What to do with your 401(k) or 403(b) if you leave your job

A while back, I had the radio on in the car, listening to an investment show on the radio: “Hi. My name is Ron. I am a first time caller.” “Hi, Ron. What can I help you with?” “I was laid off from my employer due to downsizing. I was wondering whether to leave my 401(k) where it is or …

Protect against inflation or preserve capital?

A man is lying in his hospital bed, surrounded by friends and family, reflecting on his recent near death experience. “I always thought it’d be the ulcer that killed me. I did everything the doctors told me. I drank the cream, ate the butter, drank the milk. And now I have a heart attack!” This was a scene from the …

Step #5 – Retirement Preparedness Checklist: Create Enough Cash Flow to Cover Retirement Expenses

Think about this. Most companies don’t go bankrupt because they are not profitable. They don’t go bankrupt because the value of their assets has declined. They go bankrupt because they do not have sufficient cash flow to pay their creditors and employees. A company can lose money, on paper, but stay in business indefinitely so long as it has sufficient …

Step #1 – Retirement Preparedness Checklist: Create Personal Financial Statements

No self-respecting Chief Financial Officer would dream of trying to run a company without a constantly updated set of financial statements. Neither should you. That is why the first step, in our Retirement Preparedness Checklist, is to create personal financial statements. The Purpose of Personal Financial Statements Personal financial statements serve several very important functions: 1) they tell you where …

The Retirement Preparedness Checklist

Heavyweight champion and prolific pitchman, George Foreman, said, “The question isn’t at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income.” Before you turn in the keys to your office for good, you need to make sure you are prepared financially for life without a paycheck. Use this handy Retirement Preparedness Checklist and correlating worksheets to make sure you …

How to manage stock market volatility in retirement

In retirement, one of the scariest things, particularly when you are dependent on your investment portfolio for a large portion of your retirement income, is how to deal with the ups and downs of the stock market and the economy. You may believe that, in order to do that, you have to be able to get into the market as …

Tools for surviving the investment income famine

UPDATED 2019: This article, originally published in 2010, continues to be one of our most popular posts. Please keep in mind that it is possible some of the facts offered have changed throughout the years.However, our sentiments have not. Scott Burns and I agree on many things. We agree that you cannot beat the market by picking stocks. We agree …

The mother of all reverse compounding problems

The only proven way to achieve a passive double-digit yield to replace your income is to own businesses – either directly or indirectly through common stock ownership. But this creates a challenge. The chart shows each of the bear market declines since the end of World War One. We are in the tenth decade and there have been twenty bear …