My Comments: This may have been written almost a year ago but it's even more relevant today. Last Tuesday I posted that I was cutting back to two posts a week, down from the five days a week routine I've been following since 2011. My new focus will be posts about 'retirement' issues. It's a …
Continue reading Companies are racing to dump their pension plans
My Comments: I tell friends and clients I re-connect with that I'm staying home as much as possible in an attempt to remain safe while at the same time going bonkers for the same reason. I'll bet you are too. As a former financial planner and investment advisor, when I see headlines like this one …
My Comments: The author of this article makes an analogy between cooking and retirement. Miss a critical ingredient and it fails to work as expected. As we sit here with our brains in a knot attempting to find some rational return to normalcy, his comments to some degree conform to what I'm spending time with …
Continue reading The Missing Ingredient in Most Retirement Plans
We don't usually associate retirement with spending money but there's a very strong relationship between the two. While there are other reasons, the primary reason for retirement is not wanting to work any more. Which begs the question, how are you going to pay for it. In today's America, apart from the current pandemic with …
My Comments: My posts last week focused on the stock market and my belief we're not yet near the bottom of the current cycle. This week, my attempts will focus on retirement issues. If you're 39 or older, you should find something of value here. I make no apology for promoting my recently published book …
Continue reading How Living Longer Will Impact Your Retirement
This comes on the heels of Spending in Retirement - Part One where I repeated ideas from Sarah Smith where she identified 10 things where you’re likely to spend MORE money after you retire. Here I'm sharing ideas from Suze Orman that appeared in a recent copy of the magazine sent out every month by …
My Comments: The recently enacted SECURE Act did not fundamentally change the set of rules about accumulating money for retirement. But it did change the landscape for many people. For years, the Roth IRA has seemed like an exotic step-child in the financial planning world. I think this happened because contributions to Roth IRAs generally …
My Comments: These ten questions deserve answers. However, they assume an existing readiness to retire that may not exist. In my world, there are 8 critical questions that precede these such that a couple, or anyone for that matter, must first ask of themselves, and answer. With millions of Americans arriving at their retirement date …
Continue reading 10 Questions A Couple Should Ask BEFORE Retirement
My Comments: This Act, signed by President Trump this past December, included several important additions and modifications to existing retirement planning code sections. For example, it changed the age when you MUST start taking money out of your income tax deferred retirement accounts. It gave retirement plan providers the opportunity to include annuities in their …
Continue reading How Will The SECURE ACT Impact Your Estate Plan?
My Comments: How long will you live? I have a mea culpa to make. For the first 30 years of my career as a financial professional, I subscribed to the prevailing notion that financial planning efforts should be focused on life expectancy. There are probably still many financial professionals out there making that assumption. It …
Continue reading 1 in 5 Seniors Is Living in Poverty — How to Make Sure You Don’t Become One of Them
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