A central component of retirement income planning is estimating how much you can spend without running out of money. Equally important, however, is deciding where that income should come from. One way to think about retirement income is to assign a specific job to each source of income. Guaranteed income may be best suited to…

A retirement plan is built on a series of assumptions. Investment returns, inflation, healthcare costs, life expectancy, and spending all influence whether a retirement strategy succeeds over the long term. One assumption, however, receives far less attention even though it can potentially reshape nearly every aspect of a couple’s financial plan. At some point, one…

Social Security is often viewed as a monthly paycheck that replaces part of the income earned during a career. As a result, many discussions focus on when to claim benefits. While the timing of that decision is important, it only scratches the surface of what Social Security contributes to a retirement plan. The age at…

Have you ever taken a “staycation” where you vacation at home and found yourself surprisingly bored by the end of it? The first few days are easy. You sleep in a little, catch up on things around the house, run errands you’ve been putting off, and generally enjoy the freedom of having nowhere you need…

For years, many couples have spent more waking hours with coworkers than with each other. In addition to work schedules, there are meetings, commutes, business trips, children’s activities, errands, and countless responsibilities competing for attention. Life is busy, and then retirement arrives. One morning, two people who have spent decades building a life together find…

A surprising number of retirees discover that the hardest part of retirement isn’t figuring out whether they can afford it. It’s waking up six months later and realizing they aren’t quite sure what to do with themselves. Most retirement planning is focused on an important question: Can I afford to retire? Once that question has…

A retirement income plan has to do a lot of things well. It needs to generate reliable cash flow, hold up through market downturns, adapt as health and spending needs change, and last as long as you do. But one of the biggest risks to a retirement plan is the gap between the income you…

Every April, retirees review their tax returns and arrive at a number that feels like a summary of their tax situation: their average rate. It is a tidy figure. It tells you what percentage of your total income went to federal taxes for the year. The problem is that this number looks backward. It describes…

Taxes are one of the highest costs in retirement, and unlike market returns or inflation, they respond directly to how decisions are made. That responsiveness is the opportunity. But taking advantage of it requires more than isolated tax moves made one year at a time. It requires structure. The most common approach to retirement tax…