Annuities are not for everyone, but they might play a valuable role in your retirement plan — as long as you take the time to learn about them, ask the right questions, and buy ones that are appropriate for your needs.
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5 “BS” Retirement Investing Pitches You Should Ignore
You’re probably already wise to many schemes designed to separate you from your money—emails from Nigerian princes, phishing scams, etc. But does your BS detector go off when confronted with slick come-ones for perfectly legal-but-dubious investments? To see, check out these five pitches that are often targeted to people investing for retirement. Read more
Need to Fund an Annuity? Avoid Costly Mistakes!
Funding an Annuity
As you come increasingly closer to retirement age you need to seriously consider the potential benefits of lasting income that can keep up with the rising costs of retirement and healthcare. As individuals are living longer there has never been a better time than now to consider having a diversified retirement portfolio that carefully encapsulates all of your various needs.
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5 Costs to Include in Your Retirement Budget
Don’t retire without a plan to pay for these expenses. Don’t forget to budget for the travel and hobbies you will finally have time for in retirement. Most people accept that retirement won’t be cheap. But just how expensive will it be?
Visions of the ideal retirement range from the extravagant pursuit of everything we have dreamed of to frugal plans calculated to stretch the buying power of our hard earned savings. Whatever course we set, we need to accurately estimate and budget for our future. While the final tab will vary depending on your lifestyle, some expenses are shared across the board and need to be budgeted for. Read more
9 Signs You’re Not Saving Enough For Retirement
You might be tired of hearing it, but you know it’s true: You need to start saving for retirement now. If you start saving for retirement today instead of delaying it for a few years, you could add thousands of dollars to your retirement savings.
But perhaps you’re already setting money aside for your golden years. The only problem is you don’t know if how much you’re saving is actually enough to last you throughout retirement. If that’s the case, here are nine red flags that indicate you need to ramp up your savings efforts. Read more
8 Essential Annuity Questions – You Need to Know!
Understanding Annuities and what part they play is critical in making sure you are getting the most out of your retirement planning. We have listed 8 crucial questions you need to know to ensure your annuity works hard for you.
Answering these questions could put you on the path to finding the right annuity and help you secure the future you dreamed of. They come in 3 categories so you can zero in on strategies for you and your situation.
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QUIZ: Are Annuities Right For You?
As traditional sources of guaranteed retirement income — such as pensions — disappear, many retirees are wondering where to turn after suffering through a severe market downturn in the past decade. An annuity may be the answer, but not all annuities are alike, and some may not be appropriate for you.
Take our ten-question quiz, brought to you by Kiplinger, to see how much you know about these products and whether you should invest in them.
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4% Rule? How To Draw Down Your Retirement Savings
Saving for retirement is challenging, no doubt. But if you want to know what’s really tricky, consider spending that money in retirement. Retirees in the past often relied on a simple rule for retirement income: Draw down 4 percent of your savings every year and you will be all set. But the retirement landscape has changed.
For one thing, people are living longer, and their money has to last all that time. One in four people who are 65 years old today will live to age 90, and one in 10 will live to 95.
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6 Habits of Successful Retirees
Creating good, healthy habits in retirement creates a fruitful, rich and rewarding retirement.
Habits can be measured in many ways, what we eat, how often we exercise, saving money for retirement every month. However, not all habits will bring you down a path toward financial stability. Listed below are 6 habits of successful retirees that can help you with retirement:
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4 Ways To Jump-Start Your Savings
Struggling to catch up? Here’s how to get your nest egg back on track
Saving for retirement is a lot like dieting. We all know what we should be doing, but actually doing it is hard. It’s much easier to make excuses.
We’re busy. We have responsibilities—to children, to older parents—that compete with our ability to set aside money for our later years. What’s more, wages have stagnated in recent years while the cost of living has continued to climb.
The numbers bear out the challenge: More than half of workers report they have less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments, excluding their home and any pension plans, according to the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. To be sure, not all of those surveyed had access to retirement plans, and some had incomes low enough to make saving difficult.
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