Blog — retirement planning RSS

We are a mobile society, that’s pretty clear. A couple generations ago, many families lived, worked, retired, and were buried in one locale. Today, it’s not a given. Magazine articles and blog posts with titles like “Best Places to Retire” are everywhere, adding that decision to the retirement-planning process. Sometimes it’s confusing, and sometimes it’s...

Making regular monthly contributions of a fixed amount into a retirement plan over a working career can make even an average-performing investment look good. The investment strategy known as “dollar-cost averaging” effectively forces investors to buy more shares when prices are down, potentially a very profitable practice during your accumulation years. Dollar-cost averaging is not...

Today, our society benefits and suffers from an information surplus. Some information is valuable and helpful; some information is harmful. A young farming couple came to see me (I think of age 55 as young!) for guidance on how to improve their financial situation. They had taken my retirement planning class at the local community...

If you are like many retirees, you have some vacation days accumulated, and you’ve been thinking you can use these days to retire a few weeks early with pay. Some employers will even “buy back” unused vacation days with cash that can come in handy on the cusp of retirement. There is, however, another way...

An investor met with me to consider his upcoming retirement from the workforce. He was youthful (in his mid-50s) and had accumulated $1 million in his various accounts. When I asked him the “why retire now” question, he said, “Why not, I’m a millionaire!” Eligible for Social Security, but not for a decade, he needed...