Social Security, Medicare, old retirement accounts, long-term care, and even your credit report can all raise questions as retirement gets closer. Knowing where to find reliable information can make those decisions feel much more manageable.

In this episode, I share 10 websites I believe every woman should bookmark for retirement planning. I explain where to review Social Security records, understand Medicare, search for forgotten retirement accounts and unclaimed property, research long-term care and caregiving resources, check a financial professional’s background, and review your credit reports. My goal is to help you gather useful information, spot anything that may need attention, and ask better questions before making important retirement decisions.

Key points:

• How to review your Social Security earnings record, benefit estimates, and other important account information
• Where to learn about Medicare coverage, enrollment, costs, and free local health insurance counseling resources
• How to search for forgotten 401(k)s, pensions, bank accounts, checks, insurance proceeds, and other property
• Where to find caregiving and long-term care resources and understand services that may be available locally
• How to check financial professionals and credit reports for disclosures, errors, unfamiliar accounts, or concerns
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• #94, 7 Questions Every Woman Should Ask Before Hiring a Financial Advisor
• Ultimate Guide to Women’s Social Security Success

Websites:

• My Social Security
• Medicare Plan Compare
• State Health Insurance Assistance Program
• IRS Retirement Plans
• Department of Labor Retirement Savings Lost and Found
• National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators
• Eldercare Locator
• LongTermCare.gov
• Investor.gov
• Annual Credit Report
• Additional resource. PBGC Unclaimed Retirement Benefits

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

Retirement can bring a surprising mix of excitement and uncertainty.

Having enough money matters, but so do the questions about health, purpose, family, taxes, and whether you’re making decisions you’ll feel comfortable living with.

In this episode, I share what women in the Simply Retirement Community told me about their biggest retirement goals and worries. I walk through themes including financial independence, travel, health, Social Security, Medicare, taxes, and investment decisions. I also explain why defining what you want retirement to look like can help you ask better questions, evaluate your choices, and understand how the different pieces of your retirement plan fit together.

Key points:

• How defining what you want your money to support can make the question of “enough” more personal and useful
• Why travel, health, mobility, independence, family, purpose, and legacy shape retirement beyond the numbers
• How Social Security, Medicare, healthcare, taxes, and long-term care create overlapping retirement decisions
• Why understanding a financial recommendation includes asking what it costs, what you give up, and what could change
• How education, good questions, and clear explanations can help you make decisions when retirement feels uncertain
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• Facebook Group: The Simply Retirement Community
• Episodes Category: Investing in Retirement
• Episodes Category: Healthcare and Medicare
• Episodes Category: Social Security

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

What happens when the career that shaped your schedule, relationships, and identity is suddenly no longer part of your everyday life? Preparing for retirement can mean thinking beyond the financial pieces.

In this episode, I continue my conversation with Kelly Ottman, PhD, Professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering and Executive Leadership Coach at Leadership Portals, LLC, about preparing for the personal transition into retirement.

We explore how women can rethink identity beyond a job title, create new sources of purpose, maintain important relationships, and build structure before leaving work. Kelly also shares practical ideas from her research, including practicing retirement habits, creating a curiosity list, finding mentors and role models, and becoming more comfortable with a different pace of life.

Kelly discusses:

• How women can begin separating their identity and sense of purpose from a professional title before retirement
• Why relationships and social connections deserve intentional preparation before leaving the workplace behind
• How practicing new routines, hobbies, health habits, and social activities can make the transition feel more familiar
• Why a curiosity list can help women explore interests and possibilities they haven’t had time to pursue before
• How mentors, role models, friends, and family can provide valuable support when retirement starts to feel overwhelming
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• Ultimate Guide to Women’s Social Security Success
• #56 – What Will You Do with Your 1,000 Hours a Year in Retirement?

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

Connect with Kelly Ottman:

• LinkedIn: Kelly Ottman
• Website: Kelly Ottman – Leadership Portals

About our Guest:

Dr. C. Kelly Ottman is an executive coach and consultant, keynote speaker, scholar, and award-winning professor with more than 25 years of experience developing leaders across the leadership lifespan. A former healthcare executive, she brings expertise grounded in a prestigious two-year executive development fellowship and a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Adult Education from the University of Wisconsin Madison. As an executive coach/consultant, Dr. Ottman partners with local, national, and global organizations and boards. Her clients range widely—from Fortune 500 executives to executive steel leaders, and even executive nuns. She has extensive global experience, with a particular focus on Asia, especially China and India. With a passion for service, she is currently the volunteer Executive Leadership Coach Coordinator for the WE Empower United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Challenge and the International Leadership Association. Emerging from the intersection of her coaching and academic work, Dr. Ottman recently completed a groundbreaking study on executives and the transition to retirement. This was supported as part of a protracted leave (research-focused sabbatical) as a business Professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering University (MSOE). To activate her research and extend her current coaching and consulting to include leadership beyond retirement, she is a Certified Professional Retirement Coach (CPRC) through the Retirement Coaches Association.

Retirement can look settled financially and still leave you wondering who you’ll be when your career and title change. How do you prepare for the parts of retirement that don’t show up on a financial statement?

In this episode, I sit down with Kelly Ottman, PhD, Professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering and Executive Leadership Coach at Leadership Portals, LLC, to explore her research on how executives experience retirement. We look at why women may enter retirement with broader identities and social networks, yet still struggle with losing credibility, purpose, and voice.

Kelly also shares what she learned about spending anxiety after years of saving, the role of financial and non-financial planning, and why retirement may be better viewed as a period of renewal, repurposing, and possibility.

Kelly discusses:

• Why retirement can challenge identity even when someone feels financially prepared to leave a long career
• How women’s broader social roles can support retirement while the loss of professional credibility still hurts
• Why some retirees know they have enough on paper but still need confidence and permission to spend more freely
• How financial planning and non-financial planning can address different parts of the retirement transition
• Why retirement plans need room for changing health, family circumstances, relationships, and personal priorities
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• 2026 Tax and Retirement Planning Cheat Sheet

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

Connect with Kelly Ottman:

• LinkedIn: Kelly Ottman
• Website: Kelly Ottman – Leadership Portals

About our Guest:

Dr. C. Kelly Ottman is an executive coach and consultant, keynote speaker, scholar, and award-winning professor with more than 25 years of experience developing leaders across the leadership lifespan. A former healthcare executive, she brings expertise grounded in a prestigious two-year executive development fellowship and a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Adult Education from the University of Wisconsin Madison. As an executive coach/consultant, Dr. Ottman partners with local, national, and global organizations and boards. Her clients range widely—from Fortune 500 executives to executive steel leaders, and even executive nuns. She has extensive global experience, with a particular focus on Asia, especially China and India. With a passion for service, she is currently the volunteer Executive Leadership Coach Coordinator for the WE Empower United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Challenge and the International Leadership Association. Emerging from the intersection of her coaching and academic work, Dr. Ottman recently completed a groundbreaking study on executives and the transition to retirement. This was supported as part of a protracted leave (research-focused sabbatical) as a business Professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering University (MSOE). To activate her research and extend her current coaching and consulting to include leadership beyond retirement, she is a Certified Professional Retirement Coach (CPRC) through the Retirement Coaches Association.

Social Security rules can look straightforward until survivor benefits, retirement ages, taxes, and your personal history start overlapping.

Understanding where these rules came from can help you recognize which details deserve a closer look before you file.

In this episode, I look back at how Social Security has changed and why that history still affects women making retirement decisions today. I explain why some people have two different full retirement ages, how survivor and divorced-spouse benefits developed, and how rules around remarriage have changed. I also cover Social Security taxation, cost-of-living adjustments, and several numbers that haven’t kept pace with inflation.

Key points:

• Why retirement and survivor benefits can have different full retirement ages for the same person
• How survivor benefits developed and why a spouse’s filing age can affect the surviving spouse
• Why a 10-year marriage remains an important threshold when considering benefits from an ex-spouse
• How Social Security taxation thresholds have remained unchanged even as incomes and costs have risen
• Why understanding today’s Social Security rules can help women make more informed retirement decisions
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• Ultimate Guide to Women’s Social Security Success
• #24 – Understanding Spousal (and Ex-Spousal) Social Security Benefits
• #37 – Top 5 Questions on Social Security Survivor Benefits
• #47 – Three Game-Changing Social Security Strategies
• #54 – How Social Security Gets Taxed: What You Need to Know
• #63 – Social Security Planning After Divorce: Crucial Rules and Mistakes to Avoid
• #109 – Social Security Rules That No Longer Apply

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

What happens when the life you planned no longer fits the person you’ve become?

Retirement planning can create space to reconsider where you live, how you work, and what you want your next chapter to look like.

In this episode, I talk with Meg McKeen, Founder and Principal Consultant at Adjunct Advisors LLC, about the personal and financial decisions that reshaped her life. Meg shares how divorce pushed her to understand her finances and become her own advocate, how she eventually left corporate life and became a full-time traveler, and why she’s learning to balance saving for the future with living today. We also explore practicing retirement, spending after years of saving, and giving yourself permission to choose a path that may look different from everyone else’s.

Meg discusses:

• How divorce became a turning point for learning to make financial and personal decisions independently
• Why understanding everyday expenses helped her see that supporting herself financially was possible
• How leaving corporate life and selling her home eventually developed into five years of full-time travel
• Why practicing a different lifestyle before retirement can help clarify what you actually want from it
• How learning to spend intentionally can be just as important as building the habit of saving for retirement
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• 2026 Tax and Retirement Planning Cheat Sheet
• #17 – Financially Fearless Women with Barb Provost and Maggie Nielsen

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

Connect with Meg McKeen:

• LinkedIn: Meg McKeen
• Website: Adjunct Advisors
• Instagram: @megmckeen
• Podcast: Bound & Determined

About our Guest:

Meg McKeen is the founder and principal consultant of Adjunct Advisors LLC and the host of the Bound & Determined podcast. After building a traditional corporate career in the insurance industry, Meg stepped away at 39, took a year away from work, and launched her company in 2018.

Her personal path has included marrying young, divorcing at 30, and building an independent life without children. In 2021, Meg sold her Chicago home and many of her belongings to begin traveling full-time. She has since spent meaningful time in every state except Alaska while continuing to run her business.

Meg’s story encourages women to question long-held assumptions about work, home, success, and retirement. She also brings an honest perspective on the planning, uncertainty, and tradeoffs involved in creating a less traditional next phase of life.

Meg McKeen and Adjunct Advisors LLC are not affiliated with Blake Wealth Management or RFG Advisory.

Life changes, but the beneficiary forms attached to your retirement accounts, insurance policies, and other assets may still reflect decisions you made years ago.

In this episode, I explain why beneficiary reviews should be part of ongoing retirement planning and walk through nine questions that can help you determine whether your current designations still reflect your wishes. I cover primary and contingent beneficiaries, coordinating designations with your estate plan, trusts, minor beneficiaries, charitable giving, inherited IRA rules, and potential tax consequences.

I also share real client situations that show why verifying these details can be so important after divorce, widowhood, and other major life changes.

Key points:

• Why beneficiary forms should be reviewed after divorce, widowhood, remarriage, and other major life changes
• How beneficiary designations can control where certain assets go, regardless of instructions written in your will
• Why primary and contingent beneficiaries should be checked across IRAs, 401(k)s, insurance, and other accounts
• How trusts, minor beneficiaries, charitable gifts, and inherited retirement accounts can require added planning
• How beneficiary choices can affect taxes, distribution options, and what your family ultimately receives
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• Checklist: What Issues Should I Consider When Reviewing My Beneficiaries?
• #52 – I Have Inherited an IRA—Now What? 5 Steps to Avoid Costly Mistakes
• #113 – Inherited IRA Options Every Widow Should Understand
• Ultimate Guide to Women’s Social Security Success

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube

Retirement investing can bring many questions, especially when your savings need to support your lifestyle for decades. How do you balance growth, income, taxes, and market uncertainty when planning for life after work?

In this episode, I share my recent webinar from the New York Public Library’s Investing A-Z program, in which I discuss seven essential strategies for investing in retirement. I explain how a financial plan should guide investment decisions, why inflation can affect long-term purchasing power, and how retirees can think differently about market risk. I also cover the role of stocks, dividend growth investing, tax planning strategies, Roth conversions, charitable giving, and important questions to consider when working with a financial advisor.

Throughout the presentation, I focus on creating a thoughtful approach to retirement investing that connects financial decisions with the lifestyle you want to support.

Key points:

• How a financial plan can guide retirement investment decisions instead of focusing only on portfolio performance
• Why inflation and rising costs can affect retirement income needs over several decades of life
• How retirees can measure investment risk by considering years of income during market downturns
• The role of stocks, dividend growth investing, and long-term thinking in retirement portfolios
• How tax strategies, Roth conversions, and charitable giving may influence retirement planning decisions
• And more!

Resources:

• Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
• Website: Savvy Ladies
• Website: The New York Public Library
• Webinar Recording: 7 Retirement Investing Strategies for a More Successful Retirement

Connect with Eric Blake:

• www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
• Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
• Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
• Blake Wealth Management
• YouTube