Selma Jones and her only child, Roger, aren’t crazy about each other, but they share a common desire – obtaining a higher living standard.

Roger’s 35 and makes $60,000 a year working for a landscaping company. Roger owns a large home that’s feeling pretty empty now that his girlfriend Thelma’s left. Roger hates to cook, clean, and do laundry. He spends lots of money eating out and having his place cleaned and his shirts pressed.

Janet is a 55-year-old heart surgeon earning $250,000 a year, and she is burned out working every day. Her husband Jack is also 55, but he spends his days “birding” and has only a modest earnings history. Their 16-year-old son will head off to college to study ornithology in three years. Janet can’t take the work load much longer and plans to retire at age 60.

Since 2010 everyone, regardless of income, is eligible to convert qualified retirement savings into a ROTH IRA. Doing so will require paying taxes on the amount converted; i.e., the amount taken out of the regular IRA and put into a ROTH IRA. We will see below that the value of the conversion can depend on where you live but also, even more significantly, when you intend to take Social Security.

Harold Smith, age 66, and Maude Smith, age 64, have been planning their retirement for a while. They did very well with their investments and both made a very good living. They saw the train-wreck coming in the housing market, and while they didn’t sell at the peak, they did ok when they sold their home in Nashville and moved into a rental in Havana, Florida (just outside Tallahasse).

For years the Social Security Administration urged retirees to take Social Security as soon as possible, even though doing so meant permanently receiving lower benefits. Here’s what they’ve said: “From an actuarial perspective, it doesn’t matter when you start collecting. But you may die early and regret (hopefully, in heaven) having waited, so don’t take the chance of dying before collecting. Take your benefits early.”

This advice and logic was as bad as it got. As far as we know no one has any regrets in heaven or needs any money.

Economics can’t say what’s fair, but it can help with divorce settlements by showing who’s really getting what and how to make the best out of a bad situation. Take Frank and Stacy Loveless. Frank’s 45, Stacy’s 38. He’s a dentist, she’s a dietician. They live in Saint Louis with their two kids, ages 7 and 3. The couple met in Frank’s dentist chair a decade ago. Stacy asked him out and, boy, what a wedding and what a great marriage until, well, things changed. Their main goal now is settling their affairs without declaring war.