With a retirement that could last 30+ years, it is important to consider the impact that a sequence of negative investment returns early on can have on the longevity of your nest egg. Awareness of this risk allows you to develop a strategy to attempt to mitigate this risk during the years surrounding your retirement.
Author Archives: Gage Paul, CFP®, RICP®, EA
How Longevity Risk Can Impact Your Retirement
Although longevity risk can pose a serious threat to your retirement plans, its impact can be mitigated with prudent planning and using reasonable assumptions for how long you and your spouse may live.
Minimizing Complexity in Your Investment Portfolio
Diversification can only lower your risk to a certain extent, regardless of the number of investments you own. However, what does not decrease, as your holdings increase is complexity.
Often, adding complexity (your portfolio) on top of complexity (the markets) can increase risks rather than reduce them.
Reducing Company-Specific Risk in Retirement
The company-specific risk that comes with concentrated holdings can be mitigated through diversification. However, the process of selling can have many nuances. Having a diversification strategy in place could be useful when making investment decisions with tax and emotional implications.
Key Retirement Milestones
Some of these retirement milestones create potential planning opportunities to boost savings, maximize retirement income, or improve tax efficiency. Others mark deadlines that could result in stiff penalties if overlooked.
Using Roth Conversions in Retirement
Performing Roth conversions in your lower-income years, allows you to potentially decrease your total tax liability throughout your retirement.
How Your Income Can Affect Your Medicare Premiums
Healthcare costs are an important factor to consider when creating your retirement income plan. You want to ensure that these expenses are properly accounted for. However, these costs can potentially be affected by your income in retirement.
Some higher-income retirees may have to pay more for their Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. This is due to something called the Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA).
How Will You Order Your Portfolio Withdrawals in Retirement?
As with most things in retirement income planning, there is no universal best approach for taking withdrawals. Your specific circumstances should determine which approach you take and should be reassessed if/when your plans change. Having assets in all three types of accounts can prove to be a useful tool in retirement.
Investing for Retirement
Developing and adhering to a sound investment strategy is essential in retirement. This strategy will likely look different than the one you used during your accumulation years. You must find a balance between today’s spending needs and those of the future if you plan on maintaining your standard of living throughout retirement.
Inflation’s Impact on Your Retirement
Inflation is yet another risk you may face in retirement, though its effects may not be felt for many years. With smart planning and prudent investing, there are ways to attempt to mitigate its effects on your purchasing power.