Your Lifetime Social Security Taxes and Benefits / A new report also looks at your personal balance sheet for Medicare

Journal Reports for the Wall St Journal writes: TAXES AND BENEFITS For both your own planning purposes and a better understanding of looming budget battles in Washington, check out a new report: "Social Security and Medicare Taxes and Benefits Over a Lifetime: 2013 Update." The study, from the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research and educational group, offers a look at the taxes you will contribute to, and the benefits you are likely to receive from, these two programs in your lifetime. You'll see how much of a part Social Security is likely to play in your retirement finances. Consider: A one-earner couple with a high wage ($71,700 in 2013 dollars) retiring in 2015 can expect lifetime Social Security benefits of $640,000. The same couple can expect to get $427,000 in lifetime Medicare benefits—while paying only $111,000 in Medicare taxes. The latter figures help illustrate how Medicare, in particular, is expected to strain future federal budgets.

To learn more go to urban.org/retirees and click on the above title.

MONEY MANAGERS If you aren't doing so already, chances are good that you will end up as a "financial caregiver," helping older family members with their personal finances. It can be a difficult job, but new help is available. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has just published four guides titled "Managing Someone Else's Money" to assist financial caregivers. Each guide is tailored to individuals in a specific role: people named agents under a power of attorney; those appointed by a court as a guardian or conservator; trustees in charge of living trusts; and those appointed by a government agency to manage Social Security or veterans' benefits. And each guide has three purposes: to walk caregivers through their duties; to tell them how to watch for scams and financial exploitation (and what to do if a family member becomes a victim); and to tell caregivers where they can turn for additional help. In short, an invaluable resource.

To learn more go to consumerfinance.gov/managing-someone-elses-money.