November 2023

Retirement Planning in a Time of Inflation and High Interest Rates

Retirement planning can be a complex puzzle to solve, with multiple pieces that need to align for a comfortable retirement. In recent times, two significant factors have emerged to challenge this balance: rising interest rates and inflation. In this article, we'll discuss the impact of these economic realities on retirement planning for individuals and the strategies we recommend at Retirement Planners of America. The debt-free retirement goal At Retirement Planners of America, we tell our clients, “When our client retires, so should their debt be retired.”...

How to Calculate Your Retirement Cost of Living

When it comes to retirement, understanding the potential cost of living is important for effective financial planning. Without a clear idea of these costs, you can run the risk of outliving your savings or compromising your lifestyle. Here’s what you need to know to calculate your retirement cost of living. A financial advisor can help you determine what you need to put in your budget for retirement. Finding a financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three...

Retirement Planning: The Volatility-Adjusted Coverage Ratio

By Javier Estrada  The important decisions that retirees have to make to try to achieve their financial goals during retirement often stem from models used by financial planners. Despite the important role it plays in many of those models, the failure rate has several limitations and many alternatives have been proposed. This article introduces a new metric, the volatility-adjusted coverage ratio, which incorporates the benefit (the coverage ratio) and the cost (the volatility of the portfolio) of the strategies considered....

3 Factors That Affect People’s Retirement Planning Decisions

A whopping 95 per cent of respondents “adhere” to their retirement plan, while 54 per cent follow it precisely, and 41 per cent miss out on a few aspects occasionally, according to the PGIM India Mutual Fund Retirement Readiness Survey 2023.   Sixty-seven per cent have a retirement plan in place, while 63 per cent believe they have a comprehensive one. Regardless of a retirement plan, fixed deposits (FD) are the most preferred investment vehicles among the respondents. FDs bagged the top place in the survey, followed...

Study finds lack of financial planning leads to higher risk of death

People who don’t plan financially for their future have an increased risk of dying prematurely, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research. The research found that procrastinating financial planning for the future isn’t only bad for the wallet, it can affect life expectancy. The study analyzed data from thousands of older adults living in the U.S. and England, according to a release. The two groups were asked about their planning horizons on spending and saving. The researchers later checked government...

October 2023

Insights for helping employees build enduring financial wellness

By Always Designing for People Improving long-term financial wellness is a clear priority for many employees, according to a recent survey by Retirement Insights, LLC. Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents said they prefer saving for the future over spending on current needs. Yet, many of them find some pieces of the retirement planning puzzle to be unclear and would like financial education from their employer to help them with complicated calculations and decisions. You can fulfill this unmet need and make...

Time Consistency in Optimal Retirement Planning

By Frank Bosserhoff, An Chen & Manuel Rach We study time consistency in optimal consumption problems of annuities and tontines. We find the annuity problem to be time-consistent, hence delivering the same optimal consumption at each time. The tontine problem, however, is found to be time-inconsistent, opening the possibility for individuals to increase or decrease their overall expected utility by changing the ex ante fixed consumption profile. However, such an increase in the utility of the tontine cannot lead to...

Retirees tend to be happier than younger people — even if their finances aren’t great

Much of the work we do suggests that people are not saving enough for retirement. More specifically, since 2006 we have published our National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), which uses the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances to compare households’ projected replacement rates — retirement income as a percentage of preretirement income — with targets that would maintain their standard of living. Those households with a projected replacement rate that is more than 10% below the target are characterized as...

Understanding Financial Vulnerability Among Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics in the United States

By Andrea Hasler, Annamaria Lusardi, Olivia S. Mitchell & Alessia Sconti The COVID-19 crisis has brought to light the deeply rooted financial struggles that many people face in America, and it also exacerbated racial inequality. In particular, minority communities have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic in many ways, making them ideal targets for efforts to promote financial well-being. This paper examines the financial vulnerability of Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics in the United States, along with potential drivers, using data...

US. Inflation Spurs Rethink of Retirement Savings Strategy, Survey Shows

Two-thirds of Those Surveyed Aren't Confident They Will Be Able to Retire When They Want Inflation is creating more worries for retirement savers, with many now changing how they are saving and investing to meet those goals, a new survey shows. Persistently higher prices from inflation is leading 60% of retirement plan participants to think differently about retirement, according to the 2023 Global Retirement Survey from MFS Investment Management. Three-in-four said they now need to save more for retirement than they originally thought,...