Retirement Planning

At some point, someone you love may make the transition from living at home to residing at an assisted living or nursing home facility. When should that transition occur, and what factors must be considered along the way? And what don’t these facilities tell you about? When is it time? If an elder is a)…

Many of us associate April with taxes. We should also associate it with IRAs, for April is the month with the deadlines for IRA contributions and mandatory IRA withdrawals. The deadline for your 2012 IRA contribution is April 15, 2013. For tax year 2012, you can contribute up to $5,000 to your Roth or traditional…

64% of Americans have no financial strategy at all. That’s right – no plan whatsoever to build wealth or keep it. That finding comes from the 2009 National Consumer Survey on Personal Finance conducted by the Certified Financial Planner Board (CFP®Board) of Standards, Inc. (The survey collected data from 1,700+ U.S. residents.) Only 17% of…

What is enough? What is not enough? If you’re considering retiring in the near future, you’ve probably heard or read that you need about 70% of your end salary to live comfortably in retirement. This estimate is frequently repeated … but that doesn’t mean it is true for everyone. It may not be true for…

Shouldn’t you delay IRA distributions for as long as you can? According to conventional retirement planning wisdom, you should structure your retirement withdrawals so that money comes out of your taxable accounts first, then your tax-deferred accounts, and then finally your tax-free accounts. Roughly speaking, that means withdrawing income from investment funds, CDs, money market…

As you retire, there are variables you can’t control; investment performance and fate are certainly toward the top of the list. Your approach to withdrawing and preserving your retirement savings, however, may give you more control over your financial life. Drawing retirement income without draining your savings is a challenge, and the response to it…

We’ve all heard about the “new retirement”, the mix of work and play that many of us assume we will have in our lives one day. We do not expect “retirement” to be all leisure. While this is becoming a cultural assumption among baby boomers, it is interesting to see that certain financial assumptions haven’t…

You probably read or hear about some “Top Ten” list nearly every day. But take a moment to read this one. This list is different, and probably not the kind of list you’d expect a Financial Advisor to write. Reason #10: “I’m too busy” I can’t tell you how often I hear this excuse. So…

Why are they made again and again? Much has been written about the classic financial mistakes that plague start-ups, family businesses, corporations and charities. Aside from these blunders, there are also some classic financial missteps that plague retirees. Calling them “mistakes” may be a bit harsh, as not all of them represent errors in judgment.…