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Retirement Planning

Bob Carlson shares miscellaneous advice on Retirement and related topics

Found 105 Articles.
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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 […]

Investing When Rates are Low, Poised to Rise

September 1, 2015

What do you do when interest rates are low but the Federal Reserve makes clear it is going to start raising rates? Now, you earn very little money from cash and safe investments. Bonds and similar investments have higher yields, but they’re going to lose value when interest rates rise. In many cases, principal losses […]

The Importance of Age 69 1/2 in Retirement Planning

April 13, 2015

Most people in retirement planning learn that age 70 1/2 is important. Here’ an article arguing that the year before is more of a benchmark. You have to start planning for the following years’ RMD, and it also means you’re approaching other key IRA milestones. Age 69 1/2 is a big deal, a major year […]

Using Home Equity to Fund Retirement

May 1, 2014

Key changes recently were made in reverse mortgages. You should be aware of the changes and how they affect the way reverse mortgages can help in-crease your financial independence. Properly used, they are tools for employing home equity to enhance your retirement. The first change is that the Federal Housing Administration restructured the program again […]

U.K. Government Helps with Retirement Planning

April 21, 2014

The U.K. government recently liberalized national pension rules to allow retirees to take their benefits in a lump sum instead of being required to take them as a life annuity. The latest move they’re considering is to tell people how long they are likely to live and will need their nest eggs to last. The […]

Another View of the Savings Rate

December 27, 2013

The U.S. savings rate is too low. That’s been a consensus view for some time. But is it inaccurate? This post argues that it is. It argues that the personal savings rate is only part of the U.S. savings. Businesses also save, and they’ve been saving quite a bit for some time. In fact, business […]

Saving Too Much For Retirement

December 23, 2013

More of the retirement planning industry is catching on. For decades, retirement plans revolved around simple rules of thumb such as that you’ll spend about 80% of your pre-retirement income during retirement. At Retirement Watch we’ve warned for decades about these simple rules of thumb. They likely cause you to save too much or too […]

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