Annuities—a type of insurance product— can be an effective investment vehicle, especially in providing for your retirement. This Financial Guide will help you decide whether annuity investments are right for you and how to use them in retirement planning. It also discusses the tax treatment of annuities.

'Doing it yourself' may be an option if you are young, and don't have many assets or special needs.

Estate planning, the process of planning how to preserve your assets for your heirs, is not just for the very wealthy. Everyone should engage in some form of estate planning. After working hard for many years, building up a business, and accumulating assets, you should make sure that those assets will not be unnecessarily used up but are preserved for your survivors. Here’s a basic guide to wills, trusts, and other estate planning tools.

Will my estate have to pay taxes after I die? It depends. The federal government imposes estate taxes at your death only if your property is worth mo...

Project the value of your estate, and the associated estate tax, for the next ten years.

When seeking legal aid, as in purchasing any product or service, it’s important to be a smart consumer: to be well informed and to know exactly what you are getting for your money. This Financial Guide discusses how to find an attorney who will provide cost-effective help with your legal problems.

A trust, like a corporation, is an entity that exists only on paper but is legally capable of owning property. A flesh-and-blood person, however, must actually be in charge of the property; that person is called the trustee. You can be the trustee of your own living trust, keeping full control over all property legally owned by the trust.

There are many kinds of trusts. A "living trust" (also called an "inter vivo" trust by lawyers who can't give up Latin) is simply a trust you create while you're alive, rather than one that is created at your death under the terms of your will.

All living trusts are designed to avoid probate. Some also help you save on death taxes, and others let you set up long-term property management.

The post-mortem letter, a simple and practical estate planning tool you can put together yourself, can protect your estate, maximize the amount available to heirs and save your spouse and executors a lot of trouble. This important letter tells your executor and survivors where to locate everything they need to carry out your instructions.

If you are thinking of retiring soon, you are about to make a major financial decision: how to take distributions from your retirement plan. This Financial Guide will discuss your various options. And, since the tax treatment of these distributions will influence your decision, we will also review the tax rules.

The rules regarding retirement plan distributions are complex. But there are ways the savvy taxpayer can maximize the tax shelter.

Retired people may want to consider the reverse mortgage as a way to generate cash flow. But the reverse mortgage is not for everyone. If you are planning for retirement or are already retired, the reverse mortgage may be an option worth looking into. This Financial Guide explains how this cash-generating vehicle works.

If you do nothing else to take care of your legal affairs, you should be sure to write a will. If you die without make a will, state law will determine who gets your property (and it may well not be whom you would have chosen). Worse yet, a judge may decide who will raise your children. In your will, you can make these decisions yourself.