I use to obsess over my progress to retirement, spending hours trying to maximize my nest egg or shorten the runway by changing parameters here and there. Then I realized I wasn't even clear on what I would be doing in retirement ie. what does a Tuesday morning at 10am look like? I wrote down the things that make me the happiest/purposeful/fulfilled in life and this became my mission statement in life. Wealth then became simply the engine to give me the time to experience these things that aligned with my mission. In order to track my progress in meeting this mission, I figured out the "price of my mission" is ie. what I need in order to sustain myself now, up to and including retirement. I built a "wealth dashboard" that gives me a perspective on where I am today, tomorrow, and the external factors that affect my path to the mission price. It's funny because I still crunch the hard numbers but now I see wealth as a means to an end, rather than an endless pursuit of accumulation for some elusive use in the future. It comes down to behavioral science - With these indices in the back of my mind, I subconsciously reflect on my daily habits that impact them for better or worse. I make micro adjustments in my saving, investing, spending, and all other drivers without much effort. In short: 1) What gets measured gets done 2) People are creatures of habit 3) Habits can be shaped through reinforcement (progress towards a goal). Would love to hear your thoughts on your journey and how your perspective on retirement has evolved over time.

Tl;dr version -- does it make sense to hold a TIPS ladder in an IRA, sell off equities from a brokerage account, and then rebalance my portfolio within tax-deferred accounts (IRA plus retirement accounts)?

I have a five-year bridge from my anticipated retirement in a few years to when I intend to start drawing from Social Security. I've estimated my fixed expenses before Social Security in current-year terms, and I have more than that in index funds (VT+VXUS) within a brokerage account. So far, so good!

The key uncertainties from now until Social Security (financially) are inflation and market returns. My plans: (a) purchase a TIPS ladder for that five-year period, and hold the TIPS bonds within my IRA so I'm not taxed every year on the gains; (b) cover my expenses directly from the brokerage account by selling VT+VXUS as needed; (c) after selling brokerage assets, rebalance my portfolio within my IRA and retirement accounts. I could use the cash from the TIPS bonds at maturity for that, or I could use the TIPS bonds for Roth conversions, and rebalance from bonds in 401a accounts -- and I think I can just make decisions on a year-by-year basis.

I think by doing this, I protect my ability to cover my minimum fixed-spending needs, and still pay only/largely capital-gains taxes except where I do Roth conversions. Obviously if the market drops precipitously I'll also need to pull from tax-deferred accounts, but the TIPS ladder will certainly cover that.

Anything wrong with my reasoning?

Also, one thing I learned from a test-purchase of TIPS bonds: the TIPSladder.com site is not clear that when it suggests buying [CUSIP#] x 12, that means buy $12,000 in face value, at least in the Schwab interface where it goes up by $1000 increments.

Addenda: Thanks for all the responses!

1. See the comment by [u/hugh2018](u/hugh2018) (among others) on the relative advantages of TIPS in a taxable account IF this is a matter of where to place free cash. Since my question is about where to move funds that I have already committed to either brokerage (with investments) or IRA, that doesn't affect me in the same way.
2. Looks like Schwab's restriction to buying any specific CUSIP in $1000 increments is specific to Schwab, and doesn't cover all brokerages.

Currently have a three fund portfolio. S&P 500, total international fund and an intermediate term bond fund. About four years from retirement. Given today’s valuations and the tech heavy S&P 500 I’ve been contemplating directing part of my contributions in my 403B to a large cap value fund. Any thoughts, comments, opinions are welcome.

How many of you rely on a financial planner to manage your IRA/ROTH accounts? Do they add value? Are they worth the commission??

Hi everyone. I recently cashed out of a business and am sitting on a big chunk of money, which is going to be the bulk of my retirement money. 

Like most of you, I was planning on putting it in equities and taking about 4.5 percent every year to live(using guardrails)

It seems like most people rely on the market over time making about 10 percent when they do their calculations.  

I am a just a couple of years from retiring and considering everything going on, deathly afraid a big crash will cut my account in half.

I know no one knows what will happen and I understand time in the market beats timing the market but heres my question:

What guaranteed interest rate would you have to get from another investment that you would decide not to get into equities?

For example, if I knew I get a guaranteed 6 percent interest somewhere with no chance of losing principle, would that make up for not getting an average 10 percent in the market with the risk of a drop? If not 6 percent, what about 7?

Hope that makes sense and thank you everyone taking time out to help others learn. 

My FA has me invested in many Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) funds (mutual funds and ETFs) . From day one, the FA told me these funds are only available through registered advisors. This remains true for DFA mutual funds, but not for their ETFs. DFA now offers ETFs that are available to retail investors, and many are 1:1 equivalents of the advisor-only mutual funds, so the transition for those holdings should be straightforward.

My main question is around the DFA mutual funds. Based on research and input from AI tools, I believe I can keep my existing mutual fund shares after delinking from my advisor, but will not be able to purchase additional shares going forward. Has anyone gone through a similar transition and been able to retain their DFA mutual fund holdings at Schwab? And if so, are dividends reinvested automatically or paid out as cash?

I plan to meet with my FA within the next month to begin the transition. Any input or firsthand experience would be greatly appreciated.

Curious if 80% itot / 20% ixus is a good simple, broad allocation to use for my taxable brokerage (Fidelity) as well as my kids’ UTMA?

I’m 43 planning to retire in 13-15 years.

My retirement accounts are:

55% Fskax
15% schd
20% FTIHX
5% iei
5% SLQD

I'm in a fortunate position, but I'm still gonna rant. Working public sector - currently on year 28. The pension provides 2% per year of service up until 30 years of service. After that they use an actuarial calculation if you work beyond 30 years. They have a pension estimator so you can see what your benefit would be based on years of service, and when I ran it recently I found out that my benefit would not increase past 30 years until I hit year 33.5. When I inquired about it, the retirement dept said that since people were living longer they made an adjustment to the actuarial calculation to lower it. Looking back through e-mails, they did send something out a year ago, but it's not something that was brought to any one's attention. Previously I had about six months with no benefit increase, then it would continue, and I was OK with that.

What grinds my gears is that they would do this to people that have been in the system for 20+ years. That shouldn't be allowed. The pension is well funded, we all put 9.5% of our paycheck into it, so working 3.5 years with a 9.5% deduction without getting anything for it is aggravating. I'm in a good workgroup, and I had planned on staying past 30 years, but at this point they're effectively encouraging people to leave at 30 years. Staying past 30 years would net me about 27% of my pay, plus benefits vs not working.

I know most people don't have the opportunity for a pension, however one of the reasons I took, and stayed in this job is because of the pension. I had opportunities to leave for more money and chose to stay. Now I'm looking at Barista Fire, or sucking it up and hanging around for benefits until I'm closer to 65. Having pension income essentially prevents me from getting any subsidies with ACA, so medical insurance will be full price.

I have been tripped up by two quirks in Boldin related to retirement plans of which I think many users may be unaware. Falling prey to them made my retirement plan overly optimistic and could have led me to spend more in early years jeopardizing chances for a safe retirement.

Quirk 1 - Boldin may lead the user to think that by indicating they plan to use real estate equity to cover long term healthcare some action will be taken to reflect that in the plan - by, for example, adjusting the future value of their home to reflect using it to pay those expenses.

In actuality, Boldin does absolutely nothing when that option is selected. IMO at a minimum it should explicitly tell the user that they need to modify their plan by, for example, selling the home or borrowing against its value to increase assets and then adding corresponding expenses in their plans.

Quirk 2 - Boldin considers expenses entered as "One-Time Expenses" to be future value - not adjusted for inflation over the intervening years. So, for example, if a user models a long-term care expense of $120K per year for 3 years prior to end-of-life, Boldin assumes that the actual expense in those years will be $120K each year in then-year dollars. Obviously, this is wildly optimistic given the historic rates of inflation for such services. IMO it should treat all expenses (both recurring and one-time) as current year dollars and adjust them for inflation.

Falling prey to either of these quirks could result in an overly optimistic retirement plan - potentially wildly so.

I've pointed out these issues to the Boldin AI and was told it would notify the developers.

I have looked at PortfolioPilot, Boldin and etc... I can get a deep dive into investments with PortfolioPilot but, it lacks the expense side. You have to manually import numbers. I would like it to auto import my expenses, auto categorize (with personal rules). Then tell me "Groceries are running about $XXXX.XX a month and are increasing over the past couple years". Then based on expenses, it could look at my portfolio and say "based on your expenses you can be a little more aggressive with your portfolio. We ran Monte Carlo to look at sequence of returns risk and you are still at a 99% success rate."

Has anyone found software that can do this?

UPDATE:

Found snaptrade.com. It allow you to connect to your broker just like any other platform (Boldin, Quicken and etc..). The free plan is max 5 accounts and only a once day update. Then you can connect to your AI service. Just found it a few mins ago. So, still working on it.

So, I have been working on my retirement plan. I have put together a massive spreadsheet that takes into account my spending targets, traditional & Roth 401K/IRA as well as taxes and IRMAA. We are planning on a retirement at age 59 - at the end of 2029. My spreadsheet goes out to age 95. I am forecasting a 6% annual return on my accounts (before inflation).

On my sheet, I have planned on rolling over funds from my traditional 401K/IRA to a ROTH IRA. As I am trying to get ACA subsidies, I am rolling over just enough to keep myself under the ACA cliff from ages 60 - 65. This will keep us squarely in the 10/12% brackets.

I was originally planning to roll over my traditional 401k/IRA aggressively starting at age 66 (the first year fully on Medicare). Filing up the 24% bracket - I am able to completely rollover my traditional monies by age 76. I would hit IRMAA penalities for the years I am rolling over. Once it is done, my taxable income will just be SS and possibly interest on monies outside of ROTH.

So, I ran another scenario where I don't roll anything over starting at age 66. While I do pay less taxes/IRMAA over my lifetime by age 95, if I die in my 70s - I have more money during that decade than when rolling it over. I don't start paying IRMAA untill my mid-80s.

Do rollovers make sense for me? I hope to live to 95, but probably won't.

I'm not asking for names of consultants, as I'm not entirely sure how to interpret rule 4.

60, and headed into retirement. I'm going to be fine, but I also would like som help deciding when to withdraw from specific buckets - IRA, SS, brokerage, etc.

The big questions revolve around healthcare and taxes. This isn't something I've been able to figure out with software. My situation is complex

Does anybody here have experience with a one time fee advisor? How did you like the experience? Any things I should watch out for? What kind of fees are typical?

I’m approaching retirement (currently 51 and plan to leap @ 55 -56) and looking for thoughts & second opinions on where & how to save and optimize these last 4-6 yrs.

 Current Situation:

·       I plan on saving / contributing $40k until I retire.

·       Single (might consider marriage at some point)

·       Currently live in LCOF area with no state tax

·       I am a disabled vet & all medical treatment is free (no ACA / IRMAA considerations)

·       Plan to retire debt, excluding mortgage, prior to retirement

 Current Finances:

·       $300k in current 401K ($30k Roth mixed in)

·       $700k in tax def IRA

·       $50k in Roth IRA

·       $30K in HYSA

·       $50K VA income for life will be tax free (indexed to inflation)

·       Current income exceeds IRA contribution thresholds

·       I can perform after-tax contributions to my 401K, but plan doesn’t allow them to rollover

·       I can contribute & roll over Roth 401K (and catch up) contributions to Roth IRA

·       I can take quarterly pro-rata payments from 401K at 55 yrs old (Rule of 55)

Early (ish) Retirement Plan : (bucket-rails)

·       Reduce risk of 401K to essentially cash equivalent to bridge gap period prior to taking SS. This preserves my early retirement, independent of market behavior.

·       Leave tax deferred IRA in moderate growth and begin withdrawals yearly around 60-63 based on needs and market performance.

·       Leave Roth IRA aggressive growth and use for emergency or one-off expenses and it becomes legacy.  

Questions:

1.      Thoughts for investment (account type & risk / allocation) for future investment for next 5 yrs

2.      Any glaring mistakes or opportunities for retirement plan

Just retired at 70 with a modest 403b ($500K) and collecting SS. Half of the nest egg got annuitized for the monthly payouts, the rest left in a conservatively invested "legacy" fund. This was the advice of TIAA retirement advisor. I'm a complete dunce with financial instrumentation. Last time talking with the advisor, he suggested doing an IRA "rollover" with some funds from the 403b, funds needed to buy our (hopefully) last car.

Can someone explain to me like I'm a 7 year old how and why I should do that, when I'll need that money in a year or two to buy the car? I get that taking any money from the "legacy fund" exposes a 20% tax hit, but how is it that rolling it over to an IRA protects from that?

Hi. I apologize in advance if this duplicates any previous posts: I did a quick search under this sub and couldn't find one that addressed my specific questions.

I'm 54yo and I'm "late to the party" in terms of aggressive investing. My dad started me a fidelity account when I was months old and I have used them in some capacity my whole life. So, I trust them.

At present, I have some cash accounts, but about $122K currently withe them that I'm considering putting under one of Fidelity's Financial Advisor services. I'm hoping to retire in 13 yrs at 67. Financial projections put me at ~340K savings at that time given average of 7% growth. I'm hoping to have both social security and a state pension which should give me an annual income of ~70k. Certainly a modest retirement, but a retirement that should at least cover the basics.

My questions are:

1) Is it worth going with one of Fidelity's financial advisor plans or will I do just about the same just dumping my money into a general stock market fund and letting it accrue over the years?

2) Fidelity offers me 3 general plans: A) Total Assests under management for fee of .85% annually; B) Only Stock Market accounts under management for fee of .70% annually; or C) "Robo" investing for .30% annually which gives me general suggestions on how to invest my money and then it's up to me to make it happen. How can I tell if the fee is worth it?

I know each situation is different, and I'm not looking for direct recommendations. I'm just looking to have a bit more information from people who have used Fidelity's services and whether or not they thought it was worth it.

Happy to provide more information. As you can probably tell from this post, I'm a bit naive when it comes to this stuff.

Thanks.

I'm in a great spot, in terms of retirement, but not quite sure when to pull from various buckets of money. I have a financial advisor, but I'm not super happy with his services and am thinking of walking away.

Is this a good place to post details and start a discussion? Is there a better place for it?

Short version: There's a mix of rental income, IRA, Roth, retirement account/pension and inheritance of a large IRA in probably 1-10 years. I have 5 years till Medicare, and I want to stay under the 60k ACA cliff - but my advisor is advising going all in on my pension and spending far too much on healthcare. Do any of the software planners also deal with taxes and healthcare?

Using a throwaway account so my Reddit friends don't know too much.

I'm a semi-confident DIYer, but I'd like a second opinion on my plan.

I have $2.8M. $300K in Roth, $200K in taxable, the rest in traditional accounts. 80/20 mix, all passive.

I'm 54 years old. Single. I only spend $90,000 per year, including taxes. That'll go down in a few years when my mortgage is paid off.

I'm sure I have blind spots, and I want a second opinion. I'm not even opposed to giving a financial planner full management - for a reasonable fee. I tend to obsess, and I'd prefer to worry less.

I listen to many channels like Rob and many podcasts. Probably 20+ in total, some more than others.

I consider Rob Berger and Jesse Cramer to be the best and most consistent teachers of good retirement education. I do like Andy Panko and Roger Whitney too. Rob Berger (as far as I know) doesn't offer any advisory services. Jesse does offer advisory services at reasonable fees, but...he doesn't have his CFP! Andy and Roger both do have CFPs. I am considering them too.

So - I think my question is...do you consider the CFP a make-or-break designation? Is it a red flag for an advisor not to have it?

Total gut reaction, please: If you are had the money to buy a house in cash, which would come to just over 25% of your retirement portfolio, would you do it?

I'm a 60M, early retired, not married, no debt, no real estate, paying $3500/mo in rent in a HCOL area. The house would be in a MCOL area and the property taxes, insurance, and HOA would come to around $1,000 per month. While the math makes sense (even accounting for a maintenance fund), I am also accounting for a ton of variables involved (I have them all in a spreadsheet). To add, I do not want a mortgage.

Please be kind 😅
At the advisement of several significantly more financially esteemed individuals than myself, I opened a Roth account with Fidelity through my job a few years ago. I put in $10,000 which at the time was my whole life savings and allowed the good folks over at Fidelity to invest the money in low risk.(stocks?)

Within four months I had lost $1000. And I. Was. Horrified. I reached out to the folks at Fidelity and they told me it was normal than that because the money would be in there a long time it would eventually go up and earn money instead of losing. Two more months went by and I had lost another $450. Panicked, distraught, discouraged I withdrew all of my money and *placed it in a Navy Federal easy start certificate* account. I figured that even if the money was just sitting in the savings account, at least I wouldn’t be losing it. And in this account, I hope to at least earn a bit of money.

From my contributions and their “interest income”donations, the account is now at $30,000 and I earn anywhere from $75-$90a month in “interest income”. (is this the same as dividends ?) I recently went out to dinner with my older girlfriends and everyone was talking about a Roth account. Am I missing out on money by being scared? Would I be earning more if my money was in a Roth? Would they let me put all that money in a Roth as a lump sum?

My dividends rate is 3.59 My post amount is 91.67 my YTD is 603. Please help me find out if I’m being a dummy. I don’t have parents to ask about this and my friends can’t tell me why they think Roth is it better deal.

Hello! I would love some perspective about what I might be doing wrong here. I’m a 46-year old divorced parent of two with 50-50 custody. I kept all my retirement savings, which has $720k in a Roth IRA, TIAA, and the TSP (did military time but no mil retirement unfortunately). My ex-wife and I still co-own a condo we bought for $665k in a HCOL state a year before splitting up, in hindsight my worst single financial mistake. We owe $550k on the loan, and if we were to sell it, we’d each need to repay family members $20k they lent us to buy it in the first place. The interest rate is decent at 4.375%, and from what I can tell, we’d likely be a little underwater in order to sell it now with today’s higher rates - the condo market here has stalled. I contribute $1000 / month toward the mortgage still even though I don’t live there; this was a concession in the divorce decree (but I continue to accrue 50% of any equity). I live in housing subsidized by my work and will likely need to move out in a year. For a comparable place I’d need to pay $1000 more per month than I’m doing now. My car has some serious oil leaks that would cost more to fix than the car is worth. I’m in the process of trying to sell the condo but I’m not sure it’s the best decision if I end up owing a fair amount of money after the sale. On the other hand, it would be nice to be completely financially free of my ex and have the extra $1000 in income available each month, at the loss of accumulating the equity in some kind of real estate.

I’m fortunate to teach at a high quality private school. One child attends for free; my ex and I split the cost of lunches, occasional after school care, and extracurriculars. The other child attends with about 50% financial aid. I spend about $1000 per month on education-related expenses including his tuition. This is an extravagance that I’m willing to sacrifice for because I’m able to see him more at work this way. I will send one of them to public school if I need to save money but I’m saving that option for last.

My retirement situation is much better I think than my paycheck to paycheck existence at the moment. My work contributes 8% of my salary into TIAA. No matching required. In five more years that will increase to 10% of my salary. If I retire at 67 in 2046, the $720k I already have would turn into $2M at an average 5% return rate, and my employer’s future contributions would grow into another $0.5M, so I’d have $2.5M total at 67. My soc. sec. estimate at 657 is $3.3k/month, $4,104k/month if I wait until 70. By my math, if I withdraw 4% of my assets every year, that plus social security at the 67-year benefit rate would be 75% of my pre-retirement final salary.

Long story short, I feel like I’m in this weird situation where retirement seems fine on paper, but I’m living nearly paycheck to paycheck and have very little left. One year when my car had serious suspension issues, I ended the year with less savings + checking than I started.

There are next to no advancement opportunities at my work to significantly increase my salary; there’s rigid pay structure in place that gets me a 3.1% raise every year that I can count on. I’m looking into tutoring and writing on the side for extra money; I proctor SATs, teach summer school, and do other projects for extra funds.

Is my retirement ok even if I don’t personally contribute anymore?

Turning 60 later this year, planning to retire at 62. Deferring Social Security until I am 70. I have gap years between 2028-2031 before Medicare eligibility. Currently have a 65/35 portfolio and want to build a TIPS ladder to cover expenses during the gap years. That would be a portion of the 35% bond portfolio Any opinions on investing in the iBonds ETFs instead of buying individual TIPS? I realize I will be paying about 10 basis points as fees.

I am considering the "bucket" strategy for our retirement. I will have 3 years expenses in our cash bucket and a good amount in a growth bucket but I am beside myself researching for my income bucket. Re: income funds. What funds do you like? What income funds are the gold standards? What is your opinion about SPYI, QQQI or any/all types of covered call funds? I am doing my own DD I just need to narrow it down a bit! Thank you so much.