If we boil things down to a simple two-part equation, retirement planning is all about managing inflows (income) during your earning years and outflows (expenses) during your retirement years. Of course, retirement means different things to different people at different points in their lives. Rather than a static state, retirement is a dynamic state, changing with life events, financial events, and even your own education as you learn more about concepts and products. The more information you absorb, the more comfortable you feel in being an active participant in the retirement planning process. Your plan for accumulating assets for retirement has to take all of this into account and be flexible enough to adapt to all kinds of changes. (more…)

I’ve written recently about the myth of retirement. Certainly, as baby boomers lose jobs at the end of their careers and watch their savings drop, retirement as a myth has become a reality for many.

We were actually sold a bill of goods. Or we chose to buy into a fantasy that wasn’t ever going to work. (more…)