Guaranteed Income Archives - Page 7 of 9 - Jerry Golden on Retirement

To find your magic retirement number, plan beyond the average

May 10, 2016 By Jerry Golden in Annuity 7 Comments Tags: Annuities, Dependable spendable income, Guaranteed Income, retirement income

It is fashionable in the community of retirement advice-givers to talk about your “magic number” for retirement. That’s the amount of money you should accumulate by the time you retire so that savings last the rest of your life, or some fixed period like your life expectancy.

The magic number is based on your achieving average results over the long term. And perhaps that will work out. You might not live longer than average. The stock market in which your savings are invested might hit the average return of the past several decades.

Or maybe it won’t work. It is disconcerting to plan for “average” when you realize how average might work to your disadvantage.

Take this example: A small pond could average three feet in depth. You might plan to walk from one side to the other. But start at the sandy beach where you enter the water, where the depth averages just a few inches as you take several steps toward the center of the pond. In fact, More

New fiduciary rules will create a better-educated investor

May 3, 2016 By Jerry Golden in Annuity 1 Comment Tags: Annuities, Guaranteed Income, retirement income, Social Security

To make money, one must constantly evaluate the state of the economy. It is always changing and when you adapt, you can create advantages for yourself. The latest change in the financial advising industry will benefit you as a consumer, but you will have to take more responsibility for educating yourself.

Instead of depending on an advisor to sell one product or another, consumers will investigate different products, make their decisions, and then rely on their financial counselor to help manage their money after that, perhaps with guidance on the investment markets, tax strategies and similar information.

The cost of services will go down because consumers will be doing more of the work. And confidence in the integrity of the service will increase because consumers will be better-educated and brokers won’t be allowed to advocate only for products on which they make a commission. More

New rules governing advisors mandate simpler, clearer guidance for individual investors

April 19, 2016 By Jerry Golden in Annuity Tags: Annuities, Guaranteed Income, retirement income, Social Security

You might have seen the recent news flurry about rules adopted by the Department of Labor that govern how financial professionals give advice with respect to qualified savings and IRAs. The changes are important because they would benefit everyday investors who are trying to build up and distribute their retirement savings.

I find this development especially satisfying because from the start of my career I have been working to create investments in the retirement and annuity space, emphasizing products that are easy to understand and put in place. These new rules would require financial advisers to abide by a “fiduciary” standard that puts their clients’ best interests before their own profits. They would have to disclose all fees and would not be allowed to push products only from companies they represent.

Registered investment advisors are already classified as fiduciaries that must put investors’ interests first. Brokers and insurance agents now fall under that category too, which means individual investors will get more information about the true costs of products, including fees and charges that can be difficult to find and understand. More

The top 3 myths you will hear about annuities at tax time

March 22, 2016 By Jerry Golden in Annuity 1 Comment Tags: Annuities, Baby Boomers, Dependable spendable income, Guaranteed Income, retirement

As you pull together your records to prepare this year’s tax return, it might mark the first time in a while that you’ve really examined your finances.

If you are one of the many retired Baby Boomers, perhaps the amount of your interest income caught your eye. You were probably surprised, because if you’ve got $100,000 of your retirement assets in a bank savings account, the tally of monthly interest amounts to a little more than $20 per month. For the year, you earned around $250.

Your money isn’t working for you. More

Create a plan for pension-like retirement income

March 16, 2016 By Jerry Golden in Annuity, Social Security 7 Comments Tags: Annuities, Guaranteed Income, retirement income, Social Security

A generation ago, retirees could rely on workplace pensions, along with Social Security payments, to provide guaranteed income that would meet most, or perhaps all, of their living expenses.

That doesn’t happen anymore. When you plan your retirement, you must take responsibility yourself to create a pension substitute from a mix of options that you can combine and customize to meet your needs. Often advisors unfortunately limit those options to investments like stock and bond mutual funds – combined with a “withdraw until it runs out” strategy. That’s very far from a pension. More