Paying the bills after you retire is quite different from during your career. After all, the income you receive will come from a variety of sources, as opposed as to earned income or a bimonthly paycheck.
Social Security, your own investment portfolio, a pension (if you are lucky), and maybe even part-time work can be sources of income that help pay for your retirement lifestyle.
The trick is therefore to maximize the total amount of income that you receive. But many Americans worry that they won’t have enough income during retirement to meet their needs.
The Alliance for Lifetime Income conducted a survey of 3,119 adults regarding their financial readiness for retirement. Eight in 10 (80%) of them expressed at least some level of concern that they won’t have enough income after they retire.
The survey revealed that 18% of the respondents were extremely worried about this. Meanwhile, 26% were “moderately” concerned and 36% were “somewhat” concerned about this issue.
Here are six key steps you can take now to avoid these concerns and maximize your income. You don’t have to wait until you are retired to start planning out the rest of your life. Read More
When you are still working, a rock-solid financial plan will do wonders for helping you accumulate money for retirement. This strategy will laser-focus on growth and accumulation as top goals. With a financial advisor’s help, you could stay on track with your plan and gradually build your savings for later years.
But things change as you near retirement. This period is called the ‘retirement red zone‘ for a reason. It’s a time when new planning is needed. Your financial plan will need to change gears, in some ways, in its focus from growth to retirement income.
This can be tricky in some cases, as today we face different challenges in retirement than those before us did. Longer living is one such issue now.
It’s a very real concern for many retirees, as one study by Allianz Life found. In the study, six in 10 retirees ranked running out of money while they are still living as a greater fear than death itself.
Just like the plan for growing your money during your career, an income plan can help you maximize your lifetime cash-flow. In turn, you can better enjoy the hard-earned fruits of your lifetime of work.
Many years of hard work brought you to this point. Now it’s time for your money to work and let you enjoy a comfortable, lasting lifestyle. Read More
If you talk to people who have been retired for at least 15 years or more, they will often talk about the major ‘stealth’ expenses that can arise after you stop working, such as a medical condition or major home repair.
Statistics show that one in five retirees and one in four retired widows will get hit with at least four major financial shocks after they stop working. These numbers could be fairly eye-opening for most pre-retirees. Or, at least, they can make them take a second look at their retirement plans.
The numbers also reflect that 28% of retirees and 13% of widows haven’t experienced any financial shocks yet. But they are the exception and not the rule. It’s prudent to think about any and all ‘surprises’ that can happen during your retirement years.
Not only does proactive planning give you a longer window for anticipating “stealth expenses” and setting reserves in place for them. It can also help you reduce the impact of these risks when you have to deal with them.
For example, you might take a tax hit from having to make a sudden withdrawal from your portfolio to cover an unanticipated health scare.
Here’s a look at some surprise expenses in retirement that may come your way — and how you can prepare for them. Read More
The modern financial landscape for today’s retirees is quite different from that of prior generations. Corporate pensions are disappearing, and the Social Security program faces new pressures from record-breaking numbers of people retiring.
Annuities have steadily emerged as a solution to these retirement income challenges. But up until some years ago, many retirees eschewed the use of annuities. Why? Because in order to get a guaranteed lifetime stream of income, they had to annuitize their contracts.
In order to do this, they had to effectively forfeit control of their money for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, life insurance companies have innovated and come up with a new benefit that gives more flexibility: an annuity income rider benefit. Read More
For retirement savers wanting more growth potential than what CDs and other fixed-interest assets might offer, fixed index annuities can be an attractive option. Indexed annuities can earn more interest over time than what these other options might.
Even so, some people would rather know that they are earning a guaranteed rate of interest. They are more comfortable with a minimum interest rate for their money’s growth.
Multi-year guaranteed annuities, or MYGA annuities, can fill this role for those who want a guaranteed interest rate with full protection of principal.
Multi-guarantee annuities are backed by the same dollar-for-dollar reserve requirements that apply to fixed and indexed annuities.
That means that for every dollar of MYGA premium that is issued, the insurance company must keep at least one dollar in its cash reserves to cover the outstanding amount. Read More
The following guest post has been contributed by Emily Kalan of Crediful. Emily is an experienced blogger that writes about all things finance, including debt, home ownership, loans, and financial identity protection.
Identity theft is far more common than you think – it’s one of those things that you hear about but don’t think it will ever happen to you. And it can be a particularly troubling problem to deal with when you are in retirement.
The reality is that millions of Americans suffer from identity theft every year, and it can leave you feeling targeted, vulnerable, and unsafe.
Thankfully, there are ways you can protect yourself against identity theft without having to spend hundreds of dollars on protective services. Keep reading to find out how!
Looking for identity protection for families? Then head on over to Crediful.com and check out our in-depth post on some of the best identity theft protection services. Read More
Turn on the TV or radio, and chances are you might hear of volatility hitting equity markets at some time or another. But what you might not hear as much about is the risk facing CDs, bonds, Treasury securities, and other fixed-interest holdings: interest rate risk.
What is interest rate risk? It’s a particularly important topic for retirees. After all, many retirement portfolio strategies use fixed-interest holdings to generate stable retirement income or to smooth out volatility in a portfolio.
These fixed-income assets also tend to be the place where millions of Americans protect their money. Or they may park cash there for short-term to medium-term goals. So, long story short, interest rate risk can have implications for millions of people
So, how should we define interest rate risk — and how might affect you? Let’s get into it. Read More
Planning for retirement isn’t easy. It’s complex and has many moving parts. For one thing, you will need to have enough income to last for the rest of your life once you step away from a full-time career.
Taxes, healthcare, and inflation are just a few things that can eat into your money. Not only that, you might have a longer retirement than you would think. Nowadays, thanks to advances in healthcare and technology, many people are spending as much as one-third of their lives in their post-retirement years.
How, then, can you plan for a financially confident future? A financial professional’s guidance can help you go the extra mile in many ways. They can help you evaluate your current financial progress. They can also help you spell out your goals, foresee retirement risks, and build personal strategies to assist you in your objectives.
Here are a few ways that hiring a financial advisor or agent can help your retirement in the long run. Read More
With record numbers of baby boomers retiring, many new trends are coming into the retirement landscape. Among boomers, there is one growing trend of “solo agers,” or those who retired without marrying anyone or having any children. According to the American Society on Aging, around 20% of boomers fit this trend.
If you are a solo ager, here are some questions to ask when planning for your retirement. How you answer these questions can be crucial in helping you enjoy a comfortable and financially confident retired lifestyle. Read More
So, you have decided that an annuity makes sense for your retirement. But what type of annuity might be right for you? This will depend on the answers to a variety of questions.
What is your risk tolerance? What timeline do you have for your money? What annuity guarantees are important to you? What you hope to accomplish with the annuity contract? All of these considerations and more are relevant to what annuity might be a good fit for you.
Here are some questions to consider as you think about what annuity might be right for your situation. Read More
