How much money does it take for a $54,000 annual retirement income for a married couple of 64-year-olds who want to retire in one year in retirement based on the 4% rule? Well, that’s easy math. Simply divide $54,000 by .04 and you come up with $1,350,000. As a reminder, the “4% Rule” says that you can take 4% of an investment amount and that would be your starting income which hopefully will last 30 years, growing by inflation each … Continue reading

Will you outlive your money? Read this blog post and then CLICK BELOW to find out in nine easy steps with this FREE assessment fueled by my software. Famous football coach Lou Holtz once said, “Pressure is what you feel when you are not prepared.” Retirement Income Planning (also the title of one of my books) is about preparation… not procrastination. In continuing to make my financial planning practice better and more valuable for my clients, I keep adding new … Continue reading

That’s the title of my newest book!! Retirement. One’s Greatest Gamble Is Substituting Hope for a Plan Hope that stocks won’t ever crash again. Hope that inflation won’t cause your purchasing power to be cut in half over time. Hope that higher taxes won’t cause you to drain your savings quicker than you’d like to maintain your lifestyle. Hope that Social Security won’t run out of money as your annual statement warns. What’s YOUR plan? There are only TWO doors … Continue reading

Any way you look at it, missing even just a few days in the market can adversely affect your retirement. In this blog post, we’ll look at this issue with three different charts. But staying fully invested can be difficult when markets are plummeting. I get that. We all understand that over time the market does something like 10% average annual returns. But there’s something called the sequence of returns risk that can destroy a retirement income plan – especially … Continue reading

Not a cheery topic by any means. But it’s one that, as a retirement income planner, I have to deal with almost every single year. Besides the obvious, I’ll focus on just income taxes and Medicare Part B and D premiums after a spouse dies. It’s not pretty. Let’s say that this 72-year-old couple is enjoying a modified AGI of $181,000. With the standard deduction of $28,700 (2022), their taxable income is $152,300. That means they’ll pay taxes to the … Continue reading