AssetBuilder - Registered Investment Advisor :: Simple Investing Smart Future

A lot depends on how that immediate annual income difference would affect you. The difference between $52,000 of fixed pension and a starting 4 percent withdrawal of $32,000 is $20,000 a year. That could make a big difference in your standard of living. The middle path would be to take the lump sum into an IRA and then take a joint and survivor life...

Penny- If your huband is bent on taking SS at 62 yo, here's an option for you that has been discussed before in Scott's columns. You need income now to sustain your present financial situation. Use the income from early SS for your husband and consider it a tax free loan that must eventually be paid back to the SS Administration in a lump sum...

Hello Scott, Your most recent article prompted me to plug my retirement numbers into the free on-line basic ESPlanner. I don't think I much like the results (something must be awry with the planner.) OR, perhaps, I don't have enough dough. Anyway, my questions involve the recommendations section. The discretionary spending and living standard...

By Scott Burns Q. My wife and I are 60. We own our town home, worth $400,000 in this market. She has $167,000 in her IRA. I have $400,000 in my IRA. She also has a $2,000-a-month pension from one of the remaining airlines. We have no debt. I generate $50,000 in any given year consulting. We are trying to figure out where to put our money to generate...

A version of ESPlanner consumption smoothing software is now available online and for free. This is the software that computes a stable standard of living from your available resources. It has been the basis for many columns and was used for all the calculations in "Spend 'til the End" (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Using this software...

By Scott Burns Downsizing may be the best retirement decision millions of boomers can make. It’s relatively easy to do. And, as you’ll soon see, the lifetime benefits can be enormous. But first, meet John and Jane Bighouse. They’re about to downsize. He’s 64. She’s 62. He earns $100,000 a year as a project manager, and Jane hopes to make $30,000 this...

By Scott Burns Medicare premiums may soon start crushing retiree spending power. I estimate that many a long-lived couple may need to reduce their retirement spending on non-medical consumption by 13 percent to 26 percent to avoid sharp declines in purchasing power as they get older. This is not an alarmist fantasy. My estimates come from projecting...

By Scott Burns If you’re retired and are interested in having a higher income for as long as you live, you have two main options. You can buy a life annuity. This will provide you with an income, with or without inflation adjustments, for as long as you live. But it will leave nothing for your heirs. Or you can buy a variable annuity with a variety...

by Scott Burns Several years ago a Dallas couple approaching retirement disappeared. Well-known on the charitable event circuit, the couple was in Dallas one day and gone the next. Phone disconnected. No forwarding address. No working cell phone number. Eventually, word spread that they were somewhere in Mexico. They had sold whatever they owned, packed...

by Scott Burns Does it pay to go to college? That’s a rude question, of course. It’s a question parents don’t want to ask if they’ve just written the big checks. Nor do students want to ask it if they’ve just borrowed the money for their next semester. If you check www.collegeboard.com, you’ll find a reassuring study showing that education really does...