In the ten-plus years that I have been making retirement calculators, I have received several questions on the inputs: what inflation rate should I take after retirement? What return should I assume before/after retirement? How should I account for current expenses? What should be life expectancy? And so on. One question that has never been…

Lakshmi asks, “I am now 30 years with very little savings. I wish to retire by 50. How should I plan for retirement?” She and her husband are both earning but do not have job security. Therefore, we will assume that they do not wish to be salaried beyond the age of 50 and assume…

We had recently discussed why we need to stop using Safe Withdrawal Rate (4% rule) for retirement planning. Many readers seem to be under the wrong impression that it is possible to fight inflation after retirement while ensuring the principal (nest egg) does not deplete. Here is why this is wrong. Let us reproduce the…

Anyone keen on financial independence after retirement, in particular early retirement, would have come across the safe withdrawal rate, in particular the 4% rule. Unfortunately, the 4% rule is misunderstood and misused that most of us are better off never using it for retirement planning! What is a safe withdrawal rate?  The safe withdrawal rate…

Each time I publish an updated retirement asset allocation, I get asked this question: “At age 46, are you not holding too much equity?” In this article, I discuss a common misconception about asset allocation and how much equity is suitable for a middle-aged person. As we begin investing for retirement, say in our mid-thirties,…

All retirement planning discussions focus on beating inflation, investing enough and managing the corpus post-retirement. However, there is more to retirement planning than using calculators and investing right. As regular readers may be aware, I have been creating and using retirement calculators for more than 10 years now and have seen the results change from…

This is an update of my retirement portfolio. After almost 13 years of investing in equity, it took a crash and a disproportionate recovery to increase my equity allocation significantly for the first time. So I reset the equity allocation from 65% to 60%. The intention behind these articles is to emphasise the reality that…

It seems incredulous that I am writing this in 2021. It feels like 1921 when I see so many people complain that the govt does not want to help senior citizens or the middle-class or the lower-income group. Every govt regardless of who is in power, tries to do its best to those who need…

How should funds in EPF be handled If we wish to quit our job and become self-employed or resign a few years before normal retirement or wish to retire earlier? Should we leave the EPF funds as is or should we withdraw? If we withdraw what are the alternative investment options? About the author: Sriram…

“How much money do I need to retire comfortably?” is the central question of retirement planning. Comfortably refers to (1) generating an income that will keep pace with inflation; (2) having some buffer in the corpus to handled unexpected expenses (recurring or one-time). However, there is more to retirement planning than just money and that…

This is a question posed by 35-year-old Prakash: “I would like to get Rs. one lakh a month pension when I retire. How should I invest to achieve this?” A pension after retirement is a necessary component of a post-retirement investment portfolio. However, it is not sufficient. A discussion.