The Complete Retirement Planner Blog

A financial retirement plan covers a lot of ground and the more variables you include 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, but...

For 401k and IRA accounts, there are annual contribution limits of $19,500 and $6,000 respectively. However, if you are 50 years old or older, you have the option to make "catch-up" contributions of an additional $6,500 to a 401k (for a total of $26,000), and an additional $1,000 to an IRA (for a total of $7,000). Many people will be fortunate just to save the initial contribution amounts, but the question is, if you have the financial ability to also make the catch-up contributions, should you? Or is there a better use of that money? The advantage of contributing as...

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 outcomes (annual market returns for the most part) 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 they have run thousands of scenarios to arrive at this information sounds like they have really worked hard to earn their money. But there are a few problems. To begin with, not all of these programs...