In days past, if you were fortunate, your full time job included what is known as a defined benefit pension plan. Your ‘benefit’ was determined, or defined, by how long you worked for that employer, your age when you retired, and how much you were making when you retired. That last element might have been …
Continue reading Defined Benefit Pension Plans and Retirement
Yesterday I asked if you were feeling lucky. The idea being that if things work out for you, your journey end will arrive with few regrets. Before you conclude I’m trying too hard to deny you years of fun and games, I’m really focused on helping you enjoy a worry free and financially secure retirement. …
My Comments: 45 million people is a lot of potential voters. That’s the number of American receiving retirement benefits every month. As 2035 gets closer and it becomes obvious changes have to be made by Congress to maintain Social Security, how many of those potential voters are going to elect someone willing to let Social …
Continue reading High Income Inequality Hurts Social Security’s Finances
My Comments: With this topic, we’re dealing with mixed messages, both are in a foreign language. On one side are the brokerage firms and investment professionals whose expertise is probably exceptional, telling you what’s the best thing to do with your money. On the other side are insurance professionals whose income is largely a function …
Continue reading Equity-Indexed Annuities As a Retirement Strategy
My Comments: I grew up thinking I’d retire when I reached 65. That was in 2006. For a lot of reasons, here I am in 2019 calling myself semi-retired and working about 30 hours each week. Yes, I no longer have to put on a coat and tie and wander around town looking for new …
Continue reading The New Normal for Retirement: There Isn’t One
No one likes bad news. When it arrives almost daily, there is a tendency to treat it as noise and tune it out. When it involves retirement, tuning it out is easy since for most people, retirement is years away. Without a sense of urgency, it’s just another time consuming and relatively meaningless waste of …
Continue reading Americans Know They’re Not Ready for Retirement. But It’s Worse Than They Think
Disney is a name that resonates with people of my generation. We grew up with Mickey Mouse and as our kids grew up, Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida became vacation destinations for millions of us. My grandchildren today know the park in Orlando like the back of their hands. Abigail Disney is …
If you’re not yet 50, the idea of having to pay for long term care is way outside your everyday mind set. Yes, it may apply to your parents or grandparents, but not in your everyday world. But as you begin to think about your personal financial future, it needs to become part of the …
Continue reading Let’s Get Real About Health Costs in Retirement
It may sound simple, but making it happen for you may be very complicated. I think we’d all like less stress in our lives, but taking one simple step today to eliminate a major stress point in our future may be unrealistic. Nevertheless, this is worth thinking about. And if you can get yourself committed …
If I believed it was so, I’d be writing that there’s no retirement problem looming over us. But there is a problem, and you and I alone cannot fix it. I’m not sure it’s fixable. All we can do is be aware of it and at a personal level, figure out ways to survive it. …
Continue reading The Coming Pension Crisis Is So Big That It’s A Problem For Everyone
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