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Bob Sullivan

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About

Bob Sullivan is a Peabody-award winning journalist and the author of five books, including New York Times Best-Sellers, Gotcha Capitalism and Stop Getting Ripped Off! He spent nearly two decades working at MSNBC.com and NBC News, and he still appears on TODAY, NBC Nightly News, and CNBC. He now writes The Red Tape Chronicles column at RedTape.Substack.com and hosts a podcast about the unintended consequences of technology.

  • SEP IRA vs Solo 401(k): Which Should You Choose?

    The ranks of self-employed Americans have grown. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 16.5 million Americans reported themselves as self-employed in September 2023. That's more than 10% of all working Americans. Working for yourself doesn’t mean you...
    SEP IRA vs Solo 401(k): Which Should You Choose?

  • 4 Reasons To Choose A Roth IRA

    Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) give investors a fantastic opportunity to save on taxes. Pay your future self by investing in an IRA, and you can also lower your income tax bill. Clever retirement investors know an even better strategy to...
    4 Reasons To Choose A Roth IRA

  • How To Maximize Your IRA Contributions

    You put money in an individual retirement account (IRA). Great! A whopping 42% of those under 30—and 26% of those between 30 and 44—have no retirement savings, according to recent research by PwC. So just by doing that, you’re already...
    How To Maximize Your IRA Contributions

  • Top 10 Retirement Tips For 2024

    Lists of retirement advice for the year to come generally all sound the same—but that’s not the case this year. The 2023 retirement outlook includes a host of obstacles, such as high inflation and rising interest rates. These trends have...
    Top 10 Retirement Tips For 2024

  • Required Minimum Distributions: How To Plan For RMDs

    It's smart to use tax-advantaged investment accounts to save for retirement. By investing money in a traditional 401(k) or individual retirement account, you can postpone paying taxes on your retirement funds for what might feel like an eternity. But postponement...
    Required Minimum Distributions: How To Plan For RMDs

  • Guide To Dividend Investing For Beginners

    Buying the stocks of companies that pay good dividends is one of the best ways to invest. Because you’re investing for slow, steady payments in more mature companies, some might even call dividend investing boring. But dependable returns are never...
    Guide To Dividend Investing For Beginners

  • How To Survive A Stock Market Crash

    There's an old saying on Wall Street: If you don't sell it, you haven’t lost it. In other words, the value of your investments doesn't really matter until the day you need to cash out, so don't worry about the...
    How To Survive A Stock Market Crash

  • Peak Inflation Has Come And Gone

    Peak inflation is the point when prices across the economy begin declining from all-time highs. It's a term that most Americans haven't even considered for decades—but now it seems like everyone is talking about it. According to the most recent...
    Peak Inflation Has Come And Gone

  • Top 10 Retirement Tips For 2023

    Lists of retirement advice for the year to come generally all sound the same—but that’s not the case this year. Retiring during a bear market is challenging enough. But the 2023 retirement outlook includes a host of other major threats,...
    Top 10 Retirement Tips For 2023

  • How To Weather A Stock Market Correction

    At the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, we endured one of the deepest and quickest corrections in history (some might call it a crash, but both terms would be accurate). The S&P 500 lost 30% in a matter of weeks—and...
    How To Weather A Stock Market Correction

  • Average Stock Market Return

    Whenever there’s a period of extreme market volatility, new investors might wonder if it’s really worth keeping their money in the stock market at all. This was especially true in the first half of 2022 when stocks entered a bear...
    Average Stock Market Return

  • How Does The Stock Market Perform When Interest Rates Rise?

    Congress has tasked the Federal Reserve with the job of keeping the U.S. economy running as smoothly as possible. If the Fed believes the economy is lagging, it can cut the federal funds rate to make borrowing money cheaper for...
    How Does The Stock Market Perform When Interest Rates Rise?

  • Make A Retirement Planning Checklist

    Retirement planning can inspire a lot of contrasting emotions. There's the excitement of making travel plans, sleeping in on Mondays and saying goodbye to the boss. And there's also the fear of outliving your money, boredom or making a huge...
    Make A Retirement Planning Checklist

  • Top 9 Investing Trends For 2022

    Think back to a year ago. Everybody was ready for a booming economic recovery and a summer of love in 2021, all made possible by Covid-19 vaccines. Some were even saying the end of the pandemic was in sight. Then...
    Top 9 Investing Trends For 2022

  • Early Retirement After A Layoff

    Kellye Connell Finch was living out her last year as a 50-something, coasting towards retirement, when downsizing abruptly changed her well-laid plans. Like millions of older Americans during the current crisis, Finch lost her job and had to face the...
    Early Retirement After A Layoff

  • 9 Tips For Paying Down Debt In Retirement

    In a mythical American past, families took out one 30-year mortgage, worked at one company for 30 years while paying off the mortgage and sailed off into retirement free of debt. Today, the reality is that the dream of retiring...
    9 Tips For Paying Down Debt In Retirement

  • How To Boost Your Retirement Income

    Worried you might outlive your retirement savings? You're not alone. That very real fear is called "longevity risk" by financial analysts, and it's hardly the stuff of paranoia: Fully 49% of Americans say that they fear they'll live longer than...
    How To Boost Your Retirement Income

  • Inflation And Retirement: What You Need To Know

    Rising inflation has spooked the stock market and investors throughout the U.S. The historic spike in inflation could be reversed gradually, but it could also remain for the longer term. Retirees living on fixed incomes are worried that rising prices...
    Inflation And Retirement: What You Need To Know

  • Should You Pay Off Debt Or Save For Retirement?

    It’s the Coke vs. Pepsi debate of personal finance. When you have extra money at the end of the month, should you pay down debt or bulk up your retirement savings? Ask this question at a party of financial advisors...
    Should You Pay Off Debt Or Save For Retirement?

  • Top 10 Investing Trends of 2021

    It's hard to imagine a more dramatic roller-coaster ride for investors than the year 2020. The Covid-19 whipsaw felt like the Great Recession and the Dot Com Bubble wrapped together and compressed into 12 months. That experience should provide a...
    Top 10 Investing Trends of 2021

About

Bob Sullivan is a Peabody-award winning journalist and the author of five books, including New York Times Best-Sellers, Gotcha Capitalism and Stop Getting Ripped Off! He spent nearly two decades working at MSNBC.com and NBC News, and he still appears on TODAY, NBC Nightly News, and CNBC. He now writes The Red Tape Chronicles column at RedTape.Substack.com and hosts a podcast about the unintended consequences of technology.