Some questions come up for almost everyone as we get older. Am I on track for retirement? What will Medicare cost? Where do I even start if my mother needs more care than I can give her at home?
This week, I’m happy to tell you about two new pages on the site built for exactly those moments.
💰 The Silver Suite: Your Money Questions in One Place
The Silver Suite is now a page for the money side of life after 50. It’s organized into big, easy-to-tap topics, so you can jump straight to the one you need:
- Retirement calculators to see how your income and savings fit together
- Social Security estimates and when to start
- Medicare costs and how to compare plans
- Required withdrawals, which is money the IRS requires you to take out of certain retirement accounts each year
- A yearly money check-up list you can work through at your own pace
- Paying for long-term care, tax help, estate and legal basics, and protecting your money from fraud
🧭 Why the Page Points You to Other Websites
You may notice that I didn’t build any calculators myself. That was on purpose. Rules and numbers change every year, and a tool I made could get something wrong. So every link takes you to the organization that actually runs the tool, like the Social Security Administration or Medicare.gov.
Each link opens another website, and I never see anything you type there. I check the links every month to make sure they still work.
💛 Help & Resources: When Life Gets Complicated
The second page, Help & Resources, is for everything that isn’t about money.
If you’re looking for care for a parent who needs help around the clock, it starts with Medicare’s nursing home comparison tool and the Eldercare Locator, which connects you with your local Area Agency on Aging. That’s a nearby office that helps older adults find services. You’ll also find tools for keeping track of medications, plain-language health information, and places to turn when you’re feeling lonely, grieving, or worn out from caregiving. If you ever need to talk to someone right away, you can call or text 988, any time of day or night.
💡 Try This This Week
Open the Silver Suite and scroll down to the Yearly money check-up. It’s a short list of things worth looking over once a year. Pick just one, like making sure the people named to receive your accounts are still the right ones, and do that today.
📱 Easier to Read, However You Like
On both pages, and everywhere on the site, you’ll see two small buttons near the bottom corner of your screen: Text Size and Contrast. Tap A+ to make the words bigger. Tap Contrast to switch to a black background with bright white and yellow text, which many people find easier to read. Both pages are designed to work either way.
Reader Question of the Week
“How can I tell whether a website is safe to use?”
Great question. Start from a link you already trust, like the ones on these pages, instead of searching and clicking whatever comes up first. And be cautious about any site that asks for your Social Security number or a payment just to look something up. If you’re not sure, ask a family member, or call the organization using the number printed on an official letter or card.
Know of a trustworthy website that should be on one of these pages? Tell me through the Contact page.
See you next week,
— Steve
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