: Right. So, you may not want to put your RMD back. It could be that you're in a low tax bracket, so you're not going to pay that much tax on your distribution, or maybe you want to convert it to a Roth. That would be a financially responsible thing to do as well. But if you want to avoid the tax, you'll have to undo it by August 31st. And we do have some notes