Back to the Basics: Why it All Starts with Income Planning
There are several questions that hopeful retirees are consistently asking as they seek to build a successful retirement. Some of these questions are: When can I retire? How much do we need? Will I have enough? What if there’s a major healthcare, stock market, or inflationary event that threatens what we’ve saved? While all of these questions are certainly different …
How An Election Affects Markets
It’s time to discuss the elephant in the room, the upcoming election. I’m regularly hearing concerns during meetings about the upcoming election and its possible effects on the stock market. While I wish I could just tune out politics entirely, I suppose we can spend an article on elections and then get back to our regular programming soon enough. Here …
What Newer Retirees Aren’t Talking About
There’s one thing I can report that I’m NOT hearing from newer retires: that it’s awful. That’s right. Not a single time have I heard someone say they’re loathing their ability to be a person of the retired class. Instead, newer retirees share stories of travel, time spent with family, projects they’ve considered getting around to doing on the house, …
Health and Safety Message
Back in May, our goal was to get back to conducting in-person meetings here at the office starting June 1st. At the time, Salt Lake County was entering the Yellow phase of the pandemic and the restrictions were starting to ease a bit. Fast forward to mid-July and we are seeing case counts on the rise, discussions of closing certain …
The Metric System
Carpenters and bakers know the pain, but have simply embraced it. “Because we’ve always done it this way” means we should keep doing it this way, or so the story goes. In the 1970s there was a movement to eradicate this pain, but it just didn’t stick. The metric system, they said, just wasn’t going to provide enough benefits to …
Briefcase Study: If a Tree Falls In the Woods
If a Tree Falls In the Woods, and Other Election Year Thoughts During a recent meeting, and then at another meeting, and another…the question came up: “With an election coming up, what should we be doing about our investments?” Here we are, in the midst of a presidential election season, and we’re all searching for answers. People are asking themselves, …
Back to the Basics: Two Ways To Estimate Retirement Expenses; One Fast, One Slow
Retirement Planning done well should feel like a state of flow. Money flows in, money flows out; the rate of this flow is determined by your chosen lifestyle. Ideally, your lifestyle conforms naturally to your desires and needs, as they shift with your health and interests. Thus your accumulated assets should provide you with enough income (flow in) to match …
Retiring At A Time Like This?
Anytime a person utters the phrase, “This time it’s different” I get a little skeptical. I’ll bet you do too. It seems that being alive for at least a few decades leads us to believe that we’ve seen it all before, there’s nothing new under the sun. This is likely why kids are so fun to be around, because it’s …
Rent A Dumpster, Change Your Life
A good friend woke up one day with the fire in his belly to get his financial life moving forward in a big way. Paying off old debts, setting aside savings, and making some tax-wise moves hit his radar screen in a big way. He was, and is, urgent about it. I couldn’t be happier for him and his young …
Income Backwardization
As I’ll often do, I recently carved out time to review the latest in retirement income planning research (Some people golf, others travel, this is what I do for fun!). In my quest, I stumbled upon a summary titled, ‘39 Modern Retirement Income Planning Techniques’ by Wade Pfau. Since this is so fascinating to me, I thought I’d fully explain …
