🧭 Topics
Each topic is a complete guide to one subject — the rules, the arithmetic, and the vocabulary — with every calculator, document walkthrough, and defined term for that subject collected in one place. Verifiable facts with official sources, never advice, and every page ends by deferring to the agency that actually decides.
What Medicare Actually Costs in a Year
The Part B premium, the deductibles, the income surcharge that arrives two years after the income, and the drug or supplement premium on top. Every piece is published in a different document, so here they are in one place, each cited to the notice that set it.
6 calculators · 4 sections · updated 2026-08-02
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Medicare Enrollment Dates, Penalties, and the Two Coverage Shapes
When your sign-up window opens, what it costs for the rest of your life if it closes unused, and how supplement cover and Advantage plans distribute the same costs differently across a year. Dates worked from your birthday, penalties from the statutory formulas.
5 calculators · 4 sections · updated 2026-08-02
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When to Take Social Security
Claiming at 62, at your full retirement age, or at 70 changes your monthly benefit permanently, and changes what a surviving spouse lives on afterwards. Here is what each choice pays, what break-even arithmetic can tell you, and the four things it cannot.
4 calculators · 4 sections · updated 2026-08-02
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Social Security When There Are Two of You
A married couple's Social Security decision is not two single decisions. The survivor keeps only the larger benefit, taxes are assessed on combined income, and the higher earner's claiming age sets a floor that outlives them. Here is how the household pieces fit together.
3 calculators · 4 sections · updated 2026-08-02
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Paying for Care: What It Costs and Who Actually Pays
Long-term care is the largest bill most retirements ever face, and Medicare does not pay for it. Here is what each kind of care costs, the five places the money really comes from, the programs people rule themselves out of, and the last bill nobody plans for.
9 calculators · 5 sections · updated 2026-08-03
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Annual update alerts — new IRS and state figures the week they drop
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