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Retirement Planning

Bob Carlson shares miscellaneous advice on retirement and related topics

Found 103 Articles.
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Beating the Downsizing Surprises

March 17, 2017

The home and home equity are the most neglected and misunderstood factors in retirement planning. Since home equity is one of the largest assets of many people, a lot of money is left on the table. Surveys indicate that about 40% of baby boomers plan to move sometime after retiring. Many people assume they’ll downsize […]

Is Early Retirement Over?

February 23, 2017

The choices of older workers will have a lot of influence on U.S. growth in coming years. The population is aging, and that usually reduces growth. But last year there was a break in a long trend. Older Americans didn’t retire at the same rate as in recent years. Maybe it’s a blip. But maybe […]

Biggest Retirement Surprises

February 15, 2017

This is an unscientific survey from The Wall Street Journal. One of its columnists, Glenn Ruffenach, recently answered a reader’s question about the biggest surprises he found in retirement. He then asked readers to submit their biggest retirement surprises and received a lot of responses. You might need a subscription to read the article. Some […]

estate planning

Use Retirement Planning Software with Care

November 10, 2016

You can find plenty of no-cost and low-cost retirement calculators on the Web. The software helps you determine if you have saved enough money for retirement. My advice always has been that it’s best to use several programs, compare the results from the different programs, and prefer programs that let you change all or most […]

Don’t Let Your Estate Become Like a Reality TV Show

August 23, 2016

Have you followed the recent turmoil surrounding Sumner Redstone, majority owner of Paramount, CBS and Viacom? A few years ago, did you notice the events involving Donald Sterling, once the owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers? In each case, family, associates and others argued about whether the principal person was mentally competent to make […]

Saving Money in the Changing Auto Market

June 16, 2016

Transportation is one of the largest expenses for most seniors, as I pointed out in our May 2016 issue. Major changes are underway in the U.S. auto market. Consumers who know about them and adopt the right strategies will reduce their transportation costs. Others will be caught in the sea change and increase the percentage […]

Creating the Retirement Internship

February 1, 2016

You can enter retirement with more confidence and certainty than most retirees. Retirement planning has many projections, forecasts, and assumptions. In other words, there’s a lot of uncertainty in every retirement plan. In addition to the financial issues, many people retire either uncertain about how they will spend their time or with untested assumptions about […]

Thoughts of Extreme Savers

December 2, 2015

Forbes.com has a new e-book in which it interviewed extreme savers to learn their secrets and methods. This article summarizes some of the key points of the book. It’s interesting, even if you don’t want to go as far as these people do, many of whom are retired or plan to retire before 40. “Saying […]

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