Can You Retire? Part 3: Your Decision

In the last two articles, to help you answer the “Can I retire?” question, I went over an approach for calculating your essential living expenses and for determining whether you will have enough income from “guaranteed” sources to cover them. I also looked at what you could do regarding withdrawals from “non-guaranteed” sources, such as … Read more

Can You Retire? Part 2: Your Income

In the first article in this three-part series on financial planning for retirement, I introduced an approach for answering the all-important question, “Can I retire?” The article focused on the first step: Calculating your essential living expenses in retirement. In this article, I am going to discuss the second major phase of the process: Identifying … Read more

Closing out 2017

We are starting a new year. 2017 was a good one for retirementstewardship.com. We were able to stay on pace publishing an article about every two weeks, and also added a lot of new subscribers. So, first and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to every one of you who are subscribers and regular … Read more

The New Tax Law and Retirement Stewardship

You know the old saying, “The only things that are certain in life are death and taxes.” Yes, taxes are a reality – before, during, and even after retirement. But honestly, I don’t think or worry too much about taxes until tax time. Then I download a copy of TurboTax and go to work. My … Read more

Tithing and Giving in Retirement

Most of us will see a change in our financial situation in retirement. Instead of earning an income from work, we will start receiving income from other sources such as Social Security, pensions and/or annuities, and possibly withdrawals from our retirement savings accounts. Since our income sources will change in retirement, in what ways should … Read more

7 Hard Truths About Retirement

I was recently reading an article in Forbes magazine titled, “Can You Handle the Truth About Retirement?” It was enlightening but frankly also a little depressing. The author lists things like, “after you retire, the only guarantee is that you will die” (a true statement, but just a tad morbid, I think); “problems don’t go … Read more