
Longevity
4 Big Opportunities with Longer Retirements
With a longer retirement you can take the time to explore your interests and hobbies. Unsure of what that may look like? Here are four opportunities you’ll have during retirement
Knowing you were ready to retire was much easier decades ago when people had pensions. You were ready to retire when you reached an age where you could access a pension, and that pension was large enough to support you. The pension promised you a steady level of income for as long as you (and perhaps your spouse) were alive regardless of what happened in the financial markets and how long you lived.
Unfortunately the question of ‘can I retire?’ is not as simple to answer in the post-pension era where we are managing our own retirement savings. Now, we’ve taken on risk and uncertainty in the form of:
To know you’re ready to retire, you need to do a financial projection that takes into consideration your age, gender, potential lifespan, assets, desired spending, Social Security, other sources of income, and a range of potential investment and inflation assumptions. If the money you’ve saved allows you to meet your desired spending for life under conservative assumptions, you are ready to retire. Note, though, that you should rerun these projections annually to confirm you’re still in good shape. As time evolves, the projections might recommend decreasing, or perhaps even increasing, your spending. Below we provide a link to a projection model that you can use.
Fortunately, even if you don’t have a pension, you can buy yourself something similar known as an income annuity. An income annuity provides steady income for as long as you (and perhaps your spouse) are alive. The income is guaranteed by the insurance company issuing the contract. The benefit of having at least your non-discretionary spending covered by guaranteed income is that you won’t have to worry in retirement about not being able to cover those expenses because of poor financial markets or because you live a long time.
At Blueprint Income, we’ve built an Excel tool do help you perform these calculations. Click the button below to download the tool.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
With a longer retirement you can take the time to explore your interests and hobbies. Unsure of what that may look like? Here are four opportunities you’ll have during retirement
For over eighty years, Social Security has provided Americans with a stream of guaranteed income that gives certainty in retirement. But few people actually understand how the program works. Here’s what you need to know.
An annuity can provide guaranteed lifetime income that reduces the likelihood that you’ll run out of money in retirement. Income from an annuity is predictable, steady, and cannot be outlived. This Annuities 101 article provides an overview of annuities and links to resources that will help you decide if an annuity is right for you.