The Retirement Savings Dilemma
{1 minute to read} Today I want to introduce everyone to a video, The Retirement Savings Dilemma. It outlines strategies and philosophies to help you achieve your retirement income. Years ago many people had pensions that gave them income for life but over the last 10-20 years, those types of pensions have disappeared. Because of this, part of our planning is to recreate those streams of income so that people can have reliable income for the rest of their lives. People are living longer and longer and market [...]
Retirement Income Planning
{4 minutes to read} Today, we're going to talk about retirement income planning and what we call sequence of events risk. Most people accumulate wealth in their retirement plans where their money is invested in securities, which are usually made up of stocks and bonds. At retirement, they use these accounts to generate retirement income. One of the challenges is that when you go to take money out of these accounts, you will have to pay income tax on all distributions. The second challenge is that if you [...]
Changes that May Affect Your Retirement and Estate Planning
“There is nothing permanent except change.” -Heraclitus {4:48 minutes to read} As with everything else, the government is always changing things. Part of good financial estate and retirement planning is having plans that work under every circumstance. Recently, a new tax law was signed and the estate tax laws have once again been changed. I am 56 years old with a life expectancy of approximately 86. How many times will they change the estate tax laws in the next 30 years? The Problem Over the last 10 or [...]
Retirement Planning: The Method versus the Objective
{3:54 minutes to read} If I could just get a guaranteed income for life of $10,000 per month, boy, would I ever be on easy street. Life would be grand. No worries, no stress, no fear of big market swings. If I could just get one of those old-time pensions where they guarantee me income for my entire lifetime, that would be amazing. As we continue on the path in this low interest rate environment, many people would love the idea of having an old-time pension that provides [...]
Does Your Retirement Portfolio Include a Volatility Buffer?
{4 minutes to read} So what exactly is a volatility buffer? A volatility buffer is a way for you to create an alternate asset class in your retirement portfolio that will allow you to avoid some of the problems of what is known as sequence of events risk. Sequence of events risk is, for instance, if you had your money invested in the S&P, over time, you would have done very well, but if you started retirement in let's say 2008, you would have started off with two [...]