Retirement Planning Advice and information to help you achieve your retirement goals.
When is it Appropriate to Adjust Your Target Retirement Age?
Thursday, November 3rd, 2016
The best way to give yourself the greatest chance to retire with a sufficiently large nest egg is to plan ahead. Among other things, this means to start saving as early as possible, to save consistently and try to maximize your contributions every year, to invest in a way that matches your investing personality, and perhaps even to set a target retirement date.
However, even if you successfully execute every aspect of your retirement plan, your personal situation may change in ways that might cause you to rethink the age at which you want or plan to retire....
How Much Income Will Your Retirement Account Produce?
Thursday, October 13th, 2016
Accumulating money in your various retirement accounts is a long-term process. And that process is the focus of many individuals when it comes to retirement planning. But the accumulation of assets, saving over time, and proper retirement investment selection is only part of the process.
In order to fund your living expenses during retirement, you’re going to need to take distributions from your account. Those distributions can come from the proceeds of investments within the account that you sell off, or from income that is generated by investments within your account. Here are some tips for deciding when...
5 Decisions to Make Before You Retire
Monday, December 14th, 2015
The process of planning for retirement is a long one. Ideally, you should begin thinking about retirement on the day you start your very first job. In the early stages of your career, save as much as possible towards retirement, this will make some of your future decision easier to make.
Planning for retirement is highly individualized. The general process of retirement planning and saving is going to be the same for most people, but the specifics and details of a retirement plan are going to be different from everyone.
Here are five decisions you’ll need to make before you...
How to Know if You’re Really Ready to Retire
Wednesday, October 21st, 2015
The idea of retirement is a powerful one. For most people, retirement is a time to enjoy the fruits of a long and productive career, and to spend more time with family and on long-neglected hobbies. But the decision to retire is not always an easy one to make. And the adjustment from full-time work and professional obligations to a life without those obligations can be harder than many people think.
In fact, making the decision to retire should involve consideration of a number of different factors, and asking yourself a handful of important questions.
Here’s how to know when...
Five Retirement Planning Trends to Consider
Wednesday, June 17th, 2015
The notion of retirement is still a relatively new one in human society, and the ways that we define retirement are continuing to change at a relatively quick pace. No longer can a person just prepare a simple retirement plan when they first enter the workforce, then just work to follow through on plan without revisiting or readjusting it along the way.
Every individual needs to make themselves familiar with the various trends and developments that are occurring in the marketplace.
Here’s a sampling of some of the current retirement planning issues that you should consider when creating and updating...
Jump Start Your Retirement Savings Over The Next Five Years
Thursday, May 21st, 2015
Saving for retirement is the longest financial endeavor you’ll ever undertake in your life. Whereas you may spend around 20 years raising your children, and 30 years paying off the mortgage on your home, if you start saving for retirement when you first enter the workforce in your late teens you may have over 50 years to plan for it.
But in order to be successful, you’ll also need to do planning in the short and medium time frames as well, and constantly balance these efforts with your long-term planning.
With that in mind, here are five ways you can...
5 Retirement Emergencies To Plan For
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015
Despite all our efforts at planning every aspect of retirement many years in advance, there are certain types of financial emergencies that can arise during retirement, and if we haven’t planned accordingly, then the consequences could be devastating. Remember that most of us will cut back or stop working entirely during retirement, so our retirement income is likely to be far less than what we were making when we were full-time workers.
Fortunately, there are steps we can take to lessen the negative impacts of these retirement emergencies. Here are five of the most common types to be aware of,...
What’s the Difference Between a Defined Benefit Plan and a Defined Contribution Plan?
Wednesday, February 11th, 2015
Just a generation or two ago, the notion of retirement usually involved receiving a regular monthly check from your former employer after having put in 30 or more years of service. Today, individuals usually don’t have access to these types of plans, and instead are responsible for their own retirement planning through 401(k)s and IRAs.
The differences between the traditional employer-provided and today’s individual driven retirement plans can be significant. In general, the biggest difference is that one is essentially a “defined benefit” retirement plan, while the other is a “defined contribution” retirement plan.
Let’s take a look at these...
Retirement Planning Advice for Boomers
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015
Very large numbers of “baby boomers” (people born in the post-World War II baby boom from 1946 to 1964) have started reaching retirement age. Some of these individuals have accumulated large nest eggs, while others may be significantly underfunded.
Regardless of a person’s individual situation, the chances are good that virtually every person approaching retirement understands that they need to make sound financial decisions in order to put themselves in the best financial shape. Even with such a wide range of financial scenarios, there are still some retirement concepts that apply to virtually everyone.
Here is some retirement planning...
Retirement Advice if You are Planning to Retire this Year
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015
Are you planning to retire this year? Congratulations! For most people, retirement is a stage in life where they can change their focus from accumulating wealth to being able to start using more of that wealth to enjoy their remaining years. Regardless of how you envision your own retirement, whether it’s relatively active or perhaps more relaxed, it’s something that you alone are responsible for planning.
Because the process of trying to figure out your own retirement can potentially be overwhelming, it’s important to heed good advice wherever possible.
With that said, here are five tips for moving forward into...