The Complete Retirement Planner Blog

As you develop your financial plan for retirement you will give a good deal of thought to the known details of your finances (e.g., monthly expenses, income, etc.) as well as to what you expect to happen in the future. One particularly important decision concerns the annual rate of return that you will use to forecast your savings/investments balances. Since you can't predict the future, you may end up relying on your (not the market's) historical results to arrive at a reasonable expectation. That makes sense, but how you choose to enter that information can have a serious effect on...

One component that is essential to account for in any financial plan is an inflation rate. As we are currently experiencing, inflation considerably above historical norms can really take a bite out of your budget. However, unusually high inflation rates are typically temporary, lasting one to three years, so when planning for decades into the future how much of a difference does an inflation rate really make in the grand scheme of things? The short answer - it makes a tremendous difference. It also provides a terrific way to stress test your financial plan.Since the rate of inflation varies from...

There is a never-ending supply of articles offering advice about retirement planning. Some offer well thought out points, some offer generic assumptions, some offer half-truths, and some don't seem to have much to offer at all. The following topics should be carefully considered when creating your financial retirement plan: • Retirement Calculators - Great Toys For Those 12 And Under. The vast majority of articles written about retirement planning end up recommending the use of a retirement calculator (usually found on financial sites) to figure out the total amount that may be needed to save for retirement. They do this because the...

According to a 2021 Charles Schwab study, the majority of households without a financial plan don't have one because it's too complicated and/or they don't have the time to create one (TCRP solves those problems!). Yet, of those that have a written plan, 54% feel "very confident" about reaching their goals, and another 18% are "certain" that they will reach their goals. It's clear that having a tangible plan to follow can provide a great source of comfort and will help to keep you on the right track.At the very least, everyone over the age of 30 should be planning...

The beginning of every year seems to be an especially popular time for articles about retirement planning, and the goals that you should set your sights on to be prepared. The problem is that all the "advice" that is being offered is exactly the same as what was being offered last year. And the year before, and all the years before that. The articles are just recycled and regurgitated. The same savings benchmarks by age (that most likely don't apply to you), the same withdrawal rate rule of thumb (mostly outdated or misleading), and the same assumption about replacing a...