What You Don’t See: The Difference Between a Well-Laid Plan or Falling Short I would like to share a story with you. An accountant and his wife recently came to my office to prepare for their retirement in a few years. They had about $2.5 million in CDs and bonds, and they had figured out […]

In your accumulation years, when you were adding dollars and buying equities at a bargain, you benefited from what is known as dollar-cost averaging: the technique of buying a fixed dollar amount of a particular investment on a regular schedule, regardless of the share price. More shares are purchased when prices are low, and fewer […]

In retirement ROI stands for reliability of income*, a far greater concern in these years than return on investments. You can’t effectively chase both at the same time. But you can pursue both goals if you compartmentalize your money based on short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals.  You may have seen what is called the “risk […]

The tactic of withdrawing from an account that rises or falls with the market can be debilitating to your wealth. You are at the mercy of  sequence of return risk (the potential consequences of a bad sequence of returns) at the time you begin withdrawing money from your investments (reverse dollar cost averaging). If those […]

Despite the risks you might now know of like, dollar cost ravaging and inflation, some advisors still put everything in a lump sum for systematic withdrawals. They will craft a portfolio that seems beautiful in its asset allocation, but really the income derives from withdrawing a percentage of the portfolio. And that puts the entire portfolio […]

Professor Moshe Milevsky, a researcher, author, and speaker on personal financial planning, talks about not just asset allocation, but product allocation for retirement. Product allocation is the next step in the evolution of asset allocation, designed specifically for people close to or in retirement. Rather than allocating a pool of money among asset classes, you […]

Imagine that you have a 200-piece jigsaw puzzle scattered in front of you. Where would you start? When I ask people that, most say they would start at the corners where they figure it’s easier to piece together all those interlocking shapes. Likewise, many people just dump their box of investments on an advisor’s table […]

“Many people are so occupied with getting out of a career trap that they seem to care little about what happens after they leave their jobs. Too many people retire to nothing and then wonder why they feel empty and disenchanted.” From “Comfort Zones”, by Elwood Chapman and Marion Haynes  The point being, if you […]

Safety Liquidity Growth We believe these are the three fundamental aspects of money management. A sound retirement plan must provide a good balance of all three – safety, reliable income; liquidity, so that cash is accessible in emergencies; and growth, so that you beat inflation, grow your portfolio to replenish income needs, and leave an […]

You have dreams and goals for your retirement. The challenging part is uncovering if whether your expressed goals are realistic and attainable or not. One couple came to my office saying they wanted to retire in about five years, at age 60, and they wanted to pay for the kids’ college educations, and they wanted […]