Study: Day-to-Day Financial Concerns Trump Retirement

How are you doing, financially? Are you satisfied with the state of your finances?

Think about your answer to that question and what drove it. If you are like most people, you were probably thinking about your day-to-day financial health -- your ability to pay your bills and buy the occasional movie ticket or latte.

Continue reading source article at DailyFinance.com.

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

Many Americans have no retirement savings: Fed survey

Many Americans are not financially prepared for retirement, with almost a third of working adults without savings or a pension, according to a Federal Reserve survey published on Wednesday.

The Fed's 2014 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking found that about 38 percent of the more than 5,800 respondents have either no intention to retire or plan to keep working for as long as possible.

Continue reading the source article at Reuters.com.

Damian Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

3 key retirement numbers you need to know

Retirement means different things to each of us. As you consider your vision for retirement, there are three key numbers to keep in mind; you’ll want to discuss them with your financial adviser if you have one:

Your withdrawal rate

This could be your most important retirement number. Your withdrawal rate is the amount you will be taking out of your investment portfolio each year once you’re retired.

Continue reading at MarketWatch.com.

Damian J. Sylvia
Managing Partner
Retirement Income Solutions

Save for college without hurting your retirement

Struggling to figure out how they'll pay for rising college costs, some parents are willing to dip into their retirement savings and delay retirement but may not realize that in doing so they may be jeopardizing their own financial security.

Some parents may not mind delaying retirement or may believe that using their retirement fund is the best alternative to help their child pay for college. More than half of parents recently surveyed by T.Rowe Price agreed that they'd rather dip into their retirement savings than have their child take out student loans. Parents worry about the long-term impact of student loan debt. Two out of five parents who used student loans to pay for their own college education said their payments have impacted their ability to save for retirement, according to that survey.

Continue reading the source article at CNBC.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

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5 Things to Do Now if You’re Near Retirement

Believe it or not, the last five years before you retire may be some of the most critical in retirement planning.

Don’t wait until the very last minute to make sure you are prepared, says Michael H. Milarski, a partner and senior financial advisor with Signature Financial Planning.

“Retirement is such an important transition for an individual and, oftentimes, people are so busy with their day-to-day lives that they don’t sit down to begin planning for this transition until they are a few months from their desired retirement date. As a result, they find themselves scrambling to try and get all of their ducks in a row at the last minute,” says Milarski. 

Continue reading the source article at FoxBusiness.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

220 Monmouth Road

Oakhurst, NJ 07755

Retirement Myth #1: I Can Wait Until I’m Earning More To Save For Retirement

The reality is if you start later in your working career you will need to save more money than if you had started younger.

The key years for saving have passed you by if you start in your 40s. Your best income producing years may still lie ahead but at 40 you have many more demands on your income compared to your 20s. You could have kids needing braces, college tuition. You may have kids from a first marriage. Then there is really no money left over for retirement savings.

Continue reading source article at CBSnews.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

220 Monmouth Road

Oakhurst, NJ 07755

 

Retirement 'Danger Zone' -- How to Get Through It

Are you prepared to enter the danger zone?

That's the time right around retirement when you have accumulated savings and are on the verge of drawing them down. A wrong move or a significant bear market at that point can have an outsized effect on your future financial life.

The question is, what constitutes a wrong move?

Continue reading the source article at NBCnews.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

220 Monmouth Road

Oakhurst, NJ 07755

Why Regular Retirement Saving Can Improve Your Health

More workers who make saving a habit report better health than those who do not. And it's not just about having a high income.

People who save money out of habit are more confident about retirement and better prepared financially, as you might expect. But there’s a sleeper benefit, new research shows. Consistent savers also are in better health—no small matter as longevity stretches out life spans and means you likely will live in retirement more years than you did in childhood.

Continue reading the source article at Time.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

220 Monmouth Road

Oakhurst, NJ 07755

Worried About Outliving Retirement Funds? Consider This

If you're worried about outliving your retirement savings, you're not alone. Research shows it's a top concern for many Americans.

In a recent survey, financial advisors noted that health-care costs, market fluctuations and potential lifestyle expenses caused clients the most stress about running out of money. To alleviate those fears, many financial advisors suggest annuities as a way to ensure that clients have a stable stream of income during retirement.

Continue reading the source article at NBCnews.com

Damian J. Sylvia

Retirement Income Solutions

Consider using your home to fund retirement plans

The idea of staying in the family home may be a comforting thought for people heading into retirement, but for many Americans it's probably a bad idea.

The median two-person household entering retirement has a net worth of a just over $300,000, with a home—or equity in one—representing more than half of their assets, according to the latest University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, conducted in 2010.

Continue reading source article at CNBC.com [Video].

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

Are you emotionally prepared to handle retirement?

Fill in the blank: "When I retire, I hope to __________."

Many of us have grand ideas of trips we will take, groups or clubs we will join, home projects we will tackle or new hobbies we will take on. We look to retirement as a time to finally do all the things we've always hoped to do but never had the time to accomplish.

Continue reading source article at CNBC.com. 

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

These 4 Rules of Thumb Can Screw Up Your Retirement

Rules of thumb are often partly true—but the part that's wrong can wreck your portfolio. Here's what you need to know.

Retirement planning can get complicated, so we often fall back on rules of thumb, or “heuristics” as economists call them. That approach may work sometimes—and is certainly better than doing nothing—but it can be dangerous too. Here’s what you need to know about four largely-but-not-completely true tenets of retirement planning.

Continue reading source article at Time.com. 

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

2 ways to get guaranteed retirement income

Ask advisers this question and the answer may depend on how the adviser makes his living. If he or she sells annuities, you'll probably hear how wonderful annuities are and why you should have one. If, on the other hand, the adviser charges a fee to invest retirees' savings for retirement income, you'll likely get an earful about annuities' shortcomings and reasons why keeping your savings in stocks, bonds and other investments is the better way to go.

Continue reading source article on CNN.com.

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions 

Retire? Older Americans Plan to Work Until They Drop

A majority of workers aged 60 and older say they work for the health coverage or because they need the money.

It's the retirement elephant in the room: How much do you need to be financially secure if you stop working? The answer, from a pool of workers of all ages, was a median of $1 million, according to a new report.

Continue reading source article at Bloomberg.com.

Damian J. Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

Traditional retirement possibly becoming a thing of the past

It may be time to redefine retirement.

A new survey of American workers from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that 82% of the respondents age 60 and older either are, or expect to keep working past the age of 65. Among all workers, regardless of age, 20% expect to keep on working as long as possible in their current job or a similar one.

Continue reading the source article at USAtoday.com.

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner, 

Retirement Income Solutions

 

10 Ways to Fund Your Retirement

Most workers depend on the steady paychecks they receive from a single job. But retirees often have multiple sources of income, including Social Security, pension payments, withdrawals from retirement accounts or other investments and sometimes even income from a part-time job, according to a recent Gallup poll of 1,015 adults, including 652 workers and 363 retirees. Setting up several sources of retirement funds can give you extra security in retirement. Here are 10 ways you can pay for retirement.

Continue reading source article at USnews.com.

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions

4 ways to outlive your retirement savings

If you can work longer, for many people that will be a more palatable solution than saving a crazy percentage of your salary," Webb said.

Working longer also allows you to wait to claim Social Security retirement benefits.

Typically, the longer you wait to claim benefits, the bigger your monthly payments will be, up until age 70. Those who claim benefits at age 70 get a whopping 76 percent more per month than they would if they began drawing benefits at age 62, according to the book "Falling Short: The Coming Retirement Crisis and What to Do About It."

Continue reading the source article at CNBC.com. 

Damian Sylvia

Managing Partner

Retirement Income Solutions