5 Retirement Planning Items you Should Take Care of Now

I am amazed at how many people I meet who haven't prepared properly for their retirement, a time of life when you will go without earned income — potentially for decades.

Whether you are your own financial adviser, embarking on this project alone or you have procured the help of a professional adviser, there are numerous considerations you will need to address. All of them will take time to think through and give due consideration before making final decisions. 

Here are five important issues, often over looked, which will require your attention during your preplanning:

Click here to read the source article at MarketWatch.com.

Damian Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

The proven way to retire rich

Last year, the National Bureau of Economic Research with professors from the University of Pennsylvania, George Washington University, and North Carolina State University, released a study entitled "Financial Knowledge and 401(k) Investment Performance."

In it the authors found that individuals who had the most financial knowledge -- as measured through five questions about personal finance principles -- had investment returns that were on average 1.3% higher annually -- 9.5% versus 8.2% -- than those who had the least financial knowledge.

Click here to read the source article at CNN.com. 

Damian Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

Is it ever a good idea to tap into your 401(k) early?

Your retirement savings are intended (obviously) for retirement, but what if you need them now? The IRS offers some provisions for withdrawing savings from an IRA or 401(k) before retirement age without incurring a penalty—and President Barack Obama recently added another hardship option in his budget proposal. But that doesn't mean it's a wise move. 

A new white paper from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College estimates that about 1.5 percent of assets "leak" out of 401(k)s and IRAs each year, on average, through early withdrawals, cash-outs or loans.

Click here to read the source article at CNBC.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

Retirement: Why small-business owners don't save

Baby Boomers are becoming entrepreneurs at an amazing pace. By some accounts they are starting 50% of new businesses. The U.S. Small Business Administration says more than 5 million Boomers 55 and older either own businesses or are self-employed.

There are plenty of reasons for this rush to entrepreneurship: They have the skills, they have the dreams and many aren't ready to retire. Also, many don't think they have opportunities to continue to work in Corporate America once they get to a certain age.

Continue reading source article at USAToday.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

Obama Proposal Recognizes How Retirement Saving Has Changed

Here is a short tale of how the way Americans save for retirement has changed over the last couple of generations. It helps explain what the Obama administration is up to with a new initiative this week:

Once upon a time, companies took it as their responsibility to ensure that their workers could enjoy a comfortable retirement. They socked money away in a pension plan that paid longtime employees a healthy fraction of their salary from the day they retired to the day they died. Employers took on all the risk — the stock market dropping, people living longer than expected.

Continue reading the source article at NYTimes.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

Retirement: 5 tips on how to save $1 million

One million bucks is a lot of money. It certainly is impressive if you're one of the few who has saved that much for retirement — looking at your statement and seeing all those zeros.

And even financial planners who say you might need more for your retirement can't argue that it is an impressive start. After all, people are living longer; you may have unanticipated health care costs; and you really want to maintain that standard of living you are accustomed to.

So, here are five tips for saving a cool million by the time you retire.

Continue reading source article at USAToday.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

Should You Save More For Retirement Or Pay Off Your Mortgage Early?

One of the most common questions we get is whether to put savings toward paying off a mortgage vs. investing more for retirement. This question is tricky because the answer can vary depending on which stage of life you’re in. Are you in the accumulation phase of trying to build wealth or in the distribution phase of using that wealth to generate income?

The Accumulation Phase

First of all, make sure you have an adequate emergency fund before paying down your mortgage. While paying down your debt may make you feel safer, it’s actually safer to have some money in savings that you can use to continue making those mortgage payments should Murphy’s Law kick in. Even if your mortgage is paid off, you’ll need emergency savings to keep the lights on, food on the table, your car in the driveway, and gas in that car if something happens to you.

Continue reading source article at Forbes.com

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

9 Great Places to Retire

This year’s Best Places to Retire list may surprise you. None of the typical beach-and-golf spots made the cut. The reason is simple. Most popular retiree destinations score surprisingly low in the factors that help guarantee a financially stable retirement, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security.

To help you find a secure place to spend your post-work years, MONEY limited the Best Places to Retire list to the 12 states ranked highest by the NIRS. The result: 9 winning towns that offer affordable living, great encore career opportunities, and plenty of amenities.

Click here to continue reading the source article at TimeMagazine.com

5 Steps to prepare for a 2015 retirement

If you've spent the past several decades working and are looking forward to retiring in 2015, the last thing you probably want to hear is that there's more work ahead. But a successful transition to a secure retirement is well worth the extra work and preparation.

Here are five steps to prepare for a 2015 retirement:

1. Craft a monthly budget or spending plan

A budget or spending plan helps determine what you expect to receive in retirement income vs. your anticipated living expenses. Open a notebook or a spreadsheet and, in one column, write down your expected monthly income, including Social Security, pension and withdrawals from your retirement funds. In a second column, estimate your average monthly expenses, which gives you a framework of your finances.

"Take a test run first," says Curtis Sheldon, a financial planner based in Alexandria, Va. "If you can, try living on what you expect your retirement living expenses to be. Can you do it?"

You might not be able to increase your income much in retirement, but you can certainly pare down your expenses. Money-saving ideas include downsizing into a smaller home, moving to a city with a lower cost of living, selling a car you might not need and taking fewer vacations.

Click here to continue reading the source article at USAToday.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

Book: Brooks asks is $1M enough for retirement?

Is $1 million enough money to live comfortably in retirement? How much do you need?

USA TODAY retirement columnist Rodney Brooks answers these questions and shares some of his best columns in his new e-book, Is One Million Dollars Enough? A guide to planning for and living through a successful retirement.

The topics range from what to do if you haven't saved enough for retirement to how to cope if you retired earlier than you expected to living through a retirement disaster. The book is available at major online book stores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble,iBooks, Google Play and Kobo.

Brooks writes in the introduction to the book: "Remember the good old days when you worked 30 years on the same job and retired with a gold watch and a pension? Your company took care of your health care in retirement. You paid off your mortgage and lived happily ever after.

Click here to continue reading the source article at USA Today.com.

Damian J. Sylvia
Managing Partner
Retirement Income Solutions