There is plenty of good information about retirement out there to help you identify your priorities, set realistic goals for yourself, and come up with a plan for achieving those goals. It can take a bit of time to research in order to find those resources, but rest assured that you’re not alone when planning for retirement. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of unhelpful or even harmful information out there as well. This misinformation about retirement can cause you great setbacks on your path to retirement, and make it harder for you to reach your goals. Here are three...

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When most people think about retirement the image that comes to mind is one of financial security, flexibility and freedom. One part of this equation is having a large enough nest egg to pay for your lifestyle and expenses during retirement. The other part of the equation, of course, is to have minimized those expenses to the greatest extent possible. A big part of reducing expenses is making sure you don’t have to service a large amount of debt while you’re living off your retirement nest egg. If you can retire without any debt, you’ll find yourself in a much...

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We tend to think of personal budgets and managing our household expenses as something that’s we do in order to be able to save for retirement. But it is also extremely important to be mindful of our expenses and cut costs during retirement as well. In many ways, it can be more challenging to try to balance the budget during retirement because we’re more limited on the income side of the equation. Thankfully, because a person’s lifestyle is likely to be different during retirement in a number of different ways, there should be certain categories of expense that are good...

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The concept of “paying yourself first” is one we’ve discussed here before, so it’s likely one you’re quite familiar with. If not, the idea of paying yourself first means that you treat your savings contributions as you would any other bill or financial obligation. In other words, rather than waiting to see what you have left at the end of the month before deciding what you’re able to save, your saving becomes a financial obligation that you fulfill along with your other obligations. Part of paying yourself first should include contributions to your retirement accounts. This is true regardless of...

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As thousands of baby boomers enter retirement each day, the topic of retirement savings is a popular one in the mainstream press and on the Internet. Almost invariably, a large percentage of the articles and discussions about retirement will focus on how much an individual or couple will need to save in order to live comfortably when they stop working. But the size of a retiree’s nest egg is only part of the retirement equation. The other side of the equation that current and future retirees should be paying attention to is expenses. After all, it can be difficult to...

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Despite all the doom and gloom about how tens of millions of baby boomers are entering retirement without the resources to support themselves, there are still plenty of individuals who were able to successfully carry out their retirement savings and planning. Surprisingly, it’s not just the high income earners who make successful retirees. In fact, there are a surprising number of high earners who still find themselves hitting retirement age without having saved enough. And there are also individuals who are able to reach retirement with a healthy nest egg despite never having earned a high income during their working...

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Many individuals have a strong picture of what they want their retirement to look like, and in many cases that picture includes not having to make a mortgage payment each month. Owning your own home without any outstanding mortgage can provide a great boost to your personal budget by freeing up a significant amount of cash each month. But the money to pay off your mortgage early has to come from somewhere, and for most people that generally means investing less or saving for retirement. Here is some retirement advice on whether it is better to pay off your mortgage...

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How much of your retirement nest egg have you accumulated to cover health care costs during your later years? According to a recent study, the average 65-year-old couple retiring in 2013 would need approximately $220,000 to cover their medical expenses throughout retirement. For the most part, this figure has increased steadily over the past decade. As uncertainty continues to loom in the business and political aspects of the health care industry, it’s unlikely that this figure will decrease significantly in the coming years. Furthermore, this figure is only an average, so your expenses may be much higher if you...

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The majority of the planning that we do for our retirement years involves various aspects of finances. We focus on paying down our debts, putting our children through college without breaking the bank, and accumulating enough of a nest egg that we’ll be able to continue living comfortably even after we stop working. But there are other aspects of retirement that we should be considering besides just personal finances. One important aspect of retirement is where we’ll be living, and whether we’ll need assistance with certain aspects of our daily lives. Most often this means home care or some type...

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From time to time we hear about individuals and couples who seem to have hit the jackpot: not in the literal sense of having won the lottery, but having figured out a way to retire at age 55, or maybe 50, or perhaps even younger than that. At first glance this might seem too good to be true. After all, many of these early retirees spend their working years at jobs and careers that aren’t particularly high paying. How is it possible that these people can retire after spending fewer years in the workforce than the average worker. Here are...

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