Safe Retirement Income

Your Retirement Depends on It

Tim Barton, Chartered Financial Consultant

Pepin Wisconsin
715-220-4866

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She Solved Her Retirement Needs. And So Can You

Need retirement income you can’t outlive? Have coffee with Meg. Take a video break and learn how Meg uses a single premium immediate annuity (SPIA) to alleviate concerns about outliving her retirement assets and being unable to meet monthly expenses.

Retire with Confidence

People are living longer than ever before, meaning that unpredictable market performance, higher health care costs, and rising inflation could impact your retirement nest egg. Social Security is in question, and you may or may not have a pension.
The reality is, many individuals may not be able to maintain their standard of living — or worse  — may run out of money during retirement.

Live Comfortably with Retirement Income- Consider the risks that can affect your retirement and life:

  • Lifespan – Living longer and outliving your retirement money.
  • Inflation – Cost of living increases that erode your retirement buying power.
  • Fluctuation – Market volatility that impacts your retirement assets.
  • Experience – Life events that require retirement plan flexibility.

At what rate can you safely withdraw from your portfolio to address these risks?

  • According to the Journal of Financial Planning, the safe withdrawal is 2.52%.

Contact www.TimBarton.net

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About Advanced Directives

About Advanced Directives

Advance Directives are a way to “have your say” about the type of care you receive (or don’t receive) in theautumwalk event you suffer a catastrophic medical event, such as a stroke or an accident, that leaves you unable to communicate your wishes. Every adult should plan ahead by completing an Advance Directive that specifies his or her personal preferences in regard to acceptable and unacceptable medical treatments. There are two types of Advance Directives:

Living Will

A Living Will states your preferences regarding the type of medical care you want to receive (or don’t want to receive) if you are incapacitated and cannot communicate. You specify the treatment you want to receive or not receive in different scenarios.

Medical Power of Attorney

Also known as a durable power of attorney for health care or a health care proxy, a Medical Power of Attorney names another person, such as your spouse, daughter or son, to make medical decisions for you if you are no longer able to make medical decisions for yourself, or you are unable to communicate your preferences.

Note that a Medical Power of Attorney is not the same as a Power of Attorney, which gives another person the authority to act on your behalf on matters you specify, such as handling your financial affairs.

Important Points to Remember

  • Each state regulates Advance Directives differently. As a result, you may wish to involve an attorney in the preparation of your Advance Directive
  • You can modify, update or cancel an Advance Directive at any time, in accordance with state law.
  • If you spend a good deal of time in several states, you may want to have an Advance Directive for each state.
  • Make sure that the person you name to act for you – your health care proxy – has current copies of your Advance Directive.
  • Give a copy of your Advance Directive to your physician and, if appropriate, your long-term care facility.

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Odds of Surviving Critical Illness Dramatically Increase

Odds of Surviving Critical Illness Dramatically Increase

With advances in medical treatment and technology, many people now survive critical illnesses that would have been fatal in the past.  As a result of this increased life expectancy senior Americans have the opportunity to watch grandkids grow into adulthood and start families of their own.  Enjoying some great grandkids is a real possibility.

Some unhappy news; many retirees will at some point become critically ill as the following statistics demonstrate.  The need for planning in order to avoid becoming destitute is more important than ever.

Cancer:

  • Men have a slightly less than 1 in 2 lifetime risk of developing some form of cancer. For women, the lifetime risk is a little more than 1 in 3.
  • Between 2002 and 2008, the 5-year relative survival rate for all cancers was 68%, up from 49% in 1975 – 1977.
  • It is estimated that over 1.6 million new cancer cases were diagnosed in 2013.

(Source: Cancer Facts and Figures 2013; American Cancer Society)

Heart Disease:

  • An estimated 80 million Americans have one or more types of heart disease.
  • Each year, an American will suffer a heart attack about every 34 seconds.
  • The lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease at age 40 is 2 in 3 for men and more than 1 in 2 for women.
  • It is estimated that the total costs of cardiovascular diseases in the U.S. was over $448 billion in 2008.

(Source: Heart Disease Facts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2013)

Stroke:

  • Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds.
  • Stroke is a leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the U.S.
  • It is estimated that Americans paid about $38.6 billion in 2010 for stroke-related medical costs and lost productivity.

(Source: Stroke Fact Sheet, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2013)

Will you have sufficient funds available to pay for:

  • Any insurance co-payments and deductibles;
  • Alterations to your home and/or automobile to meet any special needs;
  • Out-of-town transportation and lodging for medical treatment;
  • Treatments not covered by traditional health insurance; and/or
  • Shorter-term home health care during your recuperation?

Surviving critical illnesses increase our life expectancies, we will live longer than ever before.  At the same time, fortunately annuity ownership is rising  An annuity is the only guaranteed financial  hedge against longevity.  More than ever a retiree’s goal should be lifetime income not just income for 20-30 years.

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Probate Process for Your Estate

Probate is simply the Latin word for prove, which means that the estate probate process is the process by which your will is brought before a court to prove that it is a valid will. The courts charged with this responsibility are generally known as probate courts, which may actually supervise the administration or settlement of your estate.

The probate process is governed by state statutes that are intended to accomplish three primary objectives:

  1. To preserve estate assets.
  2. To protect the rights of creditors in the payment of their claims before the estate is distributed to the heirs.
  3. To assure that the heirs receive their inheritance in accordance with the terms of the estate owner’s will.

Once the estate’s personal representative (executor or administrator if the estate owner died without naming a personal representative) is approved by the probate court and posts any bond that is required, the probate process generally proceeds as follows:

  • The personal representative must “prove up” the will — prove that it is a valid will signed by the estate owner who was competent and not under duress or influence at the time of signing.
  • Notice must be given by the personal representative to all creditors to make prompt claim for any money owned to them by the estate.
  • The personal representative must prepare and file an inventory and appraisal of estate assets.
  •  The personal representative must manage and liquidate estate assets as appropriate to pay all debts, fees and taxes owed by the estate.
  • Finally, the remaining estate must be distributed to the heirs in accordance with the estate owner’s will (or the state laws of intestacy if there was no will).

It is not uncommon for the probate process to require a year or more and considerable expense before the estate is finally settled.

Proper planning, however, can serve to minimize the impact of the probate process on your estate and heirs.

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No Limits on Life, How Long Would You Live?

Imagine tomorrow at your local medical center the doctor asks you, “How long do you want to live? Just give me your desired age of death and I will conveniently make the arrangements.”

This must be make-believe fantasy. Well, not so fast. Consider what the Aubrey DeGrey, SENS Foundation’s chief science officer says about this possibility.

I call it longevity escape velocity — where we have a sufficiently comprehensive panel of therapies to enable us to push back the ill health of old age faster than time is passing. And that way, we buy ourselves enough time to develop more therapies as time goes on.

In other words medical science is moving faster than we are aging.

DeGrey continues.

I’d say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I’d call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so and what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious disease today.

Wow 50/50! Most of us would take those odds in any wager. But this is no ordinary wager; we’re talking life here and a lot of it. The ramifications to society as we know it are hard to imagine.

Exit questions.

How long would you choose to live?

Would the amount of your retirement savings dictate whether you choose to live or die?

If you are not retired when would you plan to retire assuming this new dynamic?

Perhaps we are on the threshold of these things no longer being an academic discussion.