Very few people are experts at managing their finances, planning retirement, building wealth, and ensuring a secure future. Effective money management is often perceived as being: 1) too hard, 2) not immediately important, 3) something you can tackle next year or 4) too expensive (if you think you need to hire an advisor). In fact,…
Figuring out if you can retire securely can sometimes feel like the most complicated word problem ever. Just figuring out which retirement number to worry about can be perplexing. And then there is the further complication of knowing how they all fit together. Here is your guide to the 11 retirement numbers that are most…
In October, the Social Security Administration announced a modest 1.3% Cost of Benefit Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2021. How will this small increase affect retirees? The Social Security 2018 increase is big, but definitely NOT that big. The average Social Security recipients will receive a mere $20 monthly bump in 2021, which will buy you…
Episode 48 of the NewRetirement podcast is an interview with JL Collins —a best-selling author and financial independence guru — and discusses the what, why, and how of Financial Independence as well as Collins’ book, “The Simple Path to Wealth”. Listen Now: Don’t miss out on future episodes: subscribe on iTunes subscribe on Stitcher And,…
There are many guidelines around how to drawdown your savings in retirement (the 4% rule, the multiply by 25 rule), but what if you don’t have to spend your savings? You can generate retirement income with dividend stocks, and in a world where savings accounts produce less than a 1% return, dividends can provide a…
Tis the season… No, it is not quite time to decide whether you’ll say Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Bah Humbug or none of the above. It does, however, involve shopping! The 2020 Medicare Open Enrollment season is upon us and will last from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7. Now is the time to assess your…
If you think you haven’t saved enough for a truly secure retirement, think again. The impossible could become possible with these 10 creative ways to retire. You see, saving diligently your entire life and then quitting work to play bridge is only one way to get to retirement. And, the odds are that it is…
To say that Social Security and Medicare are important to the financial well being of seniors would be an understatement. Sixty-two percent of eligible beneficiaries rely on Social Security income for more than half of their income. And almost everyone who is eligible uses Medicare to help fund their healthcare after 65. Here are the…
According to reporting from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, retirees have a wide variety of savings and investments. Here are the average cash, savings, and home equity balances in the U.S. Keep reading to see how your accounts and investment types compares to that of most retirees. Use the NewRetirement Planner to see your…
An enjoyable retirement is the goal, right? You work your whole life and hopefully create and follow a plan so that you can kick back and do what you want to do when the time comes. Well, a recent survey from Nationwide suggests that all is not going according to plan for many retirees. The…
Are you wondering how to to retire overseas? If so, you’re in good company! Retiring Overseas Has Almost Doubled in Popularity Retiring abroad has become increasingly popular. According to the Social Security Administration, the number of retirees who draw Social Security outside the U.S. jumped 40%, to more than 413,000 between 2007 to 2017. And,…
Episode 47 of the NewRetirement podcast is an interview with Steve Vernon — a writer and research scholar at the Stanford Center of Longevity — and discusses the Spend Safely in Retirement Strategy that Vernon came up with and, secondly, his new book, Don’t Go Broke in Retirement. Listen Now: Don’t miss out on future…
Age is just a number. In fact, even the word “old” means less and less these days as many of us stay healthy and active well past the traditional retirement age of 65. Is 80 the new 40? Or, is 100 a better benchmark age for enjoying life and achieving interesting things? Preparing for retirement…
You’ve worked diligently and paid your taxes along the way. When retirement finally arrives, you deserve to collect at least some tax-free retirement income without Uncle Sam coming back for more. With a bit of strategic planning, it’s possible to enjoy much or even most of your retirement income tax-free. The following seven sources are…
The Ulysses Strategy (Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus) is a method financial planners developed to keep savers and investors from listening to the sirens’ call that could wreck their financial ship. The Story of Ulysses and the Sirens In “The Odyssey,” the great adventurer Odysseus spends ten years trying to get home safely…
They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The bad news is that the last 50 years have seen 5 major financial, market, or economic crises. The good news is that each crisis has lessons that you can apply today to help you build more wealth and feel…
A study from a team of researchers at Oregon State University shows that the longer you wait to retire, the longer you will likely live. So if you are planning to put off retirement until after 65, get your retirement plan ready — you’ll want to make sure you have planned to afford the extra…
When most people think about financial and retirement planning, feelings of stress, worry, and anxiety rise in our throats. This stress — while unpleasant — exists for good reason. Stress serves a purpose. Less than 50% of people have a written retirement plan. The majority of people simply don’t have enough saved for this time…
If you are in the countdown to retirement — marking the days until you can launch into the next stage of your life – this checklist is for you. In the past, many people thought of retirement as a time of life when things slowed down. Now, retirement is more of a blast off into…
Episode 46 of the NewRetirement podcast is an interview with Jerry Patterson — Principal Financial’s senior vice president of workplace savings and retirement solutions — and discusses how to make the most of your 401(k), workforce savings trends, financial independence and retirement income. Listen Now: Don’t miss out on future episodes: subscribe on iTunes subscribe…
We have a lot of choices about where to invest our money, both before and after retirement. Some options are clearly bad investments. Others seem like a good bet, but they probably aren’t. While we would all like to find a shortcut to massive wealth, a more steady approach is probably the best route to…
Saving for retirement is hard. However, when you are still working, creating a retirement investment plan can be relatively straightforward. The goal is to simply grow the money. But, when you retire, your investment goals become multi-faceted, layered, and downright complicated. You still want your money to grow, but you have a whole lot of…
Very few people are experts at managing their finances, planning retirement, building wealth, and ensuring a secure future. Effective money management is often perceived as being: 1) too hard, 2) not immediately important, 3) something you can tackle next year or 4) too expensive (if you think you need to hire an advisor). In fact,…
Diversification should be one of your retirement mantras. After all, if you have all your eggs in one basket, they’re more likely to all break if something goes wrong. That is why you want to try to achieve the right asset allocation mix for your particular situation. Continue reading for some rules of thumb as…
Episode 45 of the NewRetirement podcast is an interview with Alan Donegan — founder of PopUp Business School and host of the Rebel Entrepreneur with ChooseFi — and discusses Donegan’s own journey to financial independence and the people that he’s met along the way. They also go in-depth on how to start a business. Spoiler:…