MyMoney Resources - Life Events

A tax refund may be the single biggest check some consumers receive all year. The CFPB’s Ready? Set. Save! offers resources to help service providers learn more about tax-time saving options to better help those they serve. This includes training webinar and workbook, promotional materials, and taxpayer tools.

The SEC offers online publications that help seniors understand the vast array of investment products and how to avoid investment fraud. In-person presentations explain the red flags of investment fraud and how to check the background of investment professionals.

The CFPB’s Managing Someone Else’s Money guides include four guides for four different fiduciary capacities: agents under power of attorney, court-appointed guardians, trustees, and government fiduciaries. Each guide contains information on fiduciary responsibilities and tips on how to spot financial exploitation and avoid scams. Also, each guide includes a “Where to go for help” section with a listing of relevant agencies and service providers. State-specific guides have been developed for six states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, and Virginia. These guides provide information about the state’s unique laws and practices, as well as state-specific resources.

This report summarizes the findings from the Federal Reserve Board’s 3rd annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), which aims to capture a snapshot of financial and economic well-being of U.S. consumers and identify potential risks to their financial stability. Topics covered include financial well-being, income and savings behaviors, economic preparedness, access to banking and credit, housing decisions, auto lending, education, student loans, and retirement planning.

Following a rigorous research effort to develop a consumer-driven definition of financial well-being, the CFPB developed and tested a set of questions–a “scale”–to measure financial well-being. The scale is designed to allow practitioners and researchers to accurately and consistently quantify, and therefore observe, something that is not directly observable–the extent to which someone’s financial situation and the financial capability that they have developed provide them with security and freedom of choice. This guide describes the research behind the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale and provides detailed steps for using it, including how to score individuals’ responses and compare their scores.

A guide from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help consumers retiring from a traditional pension plan navigate their payout options. The guide gives near-retirees the information they need to understand the trade-offs of taking their pension in a monthly payment or in a lump sum. The guide also provides tips and warnings about how to protect and best manage their lump-sum money.

Planning for Retirement is a new interactive tool of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help you make an informed decision about when to claim your Social Security benefits. The tool gives you a rough estimate of your monthly benefit and shows how your monthly benefit changes depending on the age at which you claim.

To equip assisted living and nursing facility staff with the know-how to prevent and spot the warning signs of elder financial abuse, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a guide to protecting residents from financial exploitation.

With support from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (CFS) and the New York City Department  of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) partnered on a pilot program to test the effect of  pairing of financial access and an average of one to two hours of financial counseling on the financial capability of a population transitioning off of public benefits in New York City.