The Complete Retirement Planner Blog

As you create a financial plan, major concerns about how much to save, how much you will be able to withdraw from savings each year, how long will your savings last, etc. often take center stage. One consideration that doesn't get as much attention is how much of your savings should be kept in cash. Before you retire, a common rule of thumb is to always have at least six months expenses in cash. This is mainly to help protect you if you should lose your job, or incur significant unexpected expenses. But is this enough after you retire?The good...

A simplified approach to retirement planning revolves around projecting your annual expenses, and then multiplying that amount by 20-25 years to come up with a savings goal. Creating an accurate and itemized list of all expenses expected during retirement is an essential step in responsible financial planning, but the idea of simply multiplying that total by 25 years to arrive at a savings goal is seriously lacking on many levels.  Even if you figure out the optimal savings needed (always use a large margin of error when trying to predict the future), is running out of money in your 90th...

There are countless articles written every day offering insights and advice about financial/retirement planning. With so much information available you would think that anyone interested in reading those articles could easily become an expert (near expert?) on the subject. The problem - and I'm sorry to say this - is that many of the people writing those articles are hardly well informed on the subject. Many have no financial credentials and are just piecing together random quotes from their sources and presenting generalizations and half-truths as "rules" and best practices to follow. They may have good intentions, but it makes...

A financial retirement plan covers a lot of ground, and the more variables that are included the more reliable the plan will be. But you can't forget that what you are ultimately doing is trying to forecast the future, which we all know is an exercise in frustration. That doesn't mean that it isn't worthwhile - it's important to to be as prepared as possible so that you can take steps to protect yourself - you just need to keep in mind that things will likely not turn out as you expect. As the saying goes, "Hope for the best,...

When planning for retirement, the first question on everyone's mind is, "How much money will be needed to fund a comfortable retirement?". That makes sense, but how you arrive at that number is far more important than the number itself. With all of the  moving parts of a financial plan, most involving forecasts of what is likely to occur in the future, being realistic and conservative with your expectations will ultimately determine how reliable your results will be. In addition, financial calculators that ask only 5-6 questions, or "planners" on financial sites that ask a few additional questions, will in...