Income power Archives - Jerry Golden on Retirement

Too many financial advisors ask the wrong question

April 24, 2018 By Jerry Golden in Income Power Tags: Annuities, Baby Boomers, Income power, retirement income

Baby Boomers are the 401(k) generation.

When Boomers started working, nearly every major company offered some form of pension providing lifetime income. Now, as members of this cohort are retiring in large numbers, pensions are nearly extinct outside of government employers.

The 401(k) was invented 40 years ago and now shares the retirement landscape with Social Security. Many Boomers have a good amount of money in their 401(k) accounts, but that doesn’t mean they can stop planning. In fact, this is when critical retirement planning begins.

Can you answer the question?

Do you have enough income to retire?

February 28, 2018 By Jerry Golden in Income Allocation 2 Comments Tags: Income allocation, Income annuities, Income power, retirement income

Part II: Income planning starts with income allocation

As a famous TV sports reporter would say, “Let’s go to the videotape!” When the talking is done, it’s always good to look again at the results to find out who won the race and why they won.

Unfortunately, most “experts” often view the wrong race. In the case of your retirement, many advisors will tell you that in this race against time you win when you hit a magic savings number. When we go to the videotape (or in our case an Excel spreadsheet), we realize that isn’t the correct focus. Instead, we should be asking, “Do I have enough income to retire?”

Most retirement planning asks, “How much savings?” The right question is, “Do I have enough income to retire?”

February 13, 2018 By Jerry Golden in Income Allocation 3 Comments Tags: Income allocation, Income annuity, Income power

A Multi-Part Series

The stock market just gave us a reminder of what volatility feels like.

I’m writing on the day following a two-day, 8% plummet in the Dow Jones average. Everyone I talk to asked, “What happened?” “What do I do?” “Will it get worse?”

The most frantic questioners were those who had the largest amount of their savings in stocks, especially the ones who depend on equities to provide them with their retirement cash flow. (Even the Millennials got spooked when their robo-advisors jammed up.)

How to put income into retirement INCOME planning

December 12, 2017 By Jerry Golden in Income Power Tags: Guaranteed Income, Income annuities, Income power, retirement income

I’ve been preaching about the importance of securing true income in retirement for a long time. And for just as long, I have seen that financial firms and advisors tend to view retirement planning as simply the accumulation of savings before retirement and the drawing down of savings (often described as “deaccumulation”) after retirement.

Of course, saving is important. But creating a plan to turn that savings into reliable income after you stop working full-time is the real answer to enjoying a satisfying retirement.

When I wrote about the 40th anniversary of the 401(k), I argued that for all its value in helping people to save, it does not replace the traditional pension, which offers guaranteed income for life.

The power behind Income Power

November 10, 2017 By Jerry Golden in Income Power Tags: Deferred income annuities, Income power, Kiplinger, Learning about Income Power, retirement savings

It’s hard to avoid advertisements that knock annuities. In fact, once you start doing online research about retirement, the warnings and diatribes will follow you to your inbox.

Every time I see one of these, I think of the quote from Albert Einstein: “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” Or to put it another way, the stages of reaction to an idea follow the predictable pattern of reject, resist, embrace and, finally, self-evident.

Having spent my career in the insurance, annuity and retirement industries, I know that certain annuities are overly complex. On the other hand, some are elegantly straightforward in their purpose and design. So, it’s just wrong to dismiss a category like annuities without investigating and understanding all the products or services within that category. More