SPECIAL REPORT How Long Will Your Retirement Income Last You?
Introduction 1 Introduction 2 Social Security 3 Bridging the Income Gap 4 Potential Solutions 5 Conclusion As you approach retirement or if your retirement has already begun, it is important to reevaluate many areas of your life. Questions often swirl around, uncertain and unanswered. How much will you spend in your retirement? Will Social Security still be around to provide income? How long will your investments and your assets last? Our hope is that this special report will help shed some light on these most-important questions. For a lot of people, approaching retirement means cutting-back their expenses and spending less. More often than not, however, this is a knee-jerk reaction to the fear of spending too much and running out of money. What if you could spend even more than you thought, and still be OK? On the other hand, have you taken the time to project your income, expenses and retirement assets to be certain exactly how long they will last you? In a world full of uncertainties, leaving your retirement income to chance is a dangerous path. I stress the importance of having a comprehensive retirement income plan to each one of my clients. We discuss their annual income needs in retirement to maintain their lifestyle and we design a plan that can achieve that for them, while also considering emergency funds and leaving a legacy. Let s dive into two main opportunities that can generate guaranteed income and how they might be vital components of your retirement plan. Your Next Steps: Once you ve read this report, be sure to give us a call for help building a retirement income plan that will give you stability and peace-of-mind! It would be our privilege to help you however we can. Sincerely, Tami Simpson CFP Financial Advisor Call us today: 714-617-4394
A Heavy Reliance on Social Security Social Security has long been relied on for retirees and is the main form of guaranteed income for millions of Americans. According to the Social Security Administration, in 2016 42.5 million people received retirement benefits with another 6.1 million receiving survivor benefits. These are huge numbers which show how strong the reliance on a guaranteed Social Security benefit is. In fact, the SSA also reports that 61% of beneficiaries, aged 65 or older, received at least half of their income from Social Security in 2014. Yet, with the average payment for those aged 65 or older being $435*, how are retirees expected to make up an income shortfall, should there be one? Too many retirees don t plan for their retirement income and this can inadvertently lead to spending through all their assets. Closing the income gap is a tall task that many retirees are left to face with after leaving the workforce. How can they make up the necessary supplemental income beyond Social Security, and guarantee it for the rest of their lives, to maintain their lifestyle? Sounds nearly impossible, doesn t it? 61% of beneficiaries, aged 65 or older, received at least half of their income from Social Security In the next section, we will discuss a popular option that countless individuals and couples are opting for. *SSA, Supplemental Security Record, 100 percent data.
Don t inadvertently spend through your retirement assets! Preventing the Income Gap from Draining Your Assets If your income in retirement does not meet the needs of your retirement expenses, you re experiencing what is called an Income Gap. A variety of factors can contribute to this Income Gap such as increased life spans, lower interest rates, higher taxes and healthcare costs among others. These, coupled with the shift away from Defined Benefit Plans can mean serious danger for retirees spending through all of their assets! The problem, however, is how are we supposed to know how much we need to save when we don t know how many years we will live in retirement; or what taxes, healthcare or interest rates will be? It s not as easy as accumulating while you work, retiring from your career and then spending down your savings. It is much more complex than that with all the other variables life throws at us. In the past, workers retiring received a Defined Benefit Plan, or pension, where a check arrived in their mailbox for the rest of their lives and they didn t fear whether or not they would be able to enjoy a long retirement. Now we live in the era of Defined Contribution Plans which puts us in charge of saving enough money to last the rest of our lives once we enter our retirement years and ensuring we allocate the money correctly to never run out. Today s retirees are left with the daunting responsibility to manage their own retirements and having likely never planned for a retirement before, the pressure to get it right is ever present. So, what investment vehicles are retirees choosing today to meet their financial needs and goals and bridge their income gap?
What Are Your Potential Solutions? You may think there is no solution, but options are available to you. One possible option is an annuity, a widely popular solution for many retirees. To put it simply, annuities are the only way to get guaranteed income for life which ensures you can never ever run out of income in retirement. No other solution can offer this kind of guarantee. Now, annuities aren t right for everyone and have gotten a bad rap in the past. But when you look closer you can see that many of the reasons people disliked annuities are not actually the case. Let s take a closer look at how an annuity works. A Fixed Index Annuity is a fixed annuity, either immediate or deferred, that earns interest or provides benefits that are linked to an external equity reference or an equity index. This annuity is not invested in the market but rather is linked to a market index. This means that if the market goes up, interest is credited to the annuity and if the market goes down the annuity doesn t lose anything. This is a great solution for many people as they can let their account value accumulate over several years and with positive returns in the market their annuity will grow creating higher payments for them when they need the income. The other side to this is if there are negative returns in the market the account value is not going to go up, however, it is guaranteed not to go down. The added safety in knowing that you are guaranteed not to lose money is an attractive feature for many. FIAs have offered countless retirees the solution to bridge their income gap. They know what income they are going to receive from Social Security and they supplement that with a FIA that is guaranteed to give them additional income for the rest of their lives. Fixed Index Annuities have helped provide safe and predictable retirement income allowing retirees to maintain the lifestyle they want and enjoy their retirement years.
Conclusion It is important to note that every product has its pros and cons and its proper place, use and function within an individual s portfolio depending on personal circumstances and core financial priorities. An annuity might not make sense for you. However, I truly believe that guaranteeing your income for your retirement is a hugely important issue that you will likely be faced with, if you re not facing it already. It may seem like an overwhelming task to try and plan for a retirement when you probably have never done so before and don t do so for a living. As a Financial Advisor, I spend my time working with my clients to help plan for their successful retirements every day. We ensure that they don t have to worry about running out of money during their retirement years and help them achieve the peace-of-mind and confidence knowing that they re going to be well-off once they hit retirement, and for many years to come. Imagine a life where you never have to worry about running out of income. Give me a call today to create your income plan for retirement!
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650 Town Center Dr #920 Costa Mesa, CA 92626 Jim Smith 426 Main St. Chicago, IL 60604 How Long Will Your Retirement Income Last You?