Planning Retirement

According to a survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, just 21% of American workers are “very confident” they’ll have enough money for retirement. After many years of hard work, most people would like a comfortable retirement lifestyle. But this doesn’t just come together by itself.

Financial independence in retirement takes diligence, and it begins with creating a suitable retirement income plan. Then once you have this “retirement roadmap,” it’s a matter of sticking to it. Of course that involves taking action when you need to, like filing for Social Security at the right time or signing up for Medicare on deadline.

There are a number of costly mistakes which could greatly impact your retirement. These errors could mean higher unnecessary costs or lowering your standard of living down the road, so it’s important to be aware of these potential pitfalls. Let’s cover these retirement risks in detail. Read More

Last week we discussed the value of having a guaranteed retirement income source. Annuities offer some strong advantages with their contractual guarantees. But they are only one part of the financial picture.

Overall, a portfolio could have many holdings: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, CDs, or even other financial instruments.

This brings up the question of portfolio allocation. Is there a paradigm which you should follow?

Ultimately, we would say it varies among individuals. Your portfolio strategy should be a good fit for your current situation, needs, goals, risk tolerance, and risk capacity.

Of course there are some well-known general rules of thumb for starting discussion, like the Rule of 100 for portfolio diversification. 

As you get closer to the life stage of distribution — or where you are living off your retirement savings — risk tolerance and risk capacity become even more important. But just what are these risk-related metrics? Read More