Gain Clarity on What You’d Like Your Golden Years to Look Like
We may sound like a broken record, but this bears repeating: A written retirement income plan is critical in setting you up for an enjoyable retirement free from financial stress. However, there are three critical questions you need to answer for yourself in order to clarify and solidify your plan. After all, any retirement plan can only be effective if you truly know what you want out of your retirement, right?
Take the time to ask yourself the three questions below, and make sure you answer them honestly. This exercise will help you sharpen your focus on what retirement means to you and what you want out of this phase of life. Then, use the added clarity to develop the best-written retirement income plan for you.
Everything You Need to Know About Fixed Index Annuities and if They May Be Right for You
What would you guess is a key reason why people decide not to purchase a fixed index annuity with an income rider as part of their overall retirement income plan? It’s not because of surrender charges, fees, or lower returns. It’s because the benefits of a fixed index annuity with an income rider simply sound too good to be true.
Don’t Fall for These Untruths About a Misunderstood Retirement Income Vehicle: Annuities
The following excerpt, written by Leslie Davis, is from our book, Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success. Get your copy here to read more!
It may sound silly, but I feel bad for the word Annuity because the poor little fella gets criticized on a daily basis! It seems like 50% of the individuals I’ve met think they hate annuities, while 50% think they love them. To me, an annuity is not just a type of financial vehicle per se, but also a collection of valuable benefits.
For example, let’s say you’re having a B-B-Q with your closest neighbors one evening. The neighbor to the right of you owns a beautiful new Tesla, it’s red and shiny, sitting on display in his driveway. You overhear the owner of this beauty telling the neighbor on your left how much he loves cars and wants four more. It just so happens that this neighbor to the left owns a Yugo from the 1980s. The Yugo’s owner responds by saying, “I hate cars, they are the worst, I never want another car!” The word car brings to mind four wheels that get you from point “A” to point “B”, but you can’t put a Tesla and Yugo in the same “car” category, just like you can’t put all annuities into one “annuity” category.
How to use the ‘Three Buckets Approach’ – And Why it’s Important
The following content is excerpted from Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success, by Dan Ahmad, Jim Files, and Jack Canfield. Get your copy here!
In our book, Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success, we discuss “The 7 Rules To Live By For Retirement Security,” some of which we have also written about on this blog and you can find linked below:
If you are like retirees we have met with, you probably love the idea of having a “Retirement Planning Roadmap” like this, right? It’s designed to help you plan for retirement income you can count on – for life.
If You’re Following a Faulty Retirement Plan, Now is the Time to Make a Change
The following is an excerpt from Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success, by Dan Ahmad, Jim Files, and Jack Canfield. Get your copy here!
Many retirees do not have their assets allocated properly to give themselves the highest probability that they can receive a high level of consistent income, will never run out of money for as long as they live, and will never suffer a big stock market loss like 2008 again.
In a previous blog, we described in detail the differences between Stage One of Retirement Planning – Asset Accumulation, and Stage Two of Retirement Planning – Income Distribution and Asset Preservation.
When you meet with your financial advisor, even after you’ve retired, the conversation will almost always be focused on your portfolio. Your advisor will likely talk about:
The growth of your portfolio (even though it actually hasn’t probably grown much).
How the market is doing “so well” and you need to ride the wave.
How you are diversified by having your 20-30 mutual funds.
Adding bonds to the portfolio, if you are worried about risk.
How you are in it for the long-term and no matter what, you should “ride out all market volatility.”
How they have the best money managers.
How they will get you high rates of return.
Maybe they will throw in some technical terms like alpha, beta, Sharpe ratio, and standard deviation.
How it’s best to defer IRA distributions as long as possible, until age 72, to minimize income taxes.
The advisor might say you are now invested moderately, or conservatively, but they don’t define what this means in potential losses. So, your advisor says “moderate” or “conservative,” and you are thinking “low risk,” even though your current portfolio could lose -30%, -40%, or even -50% or more. The risk is likely caused by the portfolio’s primary focus on growth.
Have You Created a Comprehensive Written Retirement Income Plan?
In our book, Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success, we share our “7 Rules To Live By For Retirement Security.” Today, we want to focus on one of them: The importance of having a comprehensive written retirement income plan.
What does the phrase “safe income withdrawal rate” mean to you? Most people would answer, “the amount of income you can withdraw from your assets without the fear of running out of income during your lifetime.” This seems cut and dried. But you have to look at what the word “safe” means to different people.
“Safe” to some people might actually mean “safer than something else,” such as you stating that you are “driving safe” because you are going 80 miles per hour while everyone else on the road is driving 90 miles per hour, but the posted speed limit is 65 miles per hour. And then, “safe” to other people might mean the chance of anything negative happening is 0%. In planning for retirement, safe better mean safe, something you can count on for sure. Safe better not mean “kind of safe.”
Learn What Can Devastate Your Portfolio – and Your Chances at Long-Term Success
Every investor knows that stock market losses can potentially devastate a portfolio – and your chances for long-term financial success, too. However, today we’re going to talk about something that could be even more devastating than a stock market loss. Truly!
Now, you’re probably thinking, “What could that be?” because stock market losses can ruin your retirement. Here’s the answer, which far too many retirees and near-retirees overlook: high fees!
Asset Accumulation and the Important Shift to Asset Preservation
At Peak Financial Freedom Group, we believe that the thing our clients want more than anything else is retirement security. Fortunately, there are seven rules to live by that will help you achieve them, and we’re sharing the first lesson here with you today. (If you want all seven rules right now, we detail all of them in our book, Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success.)
The following content is excerpted from our book, Momma’s Secret Recipe for Retirement Success,” by Dan Ahmad, Jim Files, and Jack Canfield, with contributions from multiple financial advisors across the US.
Most of our clients share a common fear: running out of money in retirement. We tell them that there are at least ten compelling reasons to put some of their more serious money—money needed to produce guaranteed retirement income for life—into a fixed income annuity with an income rider. Below, we’ll go in-depth on each of these reasons.
