In last week's article, we outlined the six-step process everyone should go through to complete their retirement blueprint. I have reproduced the entire article at the end for your reference.   In this article let's talk about step one, Establish Retirement Goals.   Establishing goals is a good best practice for any endeavor. Knowing where the finish line is allows you to stop running. If we equate building a successful retirement to constructing a new house, establishing goals … [Read more...]

Are you like me?   I like following directions. When my kids were small, the first thing I did after opening a toy on Christmas morning was to read through the directions and make sure that I followed them step-by-step to minimize my frustration and make sure that everything was put together correctly.   If I'm following a recipe, I'm going to read through each step carefully and make sure that all my measurements are exact so that the final product is just as it is … [Read more...]

As retirees get older, it's common to shift a greater percentage of investment funds from stocks to bonds. This has been traditional wisdom for decades.   Traditional wisdom may not be the best option right now.   The last several decades have seen a bull market for bonds. They have been an effective safe haven when the stock market has gotten volatile and risky. But one thing has changed… the direction of interest rates.   Bonds and interest rates run inversely to each … [Read more...]

I read the following article this last week. I thought it was interesting and I thought that you might be interested in the results for California which I'll reproduce below: … [Read more...]