Monthly Archives: January 2016

Well, I did it! I just signed up for a one-year long course to earn the Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) designation. At about $2,000 (for the 3-course advanced curriculum), this will mean about two hundred hours of coursework/studying plus passing 3 two-hour exams (with additional continuing education requirements for the rest of my career too). This is a big commitment, but one I am excited to make in order to better serve my existing and future clients for years to come. Since its launch three years ago by the … Continue reading

Does making your charitable donations do the most good as possible make as much sense to you as it does to me? CLICK BELOW to watch a one minute video that reveals how I check out potential charities to give my hard-earned money to! all the best… Mark

As of Friday January 8th, 2016 started off with the worst stock market returns (S&P 500) since 1923… and this week (down 2.5% today alone) is not much better so far. But lets review 2015. To do that, I made the chart below from Yahoo Finance. It goes from 1/01/2015 through 12/31/2015. The market did not have it’s traditional Santa Claus rally at the end of this past year. The market dropped instead of it’s “usual” ending the year on a … Continue reading

Most Certified Financial Planners and the academic community no longer believe that the 4% “safe withdrawal rate” is a dependable rule of thumb for an inflation-protected 30 year retirement income stream. I just read an article in Financial Planning magazine that said, based on the last 15-20 years, the “safe” withdrawal rate is closer to 2% (plus inflation). But what if you could actually guarantee a 4% withdrawal rate – not only for 30 years… but for 40 or 50 years of generally increasing retirement income? And … Continue reading