3.13.2011

5 Biggest Retirement Myths

5 Biggest Retirement Myths

Excerpt:

  1. $1 Million Will Be Enough
  2. You'll Spend Less When You're Older
  3. Older people need more bonds
  4. your Money Lasts Longer if You Move
  5. Uncle Sam Has Got Your Back


Comment: Expanding on the 3rd point:
Of course, there's a reason older investors need bonds—historically, they've been safer and less plunge-prone than stocks. Hence the old "own your age" theory: If you're 65, then 65 percent of your portfolio should be in bonds, and so on. But with their prices near record highs, "bonds have no place to go" right now, says Diahann Lassus, whose New Jersey wealth-management firm Lassus Wherley manages $320 million. She recommends that boomers keep anywhere from 50 to 65 percent of their portfolio in stocks—including high-dividend stocks that can replace some of the income that retirees get from bonds.

Comments:
  • We hope to have more than $ 1 Mil at retirement. It is a formidable goal but we are investing with that target
  • We probably will move to a lower tax state (lower or no state income tax, lower property taxes). With family here we know we will travel to Minnesota a couple of times a year
  • I do think we will spend less in retirement. One small example ... we pay $ 214 per month to park in downtown Minneapolis.

2 comments:

  1. I have gone on a few retirement sites and it really is staggering to see what they project I would need to retire and not run out early. For me, it was like 1.7 and somewhere around 2.5 on another site.

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  2. Another set of retirement myths

    First one:

    Everyone used to have a pension. That is far from the truth. Until pension law changed in 1974, companies used to require decades of vesting for employees; many folks spent 15 or 20 years on the job and were let go just before they vested. So while they technically "had" a pension, they never reaped the rewards. And workers who spend their careers at small businesses or changing jobs every few years were cut out of those fixed-benefit pensions. According to data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), traditional pension benefits may have peaked in 1991, with 37.1 percent of people over the age of 65 receiving income from private or public pensions. In 2009, that figure had fallen only a bit, to 34.5 percent. So, historically, only a minority of retirees have ever received that vaunted monthly pension.

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