Good Reasons to Retire Later Working longer might work out well for you. Are you in your fifties and unsure if you have enough retirement savings? Then you have two basic financial choices. You could start saving and investing more of your pay than you currently do, or you could work longer so you have fewer years of retirement to fund. That second choice might be more manageable, and it may also work out better financially. Research suggests that working [...]
Retirement Questions That Have Nothing to Do With Money Think about these matters before you leave work for the last time. Retirement planning is not entirely financial. Your degree of happiness in your “second act” may depend on some factors you cannot quantify. Here are a few of those factors as well as the questions they may end up provoking in your mind. Where will you live? This is a major factor in retirement happiness. If you can surround yourself [...]
How Retirement Spending Changes With Time Once away from work, your cost of living may rise before it falls. New retirees sometimes worry that they are spending too much, too soon. Should they scale back? Are they at risk of outliving their money? This concern is legitimate. Many households “live it up” and spend more than they anticipate as retirement starts to unfold. In ten or twenty years, though, they may not spend nearly as much.1 The initial stage of [...]
Annuities for Retirement Income Why seniors choose them, and what prospective annuity holders should consider. Imagine an income stream you cannot outlive. That sums up the appeal of an annuity. If you are interested in steady retirement income (and the potential to defer taxes), you might want to look at the potential offered by annuities. Before making the leap, however, you must understand how they work. Just what is an annuity? It is an income contract you arrange with [...]
Catching Up on Retirement Saving If you are starting at or near 50, consider these ideas. Do you fear you are saving for retirement too late? Plan to address that anxiety with some positive financial moves. If you have little saved for retirement at age 50 (or thereabouts), there is still much you can do to generate a fund for your future and to sustain your retirement prospects. Contribute and play catch-up. This year’s standard contribution limit for an IRA [...]
