Retirement Field Guide

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The Retirement Field Guide

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Should You Take the Pension Or a Lump Sum?

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For those that are lucky enough to have a pension, this is always a popular question. For those without a pension of any sort, this is one to skip. Given that I’ve gotten this question a few times over the past couple months, I wanted to provide some thoughts on this topic. When it comes time to retire, if you are offered a pension, you will likely be offered one… Read More

Should You Buy An Annuity For Retirement?

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Annuities get a bad wrap. Most of that bad wrap is justifiably earned. Annuity providers often reward the “salesperson” (yes, many times, that is what they are) with a big commission check. As such, they are incentivized to encourage (scare you into) putting as much of your money as possible into annuities. As a result of those sales antics, many advisors that take the other side of the annuity argument… Read More

One Bad Decision Is All It Takes

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There is a saying in professional golf that, “You can’t win a tournament on Thursday, but you sure can lose it.”  For the golf uninitiated, every professional golf tournament starts on Thursday and concludes on Sunday.  So, a good round on Thursday can put you in position to win with three rounds to go, but a terrible round on Thursday is likely to result in missing the cut and any… Read More

Why Saving In Your 60’s Is So Important - It’s Not the Reason You Think

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When I speak to folks that are in their final stretch leading up to retirement, one topic that often comes up is how much they should be saving.  While the simplest answer is “as much as possible”, I wanted to provide some additional perspective on why saving as much as possible in the homestretch to retirement is so important. It’s not the reason you think. Let’s say that you just… Read More

Lifeboat Drills

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The last time you were on an airplane, do you remember what the flight attendants did before takeoff?  Of course you do.  They provided you with a safety demonstration on what to do if there is an emergency.  But I’ll bet that virtually nobody paid any attention to them because nobody ever does.  (Full disclosure: I also ignore the safety demonstration.) If the plane has an issue though, there is no… Read More

How To Know If You’ve Saved Enough For Retirement

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One of the great fears facing many retirees is if they have saved enough to retire.  And by extension, once in retirement, it can be stressful to spend the money they’ve spent their entire working lives accumulating.  I attribute much of the financial angst retirement to one primary issue. Many investors have never taken the time to write down how much they anticipate spending or what their guaranteed incomes will… Read More

Emotions & Retirement Planning

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Last week, I had a conversation with a recently retired reader that I thought might be applicable to what many retirees are likely to experience at some point in retirement and wanted to share some insights with regard to how you might approach the issue. Important points from the conversation: Earlier this year during the market pullback, the investor sold his entire equity position and invested the proceeds into bonds… Read More

Perceived Value vs. Actual Value

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There have been studies that show that when people pay more for something, they believe the product is better.  For example, people rate wines better if they are told it is expensive. Based on this study, the wine doesn’t actually have to be better, people just have to believe it’s better and their mind takes over from there.  In the wine example, when the isolated variable is price, people were forced… Read More

The Role of Bonds in Retirement

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Wrote a piece for CNBC on the role of bonds in a retirement portfolio.  In the article, I share some thoughts on the topic with the aid of historical perspective and how things have changed over the past few decades.  Below is the link.   Conventional Wisdom of Bonds Dominating a Portfolio in Retirement is now Outdated   Thanks for reading! Ashby Daniels Shorebridge Wealth Management 600 Waterfront Drive, Suite… Read More

Who is going to help your spouse?

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Last week I wrote a post titled “Switching Advisors at Retirement - Things to Consider“.  It didn’t occur to me until after re-reading it that I realized I omitted one of the most important (and overlooked) things you should be looking for in your search.  And that is, “Who is going to help your spouse if something happens to you?” When considering switching advisors, the final decision regarding who to… Read More