1-minute video: How Can You Take Care of Your Spouse Just in Case Something Should Happen to You? Still working? About to retire? Retired? How might you replace lost income for the survivor? Money needed – a lump sum – may come from savings/investments set aside, life insurance, a standby reverse mortgage line of credit, or […]
Archive | Sustainable Retirement

What’s the AIM of both investing and planning?
The aim of retirement planning while working is to accumulate shares. The aim of retirement planning once retired is to conserve shares! Both working or retired, the aim is share management! The value of each share goes up and down over time. Shares are the store of wealth. Dollars are simply a measure of spending […]
1-minute video: How Can Social Security and Retirement Planning Work Together for Your Benefit?
Please enjoy this 1-minute video (for those receiving this by email: please click on the blog title line above to view). Social Security is often dismissed or minimized by many when it comes to retirement planning. This is a mistake since Social Security forms a firm foundation that you can’t outlive. People don’t recognize the […]

What are the Three Paradigms of Retirement Income Planning?
When you Google “retirement planning” you typically get results about 401ks or investing. On the search topic of retirement, you get few results on how to plan for, transition into, and/or prudently sustain income once retired. The term “retirement” brings to mind, and Google finds results on, the savings and investing part. However, the use […]
1-minute video: 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Retirement
Please enjoy this 1-minute video (for those receiving this by email: please click on the blog title line above to view). When it comes to retirement, most people have as their fundamental goal to maintain their lifestyle, or what I call their Standard of Individual Living (SOIL). But, just what is your lifestyle today? How […]
1-minute video: When is the Best Time to Retire?
Please enjoy this 1-minute video (for those receiving this by email: please click on the blog title line above to view). Imagine what it is like flying to the moon. The moon is right there, you just fly to it! Right? Except, where the moon is now, is NOT where it will be when you […]

Appealing the IRMAA (What’s that? Ans: Higher Medicare Part B & D premiums)
How do you appeal the Medicare Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount, or IRMAA? Amid the long checklist of things you must do at retirement, this can easily be overlooked, causing you to pay more in Medicare premiums than you need to. The IRMAA was first enacted in 2003 as a provision of the Medicare Modernization Act […]

What should you ask yourself before you retire?
Dad and child People think about retirement differently. Some think about the financial side of retirement. Others don’t, and just jump in. Either way is okay. Beyond the money, the first question below, what else is there to consider … to be able to say … are you ready? Here are some points summarized in […]

Annuities … Promises of guarantees and no loss?
What tends to be forgotten, or at least not mentioned or emphasized, is that in order to purchase an annuity for the income desired, a sum of money has to be removed from the portfolio to do that. What is the income cash flow from that sum of money in the first place before such […]

What is a Retirement Feasibility Timeline?
I define the Retirement Feasibility Timeline as a method to depict the transition between the working years (accumulation) and the retirement years (decumulation). You can visually see year by year (age by age) when retirement may be feasible without any changes to what you’re presently doing, and what meaningful changes may alter that outcome to […]