If you have qualified retirement accounts, unfortunately you're not going to be able to avoid Required Minimum Distributions (RMD's). We have a separate article [Click Here] that describes how these RMD amounts are calculated, but exactly how they can be taken is the subject for today. The IRS looks at qualified retirement accounts into two kinds of classifications. All company retirement plans belong in one classification and all IRA accounts belong in another classification. The IRS … [Read more...]

Does your need for life insurance end when you stop working?  That's a question I get often, and so it made sense to address it in our blog post today. It's common to think of life insurance as a need that replaces working income. It's certainly true that the primary spouse and even in non-working spouse have life insurance needs to replace income and/or additional expenses, but retirees have income sources that end as well. The primary being Social Security and pension. It's unavoidable … [Read more...]

I think it might be nearly impossible for consumers to keep track of the nuances of all of the different types of annuities. One of the easiest ways to distinguish them is to divide them into two categories: Annuities for accumulation only and annuities for guaranteed income benefits. Annuities can be used to accumulate money. The annuity wrapper protects all gains from being taxed. There are various investment options depending on the type of annuity. Variable annuities use mutual fund … [Read more...]

If you're still working, you may or may not be familiar with a "in-service rollover". Most companies allow you to rollover your company retirement funds into a self-directed IRA even though you're still working after you have reached the age of 59 1/2. There are tremendous advantages to the self-directed IRA over the options of the company retirement plan. Company retirement plans are generally built for the accumulator, and not the pre-retiree with only years left before retirement. That … [Read more...]

Moving from the accumulation to the distribution phase of life has some challenges. It's hard to go from seeing your account balances grow year-by-year to having them shrink year-by-year as retirement progresses. Ideally, you will live on just the gains and interest, but many retirees will need to draw their accounts down systematically over time to make everything work. That can feel disconcerting, especially when you're used to growing account balances. Many retirees will compensate … [Read more...]