A 35-year-old individual is inquiring whether it is feasible to retire comfortably by age 55 and the steps necessary to accomplish this goal. He is married to a 30-year-old homemaker. When he reaches 55, his wife will be 50. So, we shall plan for retirement income until she (the younger spouse) reaches 90. Therefore, he…

We discuss the role of income laddering (annuity laddering) in retirement planning and how to implement it. There are two extreme options in retirement planning: one where the corpus is managed in a diversified portfolio, and an increasing income is withdrawn from it as required. This is known as the bucket strategy.  We had earlier…

We discuss how retirement products like the employee provident fund (EPF), the National Pension Scheme (NPS) and the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) can be incorporated into a retirement plan. Over the years, many readers have doubts about how to go about this, hence this article. At the time of writing, the UPS is not yet…

A reader says, “I am 50 years old and have been planning to retire at this age since quite a few years back. By god’s grace and my regular investments, I have managed to have a decent corpus, which I have validated using your robo-advisory tool. Thanks a lot for making this tool and helping…

A reader asks, “How can we be sure that post-retirement, our bucket strategy will help us to sustain the corpus in our retirement period with an assumed return of different asset classes and beat inflation?” While there are no guarantees, we can do enough to ensure we have more than a reasonable chance of success….

In response to our article, Ten mistakes to avoid while planning for early retirement, a reader asks, ” Very helpful. I have a question for you regarding point 1. I want to be productive after retirement, which is 7 years from today. So, how do I go about doing that?”  This is point 1 from the…

A reader says, “Was going through your article on “Should I withdraw from PPF to increase my Equity allocation”. I am in exactly the opposite situation. I am 51 and want to retire now. My Equity allocation is 58%, and my Debt is 42%. Should I sell my equity and move to Debt to maintain…

A reader says, “I am a senior citizen and an investment banking professional with over three decades in the Middle East. As an NRI, who would return to India”. “The facts: Am a senior citizen , aged 63, with self owned debt free houses. Will live in one of them. A retired life for a…

A reader (age: 41, spouse, 36, wants to retire asap) wants to know, “What should be my retirement corpus if my current monthly expenses are Rs 1 lakh?” We shall use the freefincal Robo Advisor tool to consider some scenarios. 1. Current monthly expenses that will persist in retirement: Rs. 1,00,000. We can exclude expenses…

A retirement bucket strategy is an approach by which the retirement corpus is split into 3-4 buckets of varying risk. As retirement progresses and market conditions change, the retiree is expected to manage the buckets. That is, transfer money from one bucket to another to ensure the expenses (indexed to inflation, with some room for…

We have added a Coast Fire calculation option to the freefincal robo advisor. Coast Fire is best explained with an example. Suppose you are 25 years old and wish to retire by age 55. You estimate the retirement corpus required to maintain your current lifestyle to be Rs. 5 Crores. Suppose you wish to invest each…

Are you shocked to see the corpus required for retirement and the necessary investment amount? See, for example, the results of a retirement planning exercise. Don’t worry. The situation is perfectly normal, and you still have a shot at financial independence in retirement. Here are some generic steps to consider during and after a retirement planning…

I encountered an interesting YouTube comment:  “3% withdrawal is safe to retire at what age? The withdrawal rate is clear, but I am not sure if it has age attached to it. The longer the post-retirement life, the higher the uncertainty?” What does the term “safe withdrawal rate” mean? The safe withdrawal rate, or SWR,…

Retirement planning is a life-long exercise. Ideally, it lasts from when we draw our first salary/income to when we (or the surviving spouse) draw our last breath. During this journey, there are several stages. Each stage teaches us something new. Retirement planning has two stages – accumulation (pre-retirement) and withdrawal (post-retirement). Here are 12 stages…

A viewer on YouTube asks, “I am 45 years old. After watching many videos regarding MFund, I thought of asking you about my investment plan. 50k is my monthly salary. I am in a rented house only. Can you suggest an investment plan for my retirement in my own home?” At 45, retirement should be…