You May Not Get to Choose When You Retire
You may have spent years planning to retire at a specific age, only to discover that the timing is not entirely yours to control. A company restructuring, a sale, a family member who suddenly needs your support, or a change in your own health can bring your working years to an end sooner than expected. […]
Using Home Equity as a Retirement Buffer Asset
Periods of financial stress can set the stage for difficult decisions for retirees, particularly when markets are down at the same time cash is needed for living expenses or an unexpected cost. Having another source of funds available can help reduce the need to sell investments after a decline and give the portfolio more time […]
Can You Live Off Dividends in Retirement?
Selling an investment in retirement can feel very different from receiving a dividend. One feels like spending down something you worked for years to accumulate. The other feels like skimming income off the top while leaving the underlying investment alone. Retirees who spent decades being told to save, invest, and avoid touching principal can be […]
How to Build a Social Security Bridge to Help Manage Sequence Risk
Social Security is a particularly valuable source of reliable retirement income. It functions much like a lifetime inflation-adjusted annuity backed by the federal government, providing income for as long as you live and adjusting benefits over time through cost-of-living increases. For married couples, the claiming decision can also affect the survivor benefit available after the first spouse dies. Unlike […]
The Wrong Way to Decide Whether an Annuity Is Expensive
One of the hardest problems in retirement is not knowing how long your money needs to last, and that uncertainty shapes almost every decision about how much you can safely spend. If you knew with certainty that retirement would last exactly 20 years, the planning would be considerably easier because you could establish a spending […]
What Happens If Congress Does Nothing About Social Security?
If Social Security is part of your retirement plan, the headlines can be unsettling. The program’s trust funds are running down, Congress has not agreed on a solution, and future benefits may eventually be lower than the amounts shown on today’s Social Security statements. That uncertainty can make it tempting to leave Social Security out […]
The Safest Investment May Not Create the Safest Retirement
Most of the decisions we make in retirement planning become easier once you understand why you are making them, but that does not mean they always feel intuitive. Investing is a good example. You spend your working years accumulating savings, often with the understanding that accepting some market risk is necessary to grow your money. […]
Social Security Planning Is About More Than Maximizing Benefits
Anyone who has owned a home for a long time knows the most visible projects are not always the most important. Paint colors, kitchen updates, and landscaping get the attention, while the roof, furnace, and water heater do their jobs in the background until something goes wrong. Retirement planning works the same way. Investment performance, […]
How the Role of Bonds Changes in Retirement
During your working years, bonds are primarily used as a portfolio stabilizer. They can help dampen volatility, provide income, and reduce the impact of stock market declines. During the accumulation years, that role is generally enough. The portfolio’s primary job is still growth, and bonds are there to make the ride more manageable. Retirement changes the […]
When Retirement Planning Becomes a Family Affair
Most retirees spend decades preparing for retirement taxes, but many never spend much time thinking about what happens to those taxes after they are gone. Early in retirement, the focus is usually on generating sustainable income and keeping taxes manageable each year. But for households likely to leave assets behind, the planning process eventually starts […]
