How Fast Will You Spend Your Wealth in Retirement?

Retirement planning is hard because knowing how we will spend our money as a retiree is difficult. We can make assumptions or predictions based on our current spending. But how accurate is that really? Would it make more sense to study the retirement spending habits of current retirees? Read more

Delayed Retirement and Money Problems

No one wants to be forced to retire by age or health problems. Conversely, no one wants to be forced to delay a planned retirement. Unfortunately, that is the case for many over-60 baby boomers. Money is the number one reason. Read more

Retirement Income Predictions from Your 401(k)

Many 401(k) plan sponsors and participants seem to forget or overlook that 401(k) plans were intended to get people to retirement but not necessarily through retirement. Consequently, most of the focus has been on accumulation – the size of the account – with too little attention paid to the retirement income that a future retiree can expect to receive from that account. Fortunately, this may be starting to change. Read more

Forecasting Retirement Income Success

One of the retirement planning tools I use comes from Financial Engines via my 401(k) provider. This service is free to all account holders. If you enter your retirement income goals and information about retirement income sources (investments, pension, and Social Security), Financial Engines will generate and email a periodic progress report and retirement forecast. Read more

Calculating a Retirement Income Replacement Ratio

If you are like many not-yet-retired baby boomers, you want to know what percentage of your pre-retirement income you will need when you are retired. Some financial writers call this the “retirement income replacement ratio.” My advice? Do not use a percentage or ratio for this calculation. Let me explain. Read more

Avoiding Forced Unretirement

This is a short post on the sad problem of baby boomers who retire but are being forced by financial problems to return to the workforce. Read more

Creating a Plan for Guaranteed Retirement Income

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I have been studying the work of Zvi Bodie, a professor of finance at Boston University. (I mentioned Prof. Bodie in my post on Retirement Income and the Myth of Equity Risk.) After much consideration, I’ve decided to adopt Prof. Bodie’s concepts into our retirement income plan. More particularly, I have created a plan to provide guaranteed retirement income. I will explain.

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Financial Independence and the Upside of a Shorter Life

Once again Scott Burns has written an excellent article for those of us wondering how we can be financially free in retirement. In this article, Scott talks about what it means to be a retired person of independent means. The good news for baby boomers is that it may not be as difficult as you think. The bad news is that the reason it may not be so difficult for us is that we are going to be dead sooner. Burns fiendishly calls this the “upside of death.” Read more

How to Make Your Retirement Money Last

People are living longer. I hope that applies to baby boomers as well. The problem with having a long life is outliving your money. I think about this a lot.

So how can we make sure that our money lasts for our lifetime?  What long life and money strategies are available to us? Read more

Estimate IRA and 401k Required Minimum Distributions

If you have an IRA or want to use an IRA as part of your retirement income plan, it helps to know how you will be able to manage distributions. There are online tools that will help you do this. Read more

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