Wednesday 25 October 2017

Opinion: You need millions to retire — and more misconceptions about retirement savings.

Roadside Attractions/Courtesy Everett Collection
Avoid these mistakes if you want to maximize your freedom, comfort, and peace of mind in retirement.

Retirement planning can be hard. Annuities, estates, health care, retirement calculators, safe withdrawal rates, Social Security, taxes. There are many pieces to a successful retirement plan.

But almost all of those topics boil down and feed into the one question that outranks all others: How much money do I need to retire?

I’ve been a serious student of the retirement equation and retirement lifestyles for more than 10 years. There is a lot to be said on these topics. (Witness more than 200 articles on my blog, and thousands more spread across the internet.)

I’m also a fan of simplicity, but beware oversimplifying the retirement analysis. When it comes to the question of “How much?” it is tempting to fall back on easy answers or “expert” opinions. But a realistic retirement plan, updated as you go, will be much more useful as you navigate the retirement years.

When it comes to retirement savings, there are three misconceptions that outrank all the others. Avoid these mistakes in thinking if you want to maximize your freedom, comfort, and peace of mind in retirement….

Misconception No. 1: You don’t need to save because the government will take care of you
Most of you reading this don’t make this mistake. But you aren’t the average worker. For whatever reason, many Americans simply don’t think much about retirement. To be fair, some are too busy making ends meet day to day. Some perhaps are intimidated by the numbers and the financial complexity. And some are lulled into a belief that government, in the form of Social Security, will take care of them.



By Darrow Kirkpatrick.

Full story at Marketwatch.

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