Fresh Ideas on Retirement
“There are parrots with larger vocabularies than most of us have concerning life in old age,” says the head of the MIT Age Lab. And he’s right. If we are beginning to spend one-third of our lives in the retirement stage, then we should have the benefit of thinking that meets us where we truly are.
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A Case of Deja Vu
Lessons from the Barricades: A Story of French Pensions and American Echoes
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Are You Smarter than a Samsung 5G?
Technology, more than perhaps any other single factor, will be instrumental in enabling more adults to age in place. That’s the wish of 76% of American adults over 50, but only 46% believe they’ll be able to do so. What if existing tech- such as smart sensors to detect falls- paired with access to on-demand service providers could be leveraged to that end?
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An Open Letter to Ken Fisher
Have you heard the news? Ken Fisher hates annuities. In the oft-repeated words of the billionaire owner of Fisher Investments: “I would rather die and go to hell before selling an annuity.” Ouch. But that got me thinking. When you announce that you hate annuities, are you effectively throwing out the baby with the bathwater? How should we feel about that? Is it misleading? Does it help financial literacy in our country? Annuities, in the generic sense, are a basic building block of all economics and finance. An annuity is simply a financial instrument for paying out a fixed payment stream. Yes;…
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Is Your Defined Benefit Pension on the Brink of Extinction?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the security of a guaranteed income stream can be hard to come by. At ALEX.fyi, we believe that finding a source of guaranteed lifetime income is crucial to a comfortable retirement. But don’t take our word for it. This week, employees of General Electric woke to the news that their employer took a hard look at its defined benefit (DB) pension liabilities- and took a hard pass. GE announced on Monday that it was freezing its U.S. pension plan for approximately 20,000 employees and offering a lump-sum payment option to about 100,000 former…
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The Magic Number
Congratulations! You’ve had a successful career and you’re on the brink of retirement. Take a look at that 401(k). Maybe you’re lucky and have a million dollars to stretch out for decades. What does that mean for a monthly budget once you’ve retired? Hard to say, really. And what if you’re the average 60 to 69-year-old? Then the total is $195,500. Try dividing that by a lifetime, should such a calculator exist.
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Let’s Keep Woody Out of This
Why all the hate? What is with an anti-Baby Boomer movement that I seem to be seeing more of? Imagine my surprise when I read a movie review of Toy Story 4 in which the reviewer ruefully looked at the actions of cowboy Woody and thought: “God, that’s such a baby-boomer move.” The bias gets worse from there, believe it or not.
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A Retirement Crisis and a Solution
No less of an authority than the World Economic Forum has confirmed the obvious: there’s a retirement crisis in this country that is only set to get worse. A WEF report compares several major economies and comes up with a stark conclusion. There’s a $28 trillion retirement savings gap in this country that will become a $137 trillion savings gap by 2050.
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Pencils Down
Americans hold approximately $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. The longer that you look at that statistic, the more you see: this isn’t “just” a problem for young adults starting out in the world. Borrowers of all ages- parents and grandparents alike- are sacrificing their own retirements in order to repay student debt.
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Retirement Planning
It’s no secret that one tough aspect of retirement planning is settling on the optimal strategy for drawing down a nest egg. Planning for a couple creates an extra level of complexity. Much depends on the lifestyle preferences of each spouse, their different approaches to stock market volatility and, of course, their willingness to compromise.
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Health, Meet Wealth
They say 50 is the new 40, 60 is the new 50, and so on. That’s good news for those of us who have taken care of ourselves and plan for a long retirement. But the stellar checkup at the doctor’s office can mean sticker shock later. People with larger nest eggs can pay for life-extending medical care and so they typically survive longer. And because means-tested Medicare benefits are less available to them, they may end up digging deeper than expected.
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Caring Season
No discussion of the opportunity and challenges associated with longevity is complete without a consideration of the caregivers. November is National Family Caregivers Month, a time to honor the mix of selflessness, perseverance and love that comes with tending to a family member in need.
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Sabrina McLaughlin Smith 