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Create Your Retirement Plan: the Eightfold Path
Do you have a financial plan for your retirement? Do you need one? What exactly is a retirement plan, anyway? If your answers to these questions are a bit vague and uncertain, read on! This post will lay out why you need a plan for the years after you stop working (yes, you should have a plan), and how to go about creating one. The good news is it’s not that hard to do. In fact, if you’ve been reading my posts until now (and, of course, following up on my recommendations!), you’re 80% of the way there already. This post pulls the pieces together into a single whole; eight…
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What Could Go Wrong – Part II
Welcome back! In this post, we continue talking about the financial shocks that could derail your retirement – and what you can do to protect yourself. Read the first post here. Long-term care We left off the last post with a discussion of the importance of good health insurance – fortunately largely covered by Medicare for most people over 65 (and by Obamacare for those under). But what about long-term care? If you’re 65, there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll need it someday. It’s not cheap; the median cost is $85,800 per year for care in a nursing home, although there’s significant variation by state (average cost in Texas is $54,800,…
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Retirement – What Could Go Wrong?
You’ve worked hard for 30 or 40 years, raised a bunch of kids and launched them into adulthood, and now you’re excited to embark on the next phase in your life – stepping back from the daily grind, traveling to far-off lands, having time to enjoy your hobbies, and trying new things. You’ve managed to accumulate a tidy nest egg and, with Social Security, don’t anticipate needing to withdraw more than 4% of it per year. (Bill Bengen would be proud!) Your mortgage is paid off, you have a plan for the future, and you’re still in love with your spouse. Things look good. What could possibly go wrong? Unfortunately,…