Retirement Starts Today Radio

Chris Heye makes the case in a Journal of Financial Planning article that the two retirement risks we obsess over might not be the two most likely to derail us. There are four risks in play, and the two nobody models are the ones quietly doing the most damage:

• Longevity Risk
• Market Risk
• Health Risk
• Decision Risk

I go into depth on those last two.

In our Listener Question, a 69-year-old retired engineer and do-it-yourself...

Inflation again? Christine Benz over at Morningstar has three questions that tell you exactly how exposed you are - and how much retirees worry about inflation.

Then, a listener question from someone one year into retirement who says their pension check feels like it just shrank ten percent - and what they might do to remedy that. 

And in our Retire To Something segment, Linda from Ontario, Canada, wanted a job at a cheese sho...

If you've been anywhere close to a retirement podcast over the last 10-20 years, you've heard of the 4% rule. And like many people, you might have questions about it.

We're going to hear about it directly from the horse's mouth as we talk to Bill Bengen, who first articulated the 4% withdrawal rate as a rule of thumb for withdrawal rates from retirement accounts.

The 4% rule is not a rigid rule but a guideline. Its application requ...

Fritz Gilbert says the adage that "Retirement is a marathon, not a sprint" is backwards. He cites an average age where health starts to decline is 64, so sprinting in those first few years when the average retiree is 61-63 makes sense.

We will dig into that idea, then follow it up with a listener who can't get her husband to think about anything but saving money.

Resource:

• Article by Fritz Gilbert: Retirement is a Sprint, Not...

The fear of running out of money in retirement turns out to be mostly backwards. For super-savers, the data says the opposite usually happens. A piece from Danielle Labotka at Morningstar makes the case that for a lot of retirees: Being too cautious with your spending is actually the bigger risk. 

In our listener question segment: Anonymous wants to give money to her kids with warm hands, not cold. How much you can safely give...

Every year, thousands of retirees pay an extra penalty to the IRS — and almost none of them see it coming.

What catches them off guard isn't a penalty for owing too much. You can do everything right — claim Social Security at the right age, run picture-perfect Roth conversions, manage your withdrawals down to the dollar — and still get a letter from the IRS charging you extra.

I reworked a framework from an articl...

Americans don't feel great about the economy. Consumer Sentiment just hit the lowest reading in roughly 75 years.

Ben Carlson over at A Wealth of Common Sense dug into why that might be, and what it means for those of us trying to enjoy a retirement when it always feels like the second shoe is about to drop.

In our Listener Question segment, we hear from someone who is sitting on 50x their annual spending - and they can't get their...

There's a decision your surviving spouse is going to make about your IRA, after you're already gone, that can either cut short or stretch out how long your kids get to keep that money growing — and most people don't even realize the choice is being made. We're going to zero in on one option in particular, one that sounds a little crazy on its face: turning down an inheritance on purpose. 

In our Listener Question segment...

You've heard it said a hundred times: Spend the money, make the memories, don't die with regret. 

However, for certain kinds of retirees, dying as the richest person in the graveyard isn't a tragedy at all. The comfort of simply having the money can be worth more than anything you'd ever buy with it.  

Today, we begin with an article, The Many Utilities of Retirement, which talks about RPIG (the Richest Person In the Grav...

If you want to spend more at the beginning of retirement, which withdrawal strategies actually let you do that? This week's Retirement Headline from Amy C. Arnott called "The Best Strategies for Boosting Starting Withdrawal Rates in Retirement" answers that question.

For our Listener Question: A listener wrote in wondering whether sequence-of-returns risk really fades away after the first decade of retirement, and if so — whe...

Imagine a lifetime spent diligently saving your acorns, only to face a mental roadblock when it's time to enjoy them. Dana Anspach, CFP®, RMA®, and author of "Living Off Your Acorns," shares how this common challenge impacts retirees and introduces the critical "pre-go" phase. 

This episode offers a fresh perspective on retirement planning, emphasizing conscious consumption of retirement funds.

Key Takeaways:

• Identify and...

What happens when you reach financial independence by paying off a low interest rate mortgage early? Or being renter instead of buying a home and growing equity? I'll explain why hitting that milestone earns you the right to ignore some of the most stubborn rules in personal finance. 

For our Listener Question: A listener wants to know how to think about real estate as part of a retirement portfolio — should they own a r...

According to Capital One Shopping - 89% of shoppers have made some kind of impulse buy. More than half have spent more than $100 on a whim, and the average shopper made impulse buys adding up to $282 a month.

A classic rule is to wait 24 hours to help curb impulse buys, but on today's show, I'm going to flip that rule on its head and explain why my listeners might actually need the opposite advice. 

After that, I'll answer a l...

Imagine having 10 overstuffed boxes of grandma's collections in your living room.

That's the story that leads our show from a couple in Florida who received these items as hand-me-downs from a boomer parent trying to clear them out.

The article features estate specialist Julie Hall, who says Millennials don't want painted china or antique furniture — they want Pottery Barn and IKEA. When Hall asked her own daughter what she'd...

There is roughly a ten-year window centered around your retirement date, five to ten years before, and five to ten years after called "The Retirement Risk Zone". This is when you're most vulnerable to sequence-of-returns impacting the longevity of your withdrawal strategy.

We cover this idea brought up by Wade Pfau in an episode of "The Long View", a show hosted by Christine Benz, Amy C. Arnott, and Ben Johnson - specifically:

...

Why is it so hard to spend the money you spent a lifetime saving?

This is a question from Janet Bodnar in a Kiplinger article. She admits that one of her guilty pleasures in retirement is treating herself to a casual lunch while she's out running errands. Why does she feel so guilty?

Christine Benz from Morningstar is quoted in the article, which we discuss at length in this episode.

Then a listener asks a question I think a lot of...

Your beneficiary designations are probably outdated. Not because you made bad decisions, but because you made them once and never looked again. We're going to walk through five areas where these forms commonly go wrong, and what you can do about it. 

For our Listener Questions segment: "What's the best way to position any assets I have for when my wife and I pass — to most easily and efficiently pass on to our kids?"

And...

How do higher oil prices impact stock market returns? Ben Carlson at A Wealth of Common Sense challenges the assumption most people have, but with some genuinely surprising and con historical data.

For those who retired right around 2022, our Listener Questions segment might interest you. A listener is comparing bonds to guaranteed products like MYGAs and annuities with income riders. They're seeing five and a half to six percent g...

What if you paid all your taxes - and still got hit with a penalty from the IRS? 

Our retirement headline this week comes from Laura Saunders in the Wall Street Journal. Estimated tax penalties are skyrocketing, and retirees and investors are some of the most likely to get caught in the trap.

We will cover that, then hop into our Listen Question: "What happens when you lose faith in fixed income as the foundation for your reti...