Retirement Planning

Imagine you’re driving to work, daydreaming about your future retirement plans. Suddenly, you walk into the office, and your boss hands you a pink slip. Forced to retire, what do you do now? This unexpected scenario can be daunting, but it’s crucial to be prepared as you approach retirement. Life is unpredictable, and the best way to handle such surprises is to have a solid back-up plan in place.

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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

It’s well documented that women often earn less than men in the workforce. While progress toward pay equality is a hot topic, less discussed are the factors women face when trying to plan for their ideal retirement.

Among the hurdles that are unique to women:

• lower lifetime earnings
• wages lost when leaving the workforce for child rearing or caregiving
• part-time work without access to benefits, including retirement benefits
• longer lifespans leading to longer retirements
• longer exposure to retirement risks

These factors can definitely affect the quality of life women enjoy during their retirement. Which makes having a strong retirement plan more critical than ever. Read More

Divorce can be one of life’s most challenging experiences. Not only is it distressing, but it also brings financial upheaval. And depending on your age, divorce may pose yet another risk: taking what was an on-track retirement plan squarely off balance.

For people in their 50s and up, the challenges are particularly acute. There will be less time to make up for what you will have lost. You will have a shorter timespan to gather earnings, put away savings, and accumulate more wealth from portfolio investment growth. Your goals and plan for retirement will also change, since you likely counted on a financial future with your partner.    

Later-in-life breakups are a growing trend, as researchers at Bowling Green State University discovered. They found that, from 1990 to 2010, the divorce rate among couples in their 50s and beyond more than doubled. In that same period, the overall divorce rate remained relatively flat.

While it may be tempting to put finances on the back-burner, now isn’t optimal to fall back on planning ahead. Your financial security is at stake. If anything, it’s time to refocus on your financial progress and create a new plan for your personal retirement goals.

Here are some tips to help you get back into the driver’s seat of your money matters. Read More

In the last three years, Americans have reported they have become more accustomed to market volatility. But a lingering anxiety over this market uncertainty has led them to seek, in record numbers, strategies to protect a portion of their retirement savings.

This latest snapshot of Americans’ attitudes toward market volatility, and its effect on their retirement planning, comes from Allianz Life’s 2018 Market Perceptions Study.

Conducted this April, the online study surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 1,000 respondents. Of this population, more than half had investable assets above $200,000.

Chief among the findings? A growing number of Americans said they are comfortable with market conditions and are ready to invest. That share of people was 35% in the 2018 study, compared to 26% in a similar Allianz study published in 2015. Read More