Do your investments match your values?
How much income are we going to need in retirement?
How do we make sure we don’t outlive the money that we have saved?
Every person’s retirement needs are different, but even within the variability, we all have several expectations in common.
Continue reading “How to set up Guaranteed Retirement Income”
My most vivid memory of the Seventies is sitting in the car with my siblings and parents in a mall parking lot the week before Christmas and my mother crying because they couldn’t afford presents and had to file bankruptcy. For a 12-year-old it made the challenges of real life… real.
The seventies were a traumatic time for many Americans… the end of the Vietnam war, the political chaos of Watergate and Nixon, the oil embargo, gas rationing throughout the decade, the suffocation of unions, the loss of jobs and industries as Japan and South Korea became exporters. Economic instability was an ever-present cloud.
Moving in waves through the decade, the economy suffered from bouts of inflation and deflation. It made policy decision-making challenging at best… boost the economy to keep it from slowing down, or is the economy running too hot?
Continue reading “2023 Inflation and Parallels to the Seventies”
In September 2024, the Federal Reserve finally started to cut rates after seeing lower inflation, strong labor markets and economic stregnth. The expectations at that point was for the Fed to cut rates 2 more times in 2024 and at least 4 more times in 2025. (1)
In November 2024, Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election and economists and Fed officials began to consider what impact policies around taxes, tarriffs and immigration would have on the economy. Going into the December FOMC meeting the expectation was for fed to cut rates 25bps, but the market was on edge as to whether the Fed plans to make further cuts in 2025. Could these new policies in the new year stoke or reignite inflation? (2)
Continue reading “Fed Expects Higher Inflation in 2025”
A recent study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that “many younger baby boomers and members of subsequent generations who don’t have access to a traditional pension could outlive the funds in their 401(k) accounts.” (1)
In the 1980s 401k plans began to replace pension plans in the workplace. Workers became responsible for accumulating their own retirement savings. Of workers born in 1947, 52% had pensions. By comparison workers born only 10 years later, only 21% had pensions.
The study compared retiree spending for people who had pensions and those who only had a 401k. They found that “retirees with pensions often didn’t spend their savings at all. In fact, many saw their nest eggs continue to grow after they stopped working.”
Continue reading “Strategies to Help Avoid Running Out of Money in Retirement”
In May 1974 Fed Chairman Arthur Burns gave a commencement speech to Illinois College. The speech was titled “The Menace of Inflation”.
At this point in the 1970s the nation had been struggling with high inflation for four long years… For perspective, we have been only dealing with high and rising inflation for one year so far. His voice offers a view of what to expect in the years to come.
Continue reading ““The Menace of Inflation”: Inflation in Perspective”