MARCH, 2013

The 6 Most Important Retirement Planning Questions

        by Steve Vernon, FSA

 

During Week 2 of my 16-week series, Planning Your Retirement, we focus more on the lifestyle you want by answering five important questions: the who-what-when-where-why of retirement. Developing thoughtful answers to these questions will help you answer the sixth retirement question -- how -- which is the goal of my entire series. Read here to learn more about these critical questions.


Please continue reading for this month's selection of helpful articles on retirement planning.

 

Planning for retirement: Take Inventory

 

While preparing for tax season this year, take charge of your retirement by gathering and organizing your financial documents and records. Read here for a checklist of the necessary paperwork. You should also include important documents that involve nonfinancial matters. This checklist offers suggestions for what you should be saving.


Retirement planning: Get the right professional help               

 

It makes sense that you might need professional help to plan a secure retirement, but make sure you hire the right people. This article explains how to look for financial advisors who have the necessary skills and your best interests at heart.  

 

Planning for retirement isn't all about saving money - it also involves advice that goes beyond dollars and cents. Find out how to best choose the nonfinancial professionals who might help you with retirement.

 

Save more with a Roth IRA

   

 

With the April 15 tax deadline looming, many people who'll be making IRA funding decisions in the next month may be wondering if it makes more sense to contribute to a Roth IRA or a deductible IRA.

 

While much has been written about the pros and cons of these two retirement savings vehicles, one feature of a Roth IRA is often overlooked when these plans are analyzed: You can effectively save more money to spend in retirement with a Roth IRA compared to a deductible IRA. And if you're eligible for a Roth 401(k) plan at work, the logic is the same for that investment vehicle, too. Read here for details.


Why active fund management has failed             

 

Fellow CBS MoneyWatch blogger Larry Swedroe writes a compelling post on the various reasons why most active fund managers don't consistently beat the market over long periods of time.

 

 

Compound interest and wealth accumulation: It's not as easy as you think         

One of the very basic staples of personal finance is the idea that by starting to save when young, one can become very wealthy watching their investments multiply over time. Personal finance blogger Dr. Wade Pfau agrees that starting to save at a young age is ideal, but a lot of the personal finance literature can take things too far. Read here to see an exposure of some of the dangers of relying on unrealistic assumptions regarding investment returns.

 

How to boost your expected returns 
         

Today's investors face unusual challenges, as low bond yields and lower expected stock returns mean the returns investors can expect from their portfolios may not be sufficient to meet their retirement goals. Smart investors know that to minimize the risk of their plan failing, they must change their plan. For helpful strategies, read this insightful post from Larry Swedroe.

 

Financial advisors exposed


Fellow CBS MoneyWatch blogger Allan Roth discusses a new book that harshly assesses the financial services industry. Read his article for some fascinating insights.  

 

Good news for the aging brain

 

 

Years ago, a colleague of CBS MoneyWatch Editor-at-Large Jill Schlesinger showed her a study that found that cognitive ability can start slipping as early as age 50. "I guess that means we only have a limited time left in the money management business," he teased. That study has always haunted her -- the idea that her cognitive abilities would begin to fade at about the same time as her tennis game was depressing.

 

Thankfully, a new study examined adults 50 to 79 years of age to determine the connection between cognitive health, aging, and decision-making capacity and found that age alone is not a predictive factor of lower decision making capacity. This article from Schlesinger provides the details.


Help with end of life talks, from a prize-winning columnist

 

Ellen Goodman spent decades talking with Americans through her Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper column about social change and the women's movement. But when her mother became severely ill several years ago, it struck her there was one profoundly important conversation the two of them had never had. Read here for a very important article by Mark Miller of retirementrevised.com

 

How vulnerable are you to a health care catastrophe? 

Compelling stories and an astonishing video will give you the motivation to do the job right when buying medical insurance. Click here to see more.

 

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Thanks for your interest, and stay tuned for future newsletters that explore how to best live the rest of your life.
 
Best regards,
 





Steve Vernon
Rest-of-Life Communications

P.S. If you think this newsletter will help a friend, please pass it along.

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Recently Released 


 Money for Life

    

Turn Your IRA and 401(k) Into a Lifetime Retirement Paycheck

 

My latest book, published in October 2012, answers two of the most important financial questions you'll ever face:

 

How much money do you need to retire?

 

How can you generate reliable income from your retirement savings that lasts for the rest of your life, no matter how long you live and no matter what happens in the economy?

 

Addressing these questions is one of the most critical challenges facing the retirement industry today. 

 

Money for Life is an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand book that outlines specific action steps and includes illustrations and graphs to reinforce the main points. It describes in simple terms the three methods you can use to generate a "retirement paycheck" from your retirement savings. It explains the pros and cons of these methods, as well as their many varieties and permutations. One critical element is the amount of the retirement paycheck you'll be able to generate, which can vary widely depending on the method you choose to generate retirement income.

 

This new book is available in both print and e-book format. It complements my other published works on retirement planning -- my book, Recession-Proof Your Retirement Years; my DVD, The Quest for Long Life, Health and Prosperity; and my retirement planning website, Money for Life.

 

Please see my website for details on all of my books and DVDs.
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Welcome to

 Our Newsletter!
We fulfill a need for trusted, practical strategies that you can use to plan your rest-of-life (aka retirement).  We rely on the latest research and analyses, and we'll keep it simple!  And that's all we provide; we don't sell insurance, investments or health products, so we can "tell it like it is."

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Hour Glass & Money

 
Steve Vernon has spent 35 years as a consulting actuary, helping large employers design and manage their retirement programs.  Now he's president of Rest-of-Life Communications, where he specializes in providing unbiased, trusted information about retirement.  He also is a Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on  Longevity, and writes a regular column for CBS MoneyWatch titled  Money for Life.

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For information on keynote addresses, workshops or presentations on retirement issues, visit Steve's website at www.restoflife.com, or email him at [email protected]

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