By Nanci Hellmich; USA TODAY ~ Feb 10, 2015

More than half of people in the USA with significant savings fear going broke in retirement, a recent survey showed, but there are ways to live frugally to try to keep that from happening.

The first step is to create a budget and then get serious about where you can trim, financial experts say. “I am a firm believer in written financial plans, not back-of-the-envelope plans,” says Ray Ferrara, a financial planner in Clearwater, Fla. Within your plan, you should have a budget and an investment strategy that meets your tolerance for risk, he says.

By Internal Revenue Service; NBC 10 ~ Feb 10, 2015

After a bag full of tax documents with personal information was found lying on a Philadelphia street, NBC10 decided to do some digging. NBC10’s Cydney Long has tips on tax season safety. Even children can be targets of identity theft! (Published Tuesday, Feb 10, 2015) Updated 27 minutes ago.

Aggressive phone calls top the Internal Revenue Service’s list of “Dirty Dozen” tax scams in 2015. The government warned taxpayers to be aware — the early weeks of filing season are when phone scams tend to be rampant.

By Michael A. Fletcher; The Washington Post ~ Feb 09, 2015

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tax revenue is up, home foreclosures are down and after a long absence, robust economic growth has returned to this sprawling city. But as far as municipal workers here are concerned, it feels like the bad times never left.

Police and firefighters are on the verge of seeing their retirement benefits cut. Other city employees are certain to be next.

“The city is the one who put us in this position,” said Art Doring, who has been a city firefighter for 10 years. “When the market was great before the crash, they did not make payments into the pension. The chickens have come home to roost, and we are the ones who have to pay.”

By Erik Carter; Forbes ~ Feb 06, 2015

One of the most common questions we get is whether to put savings toward paying off a mortgage vs. investing more for retirement. This question is tricky because the answer can vary depending on which stage of life you’re in. Are you in the accumulation phase of trying to build wealth or in the distribution phase of using that wealth to generate income?

The Accumulation Phase

By Sarah Ferris; The Hill ~ Feb 06, 2015

Leaders of the Senate Health Committee are redoubling efforts to improve security of healthcare data in the wake of Thursday’s massive data breach at Anthem Inc.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced an effort Friday to examine how well healthcare companies are keeping customers’ data safe after millions of people were affected by the Anthem hack.

“Patients, hospitals, insurers — and all Americans who value the safety and privacy of their sensitive personal information — have a right to be alarmed by reports that their electronic records might be vulnerable to a cyber attack,” Alexander wrote in a statement.

By Kimberly Lankford; Kiplinger ~ Feb 06, 2015

1. Keeping your Part D plan choice on autopilot.

Open enrollment for Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans runs from October 15 to December 7 every year, and it’s a good time to review all of your options. The cost and coverage can vary a lot from year to year—some plans boost premiums more than others, increase your share of the cost of your drugs, add new hurdles before covering your medications, or require you to go to certain pharmacies to get the best rates. And if you’ve been prescribed new medications or your drugs have gone generic over the past year, a different plan may now be a better deal for you.

By Chris Morran; Consumerist ~ Feb 06, 2015

Earlier this week, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler confirmed his intention to ask his fellow commissioners to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, which would give the FCC more authority to regulate it and prohibit anti-consumer practices like throttling and blocking of data. AT&T is already gearing up for a suit to stop this change, but the FCC is apparently not terribly worried.

By Elise Viebeck; The Hill ~ Feb 05, 2015

Medicare is moving to cover lung cancer screenings for older people who have a history of smoking at least one pack of cigarettes per day.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had previously announced its decision to provide the CT scan coverage in November. The agency issued its final national coverage determination on Thursday, prompting praise from advocates who said thousands of lives would be saved.

“This is the first time that Medicare has covered lung cancer screening,” said CMS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patrick Conway in a statement. “This is an important new Medicare preventive benefit since lung cancer is the third most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.”

By Alexander Wayne; Bloomberg Business ~ Feb 05, 2015

(Bloomberg) — Congress should split the agency that runs Obamacare and Medicare from the Department of Health and Human Services to keep the White House from having too much influence over its operation, Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the health programs for the elderly and poor, is too big, said Hatch, a Utah Republican. The agency consumes about 85 percent of the health department’s $1 trillion budget.

By David Steele; Android Headlines ~ Feb 05, 2015

AT&T are the highest ranking full-service North American cell ‘phone provider when it comes to customer services, according to the latest J.D. Power study, which was released today. The survey ran from July to December 2014 and around 6,499 US wireless customers participated. The J.D. Power survey asks customers to numerically grade their carrier and is based on a combination of their experience and perception of the brand, devices, signal and similar. It’s important to note the caveat here that “your experience may vary,” because cell ‘phones could very legitimately be called “personal ‘phones,” as we all use them differently from one another.