SoFi Blog

When you think about retiring, you may imagine yourself lounging on a beach of sparkling sand with a fruity drink in your hand and a wide variety of amenities available to you. Or you might picture moving near where your grandchildren live so you can spend plenty of time going to their sports games, musical concerts, and more.

Or, as another option, you might envision moving to where the cost of living is low, so your money can go towards traveling the world. You might dream of upsizing to the home you’ve always wanted, or perhaps you’re thinking about simplifying during your retirement years. You might want to buy an RV and spend this time of your life on the road!

Where to live in retirement depends largely upon your goals, and what’s perfect for you might not interest someone else at all. In this post, we’ll share information about what to consider in a retirement spot and what some of the most popular retirement spots are, and offer a blueprint to help you create your own unique plan.

We’ll also talk about the linchpin of whatever retirement plan you’re creating: the ability to fund it.

Sometimes, managing finances can feel like a game—one whose rules aren’t always easy to figure out.

It can be doubly disturbing when those rules change unexpectedly. And according to a recent announcement by the Fair Isaac Corporation, the consumer reporting agency responsible for calculating FICO® scores, that’s exactly what’s about to happen.

Many consumers are familiar with their FICO Score, the three-digit credit rating used by many lenders to gauge a borrower’s creditworthiness. Even if they can’t name the exact number, most credit users likely know it exists.

But it’s less common to have a total understanding of how, exactly, that score is arrived at—and that’s before throwing in a formula change.

For most consumers, however, this FICO announcement is apt to be a total non-issue. And even for those whose scores are affected, there are tons of smart financial moves that can help mitigate the changes and potentially help raise overall creditworthiness.

Here are the deets about the 2020 FICO® Score changes.

Earlier today, SoFi hosted a small group of press to talk about what we accomplished in 2019 and what we have planned for 2020 with our CEO Anthony Noto—while getting a chance to show off our shiny new digs in downtown San Francisco. We thought you might be curious to hear what he talked about, too!

It can often start out innocently enough. One partner, who may be better with handling money and finances (or more willing to take on the responsibilities) offers to pay the bills and balance the checkbook every month.

However, with time, the spouse not paying the bills may begin to wonder how things are going: are the credit cards paid on time? How about the mortgage and car payments?

If you’re experiencing financial cheating or are dealing with an overspending spouse, first remember that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. A financial challenge like this one can have a positive outcome and set you on an even better path than the one you were on before.

It can be the one incident that may draw you closer as a couple (once the problem is confronted and on its way to being resolved).

Barnum Financial Group recently added a student loan contribution program to the list of benefits available to their new advisors—and, during our conversations with them, we talked about how a principal payment from an employer has value beyond the amount of the actual monthly contribution.

For example, when you front-load the amount of money put down on a student loan, you can pay the loan down more quickly and reduce the amount of money that’s paid back, overall.

To help quantify the value of an employers’ contribution to your student loan debt, you can use our student loan debt navigator tool.