In the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, panels above your seat will open revealing oxygen masks. Reach up and pull a mask towards you… Secure your own mask first before helping others. If you have ever flown on an airline, you have no doubt heard this speech. When I fly with my children,…
Mistakes made when planning for your retirement can have disastrous consequences. Here are eight critical (but common) errors you should avoid… 1. Don’t retire away from a job; instead, retire to a well-designed retirement plan. Spend time thinking about what you want to do in retirement. What will you do every day? Will you…
For prospective retirees who don’t simply want to annuitize most or all of their wealth, determining how best to invest a retirement portfolio to generate income is a substantial challenge. This is the case not only because of the need to invest for enough growth to sustain inflation-adjusting retirement distributions over time, and managing portfolio…
How much money do you need to retire? It’s a familiar question with an unsatisfying answer: it’s complicated. It depends on how much you’ve socked away, how much income you’ll have coming in, how much you plan on spending and how long you live. There’s no one size fits all, it’s unique to you. To…
The 2017 tax season is mostly in the books (if you filed an extension, you have until October 15th, 2018 to complete your return), but if you became your own boss last year or this year, it might be wise to set-up a retirement account for your business and make pre-tax contributions that can grow…
I was at a funeral recently for a friend’s mother and sat next to a man who was the surviving spouse’s oldest friend. He was 85 years old, and had been friends with the husband for more than 70 years. He told me that his wife died about eight years ago, and after spending six…
James had been a saver for his entire adult life and was proud of the fact that he had accumulated his retirement nest egg by following the financial ‘rules of the game.’ He and his wife, Irene, had saved the $3 million their advisors said was the amount they needed to finally retire and pursue…
As my mom said to me during her first few months of retirement, “Retirement is a lot of work!” One of the most challenging and exciting life transitions is the shift from working years to retirement, but there are a lot of elements that need to be considered in the process. Retirement planning really begins…
Securing a Health Care Plan in retirement can be a challenge if you retire before age 65 and are Medicare eligible. If you are under 65, there are typically two options available. First, you can continue on your employer’s health insurance (assuming you had an employer who offered health care) for up to 18 months. This is called COBRA. With COBRA, you will pay 102% of the premium—the full cost of the insurance plus a 2% administrative fee. Second, you can obtain your own coverage through the marketplace paying the going rate and keeping that coverage until you are Medicare eligible at age 65. Note that with the first option, the 18 month COBRA period may not take you to age 65 so you might still need to obtain your own policy for some period of time.
Is a portfolio worth $500,000 a lot of money for retirement? How about $1 million? What if you’ve saved $5 million? I get asked this a lot, and I find it helps to reframe the question: Is $2,000 a month a lot of money? What about $5,000 a month? Or $10,000?
When you look at it this way, you probably already know your answer. That’s because we generally conceive of wealth in terms of current income and not assets. Think about it: We pay income taxes and see our tax withholding on every pay stub, and we routinely deal with monthly bills and expenses that must be paid with current income.
