Retirement Planning

While retirement has many hard-to-predict moving parts, like what your spending might look like, perhaps one of the most difficult questions to answer is this: “How long will you live?”

Thanks to advances in healthcare and technology, people are living longer. According to the Social Security Administration, the statistical average for a 65-year-old man is to age 84. For a 65-year-old woman, it’s 87.

Economists call the possibility of spending decades in retirement a “longevity risk.” Still, keep in mind those numbers are just averages. What someone’s longevity looks like on a personal level will depend on their family history, health status, and lifestyle choices over the years, among other things.

For many people, the uncertainty adds up to financial concern. In one survey, almost two-thirds of surveyed Americans said they worried about running out of money in retirement more than death!

However, if you are to have a Retirement Plan that guides you across the Arc of Retirement, you will need some guestimate of how long you might live. That way you don’t underspend or overspend your financial resources.

Here are five steps to help keep longevity risk at bay and tame the uncertainty. Read More

Having a financial plan is essential for a comfortable lifestyle, whether you are approaching retirement or are already retired. But what if you haven’t prepared yet for retirement?

Should you find yourself procrastinating and not developing a long-term Retirement Plan (“PLAN.xls”), take heed. This can get you into serious trouble over the long run, with your post-work lifestyle possibly taking a hit in one of two ways: by either overspending or underspending.

There is a weird psychology that can cause a retiree to drag their feet on developing a personal financial strategy. They might worry that, if they know too much about how their finances will play out over time, it will either scare them or at least disappoint them as financial reality sets in.

Think of it as a distorted version of the old saying, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” So, retirees spend away, figuring that they will worry about it later.

However, in the case of retirement, what you don’t know CAN hurt you. Especially when time isn’t on your side, and big financial mistakes are much harder to recover from since you aren’t working (or as least as much as you were earlier in your career) and the lifespan clock is ticking.

Whether dealing with overspending or underspending, the irony is that you will carry a heavy burden of worry in either case. But what you are really searching for in retirement is, above all, peace of mind. Read More

If you are among the rare few with a retirement pension, congratulations! You have a benefit that is becoming increasingly rare.

With the 401(k) plan becoming the workplace retirement plan of choice, people hold more responsibility for their financial futures than ever.

Knowing you have a pension gives you the comfort of knowing that, once you retire, you are scheduled to receive monthly income payouts for life. Your income payment will be based on your salary and your length of employment.

Just like with annuity payout options, the lifetime payout option you select with your pension plan will have a direct bearing on how much income you receive. Read More

Imagine you are driving to work one day and daydreaming about all the things you will do when you retire. But when you walk into the office, your boss presents you with a pink slip.

Now what do you do?!

This is not a happy scenario, but it’s one we all should be prepared for as we approach retirement. Life is messy and random at times. Your best way to deal with the unexpected is to always have a back-up plan. Read More

Life in the work lane means keeping your nose to the career grindstone. You work hard over many years, balancing work and family while accruing a comfortable nest egg for your retirement.  

Along the way, you probably benefited from the discipline and focus that comes from working with a financial advisor. Their guidance was helpful in growing your portfolio and other assets to where they are now.

This life stage is called the “accumulation phase,” and its long-term priority is with the growth of your financial assets. Yet it’s just as important to plan for the backend, or when you start drawing on your nest egg for retirement income.

After all, life changes quite a bit when you retire. Your sources of income will change once you hit the golden years, whether you were a full-time executive, you ran your own business, you worked in a government capacity, or you steadily climbed the ranks as a salaried employee. And not only that.

There is also the matter of “distributions” from your portfolio. Withdrawals have tax implications, especially if money is taken from accounts or vehicles that had special tax treatment as you accumulated funds within them.

And don’t forget the question of longevity, which poses the potentially costly risk of outliving your retirement money. With the numbers of people living to their 90s, and even to 100-and-beyond, increasing by the year, there runs the possibility of a nest egg being mismanaged for long-term income needs. Read More

You have had your dream retirement in the back of your mind your entire life.

Whether that movie in your head shows you traveling to exotic lands, spending quality time with your grandchildren, or turning a lifelong hobby into a business, retirement isn’t the end of your story. It’s the beginning of an exciting new sequel.

But how do you make the retirement of your imagination a reality? For many, bringing their ideal retirement to life includes consulting with a financial professional who specializes in retirement planning services.

If you have a nest egg, you have experience in personal finance. Earning an income and saving for a “rainy day.” Building wealth in equity markets, and putting away money into a 401(k), IRA, or other retirement account.

But those are all actions on the front side of retirement—called the accumulation phase. The backend? It’s known as the distribution phase, or how you draw retirement income from those assets accumulated over many years.

How you prepare for reliable income streams in retirement will determine if you live out the retirement of your dreams — or possibly deal with some scaled-down version.

Finding the right retirement planning services can help strengthen your chances of a confident lifestyle. Read More

As 2019 begins, two new surveys suggest that both advisors and economists aren’t so optimistic about where the economy is headed.

This kind of insight from industry experts is useful, but especially to those who are approaching retirement. Knowing what pundits and advisors believe could lie ahead, and exploring what action can be taken in case of any untimely disruptions to their portfolios, is critical to those within five to 10 years of retirement.

So, what do advisors and economists see when they look ahead? They see the shakiness of 2018 leading to a potentially rocky 2019. Read More

With age comes wisdom – and apparently the ability to better handle unexpected expenses, according to the Society of Actuaries (SOA).

In their recent study, the SOA analyzed financial risk management across generations. Chief among their findings? That “the ability to handle unforeseen expenses increases with age, peaking with Early Boomers and then declining for the Silent Generation.” 

It’s one of many findings according to the study, “Financial Risk Concerns and Management Across Generations.” The Silent Generation refers to those born between 1925 and 1945.

The SOA based its finding on the fact that 6 in 10 Early Boomers say they could afford a $10,000 expense using their savings or emergency funds. Yet “only 46% of Millennials would use their savings, which is not surprising since they have lower assets and more competing financial priorities.”

Those in the Silent Generation remain vulnerable. The SOA reports that half of them aren’t able to use their savings for an unexpected $10,000 expense. Read More

If you have already created a confidence-boosting retirement plan, congratulations! You are on track to achieving the rewarding retirement of your dreams.

But what happens if you put this necessary task off? If you take a “someday” approach to stopping to assess your needs in retirement and exploring strategies and solutions that can help you achieve them?

It’s not hard to find out. You may even have watched people you know and care about struggle financially in their golden years. A time in their lives that was supposed to be free of financial pressures — or at least relatively, so we think — instead forces them to make unpleasant choices just to stay afloat.

Most often, poor financial decisions (or a lack of planning) — fueled by the emotional pressures of life changes or financial stressors — tip that first domino that can begin to topple a care-free retirement.

It takes discipline in matters of money and financial planning to ensure your money works for you, instead of the other way around.

Because you don’t want to find yourself going down the wrong path to retirement, consider these consequences of not taking action to create a plan that can provide you benefits such as reliable income for life. Read More

Like other folks, you probably see waves of retirement advice from the papers, financial talkshows, online news sources, and other outlets. Much of that advice assumes that among couples, both spouses are approximately the same age. That often results in solutions designed to address the needs of couples entering their retirement years together.

But what about couples with sizable age differences? Their different retirement timelines are likely to present unique problems. When such is your situation, how can you plan for your retirement effectively?

If one spouse is eligible to retire 10 or more years ahead of the other, that spouse will be making choices that not only affect their own retirement. It impacts their partner’s retirement, as well. Those decisions could have a dramatic impact on the younger spouse’s lifestyle now and during their own golden years.  

Not only does their age disparity affect their retirement plan, it means that life events, both those foreseen (e.g., retirement or required minimum distributions) and unforeseen (e.g., the need to help care for aging parents), will be faced at different stages in their lives. Read More