How to prepare for the “new normal” in retirement planning

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…

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Why we need to stop using Safe Withdrawal Rate (4% rule) for retirement planning

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…

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There is more to retirement planning than building a large corpus!

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…

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How a retirement planning calculation scared me to take action

Most investors calculate the investment amount required for their retirement and in for a rude shock. Sleepless nights are quite common! Very few investors manage their finances right after such a shock and start investing with focus and conviction. In this episode of ‘reader audit’, we meet Mr Tinker (name withheld on request), who got…

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