It’s hard to imagine that what is perhaps most people’s primary financial preoccupation today – retirement – was not always a common thing. In fact, today’s article notes, there was a time when this life stage that everyone strives to achieve today was not considered desirable! Today, the question is not so much whether retirement is desirable but what type…
Today’s article calls it “the nastiest hardest problem in finance”: retirement spending strategies. And unfortunately, despite the complexity inherent in retirement spending strategizing, it is often subject to simplistic rules of thumb, most notably the 4% rule. The author outlines the dangers associated with the 4% rule, how it “can go very badly”, and the implications of this for the…
“Maybe your retirement plan is on track, but that doesn’t mean you can rest easy. We all exist within a society and an economy. Its problems are ours, too, as we may find out when taxes rise to help pay for others to retire,” warns the author of today’s article. He proceeds to examine the state of retirement in the…
Noting the troubles ahead for Social Security, the author of today’s article warns “Don’t count on the government, your employer, or anyone else to pay for the lifestyle you want to enjoy in retirement. It’s truly up to you.” To help you in this endeavor, he proceeds to highlight two stocks that have been rewarding shareholders with massive gains –…
Why would you pretend you still have debts to pay off when you don’t, or open a Health Savings Account and then not use it? Because those are among some of the easiest and most effective ways to help save for retirement, as outlined in today’s article. For more on these two retirement saving suggestions and several more (including why…
Does a couple hundred thousand dollars more in retirement savings sound like something worth having? Of course! And today’s article highlights a strategy – developed by a Baylor University finance professor – that may offer just that. For more on this strategy to “stretch your retirement” – the driver of which “is to protect as much money as possible from…
Early retirement only works if you continue to make money in retirement…right? The author of today’s article challenges this belief, arguing that “it IS absolutely possible and in fact very easy, to make a chunk of money last through your lifetime. There is no magic or unusual risk or hope involved, it’s just plain math.” So, once you’ve accumulated a…
Think financial planning and retirement planning are one and the same? Think again. “Understanding the difference between financial planning and retirement planning can be critical to developing a retirement income strategy,” explains the author of today’s article, with one financial adviser cited describing the difference between the two as “the difference between people at work versus money at work.” So…
The retirement expert cited in today’s article calls them “the single biggest risk you face in outliving your money”: out-of-pocket healthcare expenses and costs for long-term care. These expenses can now total over half a million dollars, “almost four times more than the typical couple nearing retirement has saved in their combined retirement accounts”. Given this, the author outlines several…
When it comes to retirement funding strategies, it turns out there may be a hole in the popular bucket approach, making those strategies more likely to fail. That’s the finding of a recent comprehensive study of both bucket and non-bucket strategies. Why are bucket strategies more likely to fail than non-bucket strategies – and which retirement funding strategy did the…