The Complete Retirement Planner Blog

Most people don't particularly like being told what to do, so Required Minimum Distributions (RMD's) can easily be resented (at least a little) because they are perceived as "forcing" you to sell investments from 401k/IRA savings, thereby disturbing your invested amounts and creating unwanted tax liability on the distribution. Perhaps a little planning and a different perspective might help. It is true that starting at age 73 (age 75 if born in 1960 or later) you are required to take distributions from a Traditional 401k/IRA. However, there are three factors to keep in mind that may make RMD's more palatable: •...

The state of retirement planning in the U.S., per the 2025 Northwestern Mutual Planning & Progress Study, the 2025 Schwab Modern Wealth Survey, and the 2025 Fidelity State of Retirement Planning Survey: • The Good - 91% of households with a financial plan are confident about reaching their retirement goals.• The Bad - Only ~30% of households will make the effort to create a financial plan. 62% of those without a plan are uncertain about reaching their retirement goals. • The Ugly - Of the 70% of households without a financial plan, 60% think creating a plan is too complicated or they...

The magic question when saving for retirement revolves around how much you will really need to save to have those savings last for at least 25 years (assuming that you retire at age 65). Of course, creating a comprehensive financial plan will help to answer this question with the most detail and reliabililty, but many people initially look for a quick guide to at least get the conversation started. On any given day there are countless articles focused on suggesting generic benchmarks for anyone and everyone to use as retirement savings goals, with 99% of that "information" simply being regurgitated...

If you’ve ever spoken with a financial adviser about retirement, they probably suggested running a Monte Carlo simulation program to help determine how financially prepared you are. These programs randomly combine historical market outcomes for a variety of time periods (many even using the Great Depression, how helpful!) with personal financial data to arrive at a probability of success (i.e. that you won’t run out of money in retirement). Telling clients that the program runs thousands of scenarios to arrive at this information sounds like it is a very thorough, and, therefore, accurate, process. But there are a few problems. To begin...

Each year, the Federal tax brackets and the Standard Deduction amount are usually adjusted for the following year. This typically happens later in the year, effective for the following year, and is announced by the I.R.S..This year, a new government bill was passed in July that will affect your 2025, current year, tax filing (and beyond)! There are still a few other updates expected in the Fall (Medicare costs, 401k/IRA contribution limits, etc.), but here is a brief re-cap of what has already changed: The I.R.S. Federal Standard Deduction amounts for each Filing Status have increased, effective for 2025:  • $31,500 for Married...