Retirement Field Guide

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Designing Your Days In Retirement

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A couple of weeks ago, I attended an industry conference in Arizona that was filled with the creme de la creme of advisors. Being around a group of high-flyers like that, it wasn’t surprising to learn that most of these advisors have big goals. Many want to build large organizations with lots of advisors and “own their market.” They manage billions of dollars and are actively onboarding as many clients… Read More

Life’s Curveballs

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Over the weekend, I went for a run as I often do. I time myself for every single run and I generally run the same route each time. Some might consider that boring, but I do it because it gives me a number to shoot for. If I run different routes, I can’t compete with myself to try to beat my best time. If you think that’s silly, I totally… Read More

Retiring at Market Highs

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As we approach new all-time market highs, one fear I routinely hear is a concern over retiring at market highs. It makes sense given that sequence of returns risk is so prevalent early in retirement. If you experience a market meltdown during your first few years in retirement, that’s obviously not a good thing and most certainly not enjoyable. It’s the primary reason I advocate for pairing dividend growth investing… Read More

Talking About Childhood and Retirement

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Last week, I was interviewed by my good friend and fellow advisor, Justin Castelli on his All About Your Benjamins podcast. I’m thankful for that opportunity, not because we discussed retirement (which we did), but because he wanted to chat about my childhood. Justin and I had previously shared an offline call where we happened to chat about how I grew up and he encouraged me to share my story… Read More

Finding Fulfillment in Retirement

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A couple of months back, I had a conversation with Fritz Gilbert, the writer and owner of the retirement blog, The Retirement Manifesto. I’ve been a reader of his for quite some time as his posts are always insightful and entertaining. His writing offers particularly useful perspectives for me thanks to his willingness to share all that he’s going through as he is going through it. I reached out to… Read More

Increasing Your Odds of Retirement Success

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Recently, I was asked a great question: “What is the #1 thing I can do to increase my odds of retirement success?” Most people are inclined to focus on the portfolio since it gets all the love and attention in retirement planning - how can you optimize your portfolio, pay less in taxes or squeeze out more return?? But when it comes to retirement planning, often the easiest way to… Read More

How to Invest For a 30+ Year Retirement

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A couple of weeks back, I had the pleasure of chatting with Taylor Schulte, CFP® on his retirement podcast, “Stay Wealthy.” Taylor is a highly respected retirement expert, so naturally, I was excited to have a public chat about a topic we are both passionate about. On the podcast, we discuss my post, A Portfolio Strategy for 30-Year Retirements, to include the following topics: Why living longer should be a… Read More

A Retirement Trial Run

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I’m on vacation in the Outer Banks this week and I was planning to skip a week of writing the blog, but I couldn’t help myself. Something surprised me prior to leaving for our trip. Before we started the long drive, my wife informed me that I haven’t taken a full week off since my youngest son was born - he is almost three. Before I get emails about needing… Read More

Why I Prefer Dividend Income Over Total Return in Retirement

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The one constructive response I received on the article, A Portfolio Strategy for 30-Year Retirements, was the preference for total return versus dividend income. If you haven’t read it, I’d encourage you to do so now as what follows will make much more sense. Before we dive in, let’s first define total return investing. Total return investing is the idea that there is no preference for investment gains, whether via… Read More

A Portfolio Strategy For 30-Year Retirements

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PLEASE NOTE: This is a long post, but I passionately believe that if retirees have any chance of getting things right, they must properly understand all the underlying assumptions they are making in their retirement planning decision process. And because I view the subject(s) of this particular article to be so important, I wanted all the thoughts in one place instead of being spread amongst three or four individual posts… Read More