Finally, there's a financial move that may also be able to get you over the emotional hurdle of dipping into assets to
fund retirement living expenses: buy an immediate annuity.
So if you're looking for a place to put money you really need to maintain its value at all times — an emergency fund, a down payment for a house you plan to buy soon, cash to cover a year or two's worth
of retirement living expenses beyond what Social Security will cover — then gold is a terrible fit.
When developing the model, we assumed an income strategy in which an investment portfolio is gradually decumulated over time to
fund retirement living expenses.
Similarly, buying an annuity for extra guaranteed income may not make sense if Social Security and any pensions will already cover most or all of your
essential retirement living expenses.
That should sharply reduce your monthly payment, thereby trimming
your retirement living expenses.
If, for example, after toting up
your retirement living expenses (which you can do by going to BlackRock's Retirement Expense Worksheet), you see that your monthly Social Security benefit covers all or nearly all of your essential living expenses, then you may have all the guaranteed income you need.
Moreover, by paying off debt before leaving the workforce, we reduce the amount of income we need to generate each year to cover
our retirement living expenses.
So the more pertinent question is how much can you withdraw from your nest egg each year to cover
your retirement living expenses and still have a reasonable level of assurance that you won't deplete your savings too soon?
But if you begin with a decent estimate of
your retirement living expenses, how much of them you want to cover from guaranteed income and then resolve to adjust your spending from your remaining nest egg to avoid depleting it too soon, your retirement income plan will at least be off to a good start.
Take advantage of tools like the retirement calculator to estimate
your retirement living expenses or determine your Social Security retirement income.
Get a handle on
your retirement living expenses.
The remainder of
your retirement living expenses will be covered by annual, inflation - adjusted withdrawals of 4 % of your retirement savings.
And since yield and share price are inversely proportional Welltower's shares would need to decline, potentially hurting investors who are counting on selling shares in the next few years to fund obligations such as
retirement living expenses.
With uncertainty over the future of Social Security in the current White House cabinet, and an increasing strain on the system by aging Baby Boomers, a more prudent approach is to think of Social Security as an insufficient means of covering
your retirement living expenses on its own.