Retire With Style

In this live Retire With Style Q&A, Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia tackle a wide range of retirement planning questions, including Social Security survivor benefits for divorced spouses, using home equity as a retirement buffer, managing sequence-of-returns risk, building conservative portfolios, Roth conversions, and annuity planning. They explain why a HECM reverse mortgage can function as a more reliable buffer asset than a HELO...

In this episode of 'Retire with Style', hosts Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau discuss various aspects of retirement planning, including the importance of finding purpose in retirement, strategies for asset allocation and location, understanding retirement expenses, planning for long-term care, and investment strategies. They emphasize the need for a structured approach to retirement income and the significance of having a volatility buf...

In this episode of 'Retire with Style', hosts Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau discuss various aspects of retirement planning, including the importance of tax planning, the role of annuities in income protection, and strategies for managing inflation risk. They also touch on the upcoming YouTube live session focused on tax questions and the significance of understanding one's retirement income style awareness (RISA). The conversation emp...

In this episode of Retire with Style, Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia delve into various retirement income strategies, focusing on hybrid approaches that combine time segmentation and income protection. They discuss the optimal withdrawal order from retirement accounts, the importance of blending in tax planning, and the nuances of using inherited IRAs for tax payments. The conversation also covers the evalu...

In this episode of 'Retire with Style', Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau dive into various aspects of retirement planning, focusing on Social Security benefits, military survivor benefits, essential expenses, investment strategies, and the comparison between bond ladders and annuities. They discuss the implications of Social Security trust fund depletion, the importance of reliable income sources for essentia...

In this Q&A episode of Retire With Style, Alex and Wade tackle several questions about building and managing a retirement income strategy, beginning with whether AI is ready to recommend optimal withdrawal strategies and where human expertise still matters. They discuss how retirees can assemble a coordinated team of financial, tax, and estate-planning professionals before turning to the role of reliable lifetime income in reti...

In this episode of Retire with Style, Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau explore how to manage retirement portfolios through the lens of sequence of returns risk. They discuss why the first decade of retirement is so critical, how longer retirement horizons can influence planning decisions, and where I bonds fit within an overall asset allocation strategy. Along the way, they examine the tradeoffs of I bonds, including tax deferral, inflat...

In this episode of 'Retire with Style', Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia dive into the implications of the SpaceX IPO, exploring its unique characteristics, the risks associated with investing in IPOs, and the historical performance of such investments. They discuss the impact of index funds on IPOs and the broader lessons investors should consider when navigating the market, particularly in light of the excitement surrounding mega IPOs ...

In this episode, Alex and Wade clarify important aspects of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), particularly focusing on the rules surrounding beneficiaries. They address common misconceptions about what non-spousal beneficiaries can do with HSA receipts after the account holder's death and emphasize the importance of utilizing HSA funds during one's lifetime. The discussion also touches on the implications for charitable giving when i...

In this episode of 'Retire with Style', Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau dive into tax planning strategies, focusing on Roth conversions, effective marginal tax rates, and withdrawal strategies for retirement. They discuss the implications of current tax rates, the importance of blending techniques in tax planning, and the necessity of tax diversification for a successful retirement. The conversation is driven by listener questions, prov...

In this episode of Retire with Style, hosts Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau address various listener questions regarding retirement planning. They discuss the implications of long-term care and Medicaid, explore the ARVA framework for retirement income, and delve into variable spending strategies. The conversation also covers healthcare options for early retirees, methods to mitigate sequence of returns risk, and the evaluation of disco...

In this episode of Retire with Style, Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia continue to answer listener questions, including how stocks perform during inflationary periods, whether equity investments can be viewed through a bond-duration lens, the tradeoffs between buying a deferred income annuity today versus waiting to purchase a SPIA later, and how QLACs interact with Roth conversion rules. Along the way, they emphasize that there are no u...

In this final part of the Retire With Style Live Q&A, Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia answer a wide range of retirement planning questions covering annuities and life insurance surrender charges, the financial impact of losing a spouse, Roth conversions as a hedge against the "widow's tax penalty," tax-loss harvesting through direct indexing, dividend reinvestment strategies in retirement accounts versus taxable accounts, HSA withdr...

In Part 2 of this Live listener Q&A episode, Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia tackle several retirement planning topics, including Social Security claiming strategies for spouses with age differences, how younger workers should think about Social Security's long-term solvency, whether to assume future benefit cuts in retirement projections, the impact of the "widow's penalty" on tax planning and Roth conversions, evaluating an older ...

In Part 1 of this live Q&A episode of Retire With Style, Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia answer listener questions covering reverse mortgages, retirement withdrawal rates, Roth conversion strategies, tax-efficient retirement income planning, asset allocation decisions, and bond ladders. The discussion emphasizes that retirement planning rarely has one-size-fits-all answers, highlighting the importance of balancing taxes, investment ...

In this episode of 'Retire with Style', Wade Pfau and Alex Murguia discuss the non-financial aspects of retirement with Jason Rizkallah. They explore how relationships change during retirement, the importance of maintaining social connections, and the need for communication between spouses. The conversation also touches on balancing time spent together and apart, as well as the significance of leading a healthy lifestyle in retirem...

This episode of Retire With Style explores the non-financial aspects of retirement, focusing on how retirees can build purpose, identity, and fulfillment beyond just having enough money. Wade Pfau, Alex Murguia, and guest Jason Rizkallah discuss the importance of “retiring to something, not from something,” emphasizing that retirement planning should begin with envisioning the life you want before determining the financ...

This episode of Retire with Style continues the Retirement Planning Guidebook series by focusing on how tax planning changes when legacy and estate considerations are incorporated into the retirement planning process. Wade and Alex break down key estate planning concepts in a practical way, including step-up in basis rules, Roth conversion decisions tied to beneficiaries’ future tax brackets, inherited IRA distribution rules ...