What is An Asset Allocation? And Why is it Important?
Your Asset Allocation is simply a fancy way of saying what you put in your investment portfolio. It’s also one of the fundamental parts of your retirement plan. It defines how you spread your investments across different types of assets—like stocks, bonds, and cash—and ultimately determines the balance between risk and return that you take on. […]
Tax Considerations When Delaying Social Security
Delaying Social Security can potentially contribute to an overall tax strategy for retirement. Every case is different, but generally speaking, when you add taxes to the mix, the case for delaying Social Security becomes even stronger than usual.
Claiming Social Security at 62 or 70
When it comes to claiming Social Security, timing is everything. Should you claim as soon as you’re eligible at age 62, or should you wait until age 70 to maximize your monthly benefit? The decision depends on a variety of factors, including your financial situation, life expectancy, and retirement goals. Understanding Social Security Benefits Social […]
When Are People Claiming Social Security?
One of the hottest topics in retirement income planning over the past several years has been how to help individuals strategize on their Social Security claiming decisions.
Social Security as an “Investment”
The alternative to treating Social Security as insurance is to view it as an investment, or as a gamble on how long one lives. This can be problematic.
Inflation and Your Retirement Plan
Planning for inflation is crucial when designing your retirement plan. While the average annual inflation rate from 1926 to 2023 was around 3.01%, expectations for the future are somewhat different. In this article, we explore how Treasury Bonds and TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) help us gauge future inflation expectations and how this impacts retirement planning. […]
What is Risk?
Risk is one of those complicated concepts that you can’t really pin down to one definition, but it’s the single most important factor for investors.
Social Security: The Best Annuity Money Can Buy
A final frame for viewing the Social Security claiming decision is as an annuity purchase.
How Time Horizon and Discount Rate Affect Your Social Security Decision
One way to view the decision to delay Social Security as an “investment” is by using a present value calculation to identify which strategy can provide the most lifetime Social Security benefits and which strategy creates the lowest funding needs for your investment portfolio. This calculation requires deciding on a time horizon and a discount rate.
Fixed Horizons vs. Survival Probabilities in Retirement Planning
How long you are going to live (and spend) is an incredibly important number in your retirement plan. Unfortunately, we really have no way to determine this number when you are planning for retirement. We certainly have ways of estimating your future longevity by looking at life expectancy numbers – essentially the likelihood that you […]
