Where Will 78 Million Boomers Retire? Facing the Challenge of Aging in Place-By Eric Pianin

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With roughly 78 million baby boomers at or near retirement and average life expectancies climbing, many independent-minded seniors are resisting the pressure to move to often costly retirement communities or assisted living facilities and are instead making plans to stay at home.

“Aging in place” is the new mantra for many older Americans and there has been a surge in community-based programs and activities to help them remain in their homes. Indeed, the rate of homeownership among people 65 and older is a remarkable 78.5 percent, compared with a homeownership rate of 63.5 percent among the general population. And that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

The challenge for many to both stay relatively healthy and hang onto their homes is formidable. An estimated 80 percent of seniors in the U.S have chronic health conditions that potentially could force them into nursing homes or assisted living without adequate health care support. And while 87 percent of seniors said in an AARP survey that their fondest desire is to remain in their homes and communities, depleted incomes and savings are making that harder and harder for many Americans.
So what to do?
A new report by a task force of the Bipartisan Policy Center released on Thursday is calling for a “more strategic approach” to linking health care and housing policies to help millions of seniors realize their desire to stay put in their homes as long as possible.
The report is highly critical of federal, state and local health care and housing officials operating in isolation from each other and calls for a more collaborative effort.
“By more tightly linking health care and housing policy, the U.S. has the potential to improve the health outcomes for seniors, reduce the costs incurred by the health care system, enable millions of seniors to 'age in place' in their own homes, and improve their quality of life,”   Vin Weber, a former Republican House member from Minnesota and co-chair of BPC’s Health and Housing Task Force, said in a statement. “Making these connections is critical as federal government spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs is projected to grow much faster than the overall economy over the next 25 years.”

The task force stressed the urgency of the government and private sector moving quickly to develop new ideas and programs for helping baby boomers as they reach senior status. By 2030, more than one in every five Americans will be 65 or older, compared to 13.1 percent in 2010 and 9.8 percent in 1970. In short, in a span of just 60 years the percentage of the population over the age of 65 will more than double.
According to recent Congressional Budget Office study, population aging over the next quarter of a century will be responsible for 56 percent of the growth in spending on major federal health programs. Enrollment in Medicare, the costly program providing health care for seniors, is expected to increase by 16 million people annually. That will lead to a total of nearly 81 million beneficiaries by 2070.
Medicare benefit payments totaled $597 billion in 2014, with roughly one fourth going for hospital inpatient services, 12 percent for physician services, and 11 percent for the Part D drug benefit.
With CBO budget projections showing that mounting Medicare and Social Security costs will greatly add to the deficit over the coming decades, task force members argue that a coordinated effort to help keep seniors both healthy and in their homes may be a critical tool for slowing the growth of the deficit.
The challenges are considerable but far from insurmountable.

On the health care front, seniors with chronic conditions like heart disease, kidney problems, respiratory ailments and obesity utilize high volumes of complex health care services – roughly 84 percent of U.S. health care dollars and 99 percent of Medicare spending, according to the report.
As the population of retirees steadily rises and more seniors try to remain in their homes, there will be increased demand for community-based services, such as transportation to and from doctors’ offices, help in doing household chores, exercise classes and counseling to treat the symptoms of social and emotional isolation.
On the housing front, many seniors – facing diminishing income and personal savings -- will need financial assistance in making their mortgage and rental payments.Most seniors will be homeowners, though the number of senior renters will increase dramatically, according to the study. However, many of them will struggle to find affordable housing and will need federal rental assistance.
What’s more, the report notes, “Older seniors are carrying larger mortgage balances into their retirement years, potentially impacting their ability to finance retirement and aging-in-place needs.”
The task force, which includes former Department of Housing and Urban Development secretaries Henry Cisneros and Mel Martinez and former Democratic House member Allyson Schwartz from Pennsylvania, is working to identify cost-effective ways to enable seniors to live more independently and safer. They will also seek ways of increasing the supply of affordable housing for seniors.
The good news in the report is that there already are many community-based programs throughout the country that have “successfully integrated” housing and health care for seniors.

Those include:

• Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future, a network of 11 nonprofit organizations that support and provide affordable rental housing for 115,000  low-income seniors and families in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The organization has demonstrated how housing providers “can work more effectively with the health care system, including with accountable care organizations and managed care entities,” according to the study.
  
• Vermont’s Senior and Services at Home program, which is operated by the housing provider Cathedral Square. The program is touted for having shown how closely linking the operation of housing and supportive services for seniors can slow the rate of growth of Medicare spending.
  
• A handful of  housing providers including National Church Residences and Mercy Housing “are proving that housing can be an essential platform for the delivery of health care and other services,” according to the report.
  
• Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services waivers also enable low-income seniors to receive assistance in their own homes and communities rather than having to move into more expensive institutional facilities. A few states are also using Medicaid funds to provide housing-related services to help individuals move out of more costly nursing homes and back into their communities.

“These are all positive developments,” the report states. “But with millions of Americans about to enter the senior ranks, the current window of opportunity is small and narrowing. Strengthening the collaborative bonds between health and housing must become an urgent national priority as we prepare for the demographic changes ahead.”

Culled from Fiscal Times

10 secrets of extreme savers -By Lauren Gensler

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Every so often you come across a story of an ordinary person, or couple, who accomplished an extraordinary financial makeover. In what seems like record time, they've knocked out big debts or saved enough to retire early or to take a year off to travel the world.

While these individuals have differing backgrounds and goals, their strategies can be boiled down to a simple set of instructions: Spend less, save more. Sure, this is easier said than done, particularly with ballooning student loan debt, stagnating wages and rising rents.
But to help you get started squirreling away more money, here are some top tricks culled from the superstar savers:
1. Set your sights on a goal
It's often easier to buckle down and sock away money when you're working towards something.
2. Take a hard look at monthly expenses
Set aside 10 minutes to comb through a recent credit card statement. Look for recurring monthly expenses you can cut out (maybe a subscription for a magazine you never read or an extra Spotify account). Also take the opportunity to negotiate bills for your TV, internet and cellphone providers.
3. Get creative with your housing
For most people, housing is their biggest monthly expense. To save, ask yourself if you could downsize, move to a less expensive neighborhood or get creative.
4. Challenge yourself to a buy-nothing period
Could you go six months or a year without buying any clothes, trinkets or iGadgets?
5. Swap restaurants for potlucks
Host potluck dinners instead of shelling out $50 for a meal at a nice restaurant. That way you can still spend time with friends, but for a fraction of the cost. You'll also hone your cooking skills.
6. Just say no to paying for entertainment
There are plenty of ways to spend your free time without opening up your wallet.
7. Take your DIY game to the next level
Become your own chef, handyman, barber, snow shoveler and car washer. “Most things people would pay someone else to do, we do ourselves,” says one Boston woman, who plans to retire with her husband when they turn 33.
Don't know how to fix a broken door or cut your spouse's hair? Consult the internet and give it a whirl. “It’s a really joyful cycle, to gain a new skill and have an experience,” she says.
8. Plan ahead
When you don't plan ahead, you're more likely to get desperate and throw money at the problem.
9. Side hustle
By taking on a side job or two, you can boost your income and ultimately save more cash.
10. Keep lifestyle inflation in check
When your income rises, you'll be tempted to upgrade your lifestyle. Try to resist.

Sometimes it's as easy as eating out less, canceling unread magazine subscriptions or riding your bike more often. In taking a hard look at where your money goes, it could also mean challenging yourself not to buy clothes for a year, finding a side gig or downsizing to a smaller house.
What is clear when you talk to superstar savers is that the challenge can be extremely rewarding. Take a husband-and-wife team in Cambridge, MA that has set their hearts on a very-early retirement (at age 33, to be exact). The self-described "frugal weirdos" have found that it's actually pretty great to try and do everything for themselves--from replacing rotted window frames to cutting each other's hair--rather than to pay someone else. “It’s a really joyful cycle, to gain a new skill and have an experience,” says Mrs. Frugalwoods, who goes by this moniker so as not to tip off her employer to her early retirement scheme. “It’s kind of become a game for us and we really enjoy the challenge.”

Living frugally doesn't have to be a death knell for your social life. When one New York City family put themselves on a budget, they refrained from telling friends and family for a while. “We made up in our minds that we were branded with this scarlet letter,” says 30-year-old Johnny. It turned out, however, that a lot of their friends were in the same boat and also didn't want to be shelling out for pricey dinners and nights out all the time.

Don't underestimate the power of having a goal either. Saving more for the sake of saving more is often harder than saving in pursuit of some goal, whether it's knocking out debt, saving for a down payment on a house or building up a retirement kitty. This couple saved more than 70% of their income because they wanted to retire in their 30s to travel the world.
Culled from Forbes

3 ways to give your retirement savings away - By Brian Preston, Bo Hanson

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Some people aspire to help others with the wealth they have built for retirement. There are a number of ways to be generous when you reach this stage in your financial life, both for altruistic and planning purposes. The top three giving priorities are typically charity, children and grandchildren. You can plan for each of these in a few different ways.

Charitable giving. Your retirement wealth can do a lot to help an organization you believe in. Here are a few ways to get a tax break while promoting a worthy cause.

-- Appreciated investments. Appreciated investments are an extremely efficient way to support your favorite charity. You receive a charitable deduction at the fair market value on the date of the contribution. You also avoid having to pay capital gains taxes on the appreciation of the security. Fidelity Charitable and Schwab Charitable are examples of custodians that allow you to donate stock, mutual funds and other appreciated investments.

-- IRA charitable distribution. In past years, those over age 70 1/2 were able to minimize the tax impact of their required minimum distributions from an IRA by redirecting their annual withdrawal to a qualified charity. This allows the retiree to avoid taxation on the distribution and lowers taxable income for the year, which might qualify the retiree for other tax breaks and decrease or eliminate the taxation on Social Security benefits. However, this tax break has not officially been extended for tax year 2015, but has previously been extended at the last minute.

Giving to children. Many parents aspire to leave money to their children. Here are some efficient ways to pass on your wealth.

-- Cash gifts. Giving gifts of appreciated investments to children is completely different than giving those assets to a qualified charity. A significant gift can turn into a tax disaster if not structured correctly. The problem with giving appreciated stock to family is that your tax basis, or the amount used to calculate the gain, passes with the gift. If you give $20,000 of stock that you only paid $5,000 for, you have now transferred the taxation to the gift recipient. If the recipient needs cash and sells the holding, they will be subject to capital gains taxes just like you would have been. It would be much more beneficial to give a gift of cash, and then let the highly appreciated stock receive a step-up in basis at your death.

-- Be aware of the annual gift exclusion. The annual gift exclusion amount is $14,000 in 2015. As long as your individual gifts to any one beneficiary do not exceed the annual exclusion amount, you can avoid filing an annual gift tax return. If you exceed the annual amount, you'll be required to report it to the IRS. The amount will also count against your lifetime federal estate tax exemption (that amount is $5.43 million for 2015). There's plenty of room for gifting, but if you want to avoid the headache of filing a return, stay below the annual limit or pay medical, dental and tuition expenses directly to the providers. There are no limits to direct payments to these types of providers.
Giving to grandchildren. You can do a lot to get your grandchildren off to a good start in life. Here are some key ways to pass wealth to your grandchildren.

-- 529 Plans. One of the best ways to save for college and other post-secondary options including two-year associate degrees, trade and vocational schools is through a 529 plan. As long as the money is used for qualified education expenses, the accounts grow tax-free. Many states also offer tax incentives and deductions. You can research your options and the specifics of each state's offerings at Savingforcollege.com. Morningstar also publishes an annual review of the different plans using a gold, silver, bronze, neutral and negative ratings system. The best plans tend to have low cost providers, good tax incentives and robust investment options. The largest asset plan doesn't necessarily mean it's the best.

-- Custodial accounts. The cost of raising children is expensive, and there are extras that can make a significant impact in the lives of your loved ones. A custodial account allows an adult to open an account for a minor who is under age 18 or 21 (depending on the state). Custodial accounts can help fund a favorite summer camp, horseback riding for your granddaughter, a traveling baseball team for your grandson or a fairy tale wedding. But make sure you understand that control of these accounts eventually passes to your grandchild, and even good children and grandchildren can make immature financial decisions. Additionally, custodial accounts can have a negative impact on financial aid for education.

-- Direct gifts. There are no gift limits for payments made directly to medical and education providers. If your grandchildren attend a private K-12 school, you can pay that tuition directly to the school and not worry if the tuition exceeds the $14,000 annual limit. If there is a medical procedure or treatment, the same rules apply.

Gift giving is a personal decision. Make sure that your giving plan ties into your overall financial road map. Creating a plan that ensures your assets will last a lifetime can be a liberating event that makes the enjoyment of giving even more fulfilling.

Culled from US News

Check these 7 retirement blind spots By Christine Benz

Your investment portfolio, despite the market ups and downs of the past few months, looks tantalizingly large. Social Security will provide a surprisingly high percentage of your basic income needs.

Maybe retirement is more doable than you thought, sooner than you thought.
Those happy thoughts are likely cycling through the minds of many 50- and 60-somethings these days, thanks in large part to a bull market that has lasted the better part of six years. What seemed like a distant dream in the wake of the financial crisis--a financially comfortable retirement--is starting to look eminently possible.
But don't limit your retirement readiness check to an assessment of your account balances and your Social Security payments. Make sure that you're considering the whole gamut of financial-planning considerations in retirement--especially new expenses and costs that you might not have had to contend with when you were working--when determining whether you're really ready to hang it up.
What follows are some of the financial realities of retirement that have the potential to blindside new retirees who don't plan for them.
That you could encounter a down market early on in retirement: Retirement-portfolio balances are way up at the moment, but the past few months have provided a reminder that that can change in a hurry. And encountering a bum market, especially early in retirement, can change the math on the viability of retirement in short order. If your $1 million portfolio were to drop by 25% next year, your $40,000 annual withdrawal would jump from 4% to more than 5% in the space of a year. That might not be catastrophic, but financial planners usually advise pre-retirees to build in some variability in their in-retirement spending programs so that they spend less in down markets, especially if those down markets happen early in their retirement years. I also like the idea of "bucketing"--holding enough cash and bonds to ensure that you're never going to have to sell stocks to meet living expenses when they're in a trough.
That your health-care costs may well go up: Some retirees incorrectly assume that turning 65 and being Medicare-eligible means that health-care costs automatically go away. But Medicare covered roughly 60% of the health-care expenditures for retirees, according to a 2012 report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Factoring in supplemental insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures, among other health-care outlays, Fidelity Investments recently estimated that the typical 65-year-old couple will need $220,000 to cover health-care expenses during their retirement years. Importantly, that figure does not include long-term-care expenditures. Of course, retirees' health-care expenses vary widely and may change over time; some retirees may be covered by an employer-provided plan. That's a shrinking share of workers, though: A Kaiser Family Foundation report noted that 25% of firms with more than 200 employees offered retiree health-care benefits in 2014, down from 38% in 2004. This video does a deep dive into the topic of retiree health-care expenses.
That inflation will take a bite out of your withdrawals: Gas prices provide a regular, visible gauge of whether costs are going up or down. But most price changes are far more subtle and easy to ignore: The pasta box that was 16 ounces shrinks to 14, or the cable bill (don't get me started on the cable bill!) jumps by $20. Over time, those minor cost increases, both direct and indirect, mean that you'll need to spend more to maintain a steady standard of living. That's why it's so important to make sure that you're factoring in the role of inflation when assessing the viability of your plan--an amount that you can live on today may not be enough to get by on in 10 years. Spending guidelines like the 4% "rule" factor in the role of inflation by assuming the retiree spends 4% of her portfolio balance in year one of retirement and then gives herself a small raise annually to account for inflation; this article discusses how to properly inflation-adjust your withdrawals. It's also valuable to make sure that your portfolio has a fighting shot at out-earning inflation via direct inflation hedges like Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities as well as indirect hedges such as stocks.
That you'll owe taxes on your withdrawals from tax-deferred accounts: Balances for IRAs and 401(k)s are a bit of an optical illusion, in that they look fatter than they actually are. While you enjoyed pretax contributions and tax-deferred compounding while you were accumulating money there, you'll owe ordinary income tax on each and every one of your withdrawals. That underscores the importance of making sure that you factor in the bite of taxes when crafting your retirement-spending plan, as well as the merits of tax diversification--making sure you come into retirement with accounts that will enjoy varying tax treatment, including Roth and taxable assets.
That you'll be responsible for managing your own tax outlays: Self-employed individuals well know the importance of setting aside enough from each payday to cover taxes. But for retirees who spent most of their lives receiving a paycheck that took taxes out automatically, covering their state and federal tax bills on their own may take some getting used to. Retirees can manage their ongoing tax obligations by withholding a percentage of their retirement-portfolio withdrawals at the time they take them, by paying estimated taxes, or both. A tax advisor can help you make sure that your ongoing tax outlays during retirement aren't so low that you'll incur a penalty, and aren't so high that you're giving the government an interest-free loan.
That you'll be on the hook for required minimum distributions: Wealthy retirees may find themselves in the enviable position of not needing their IRAs; they can draw their income from other sources and continue to take advantage of tax-sheltered compounding that the IRA wrapper affords. That's a fine strategy if the IRA assets are Roth, and it's even a workable approach with traditional IRA assets in the early retirement years. But required minimum distributions begin in the year in which you turn age 70 1/2, and if the IRA is a large one, your tax bill may well go up right along with those distributions. Here again, tax diversification can come in handy, as withdrawals from Roth and some taxable assets may help retirees offset the tax bills from their RMDs. Retirees should also bear in mind that the RMD doesn't mean those assets must be spent; you can reinvest them in your taxable account or even in a Roth IRA if you don't need the money.

That you might not be able to continue to work: Continuing to work at least part time is a fact of life for many of today's "retirees"; they may do so by choice or because it's the only way to make the numbers add up for their retirement. But while there are certainly several important financial advantages associated with working longer--delayed receipt of Social Security benefits and delayed portfolio withdrawals are two of the biggies--working longer may not be tenable for everyone. While a third of the workers in a 2014 Employee Benefits Research Institute survey said they planned to work past age 65, just 16% of retirees said they had retired post-age 65. And a much larger contingent of retirees--32%--retired between the ages of 60 and 64, even though just 18% of workers said they plan to retire that early. The disconnect owed to health considerations (the worker's, his or her spouse's, or parents'), unemployment, or untenable physical demands of the job, among other factors.

Source Morningstar

5 ways to make retirement planning easier-By David Ning

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Developing a retirement plan will allow you to one day walk away from your job and have complete control over your time. But getting there often takes years of planning and saving, and there are many important details to consider. Here are five ways to simplify the retirement planning process.

Focus on what you can control. Estimating a rate of return, even a conservative one, is always fun because you can calculate the large number your portfolio will grow to after a few decades of compounding. The problem is that no one knows in advance what their return will be. Plus, you will probably earn different returns every year, making the guess even harder to nail down. That's why it's much better to set goals based on what you can control. You get to decide how much of your salary you put in a retirement account every year. You can also make an effort to find savings in other sections of your budget and add that money to your retirement savings. Let the market do its thing. Spend your time working toward goals you can actually achieve.

Don't chase the latest fad. Everybody loves to argue that a certain strategy is the way to go. But any investment can seem appealing if you cherry pick the right time period. The problem is that most people change course to chase the latest fad after that investment has already gone up. Remember when many people were touting the virtue of more bonds in 2009 and 2010, after stocks had already crashed and were on the verge of a multi-year bull market? Now everyone is talking about dividend stocks, even though the market has already tripled in value. Markets go up and down, and it is common for an investment to perform very well after it has suffered a prolonged period of underperformance. There is more than one road to investment growth, but it's important to stick with a route long enough to reap some rewards. If you truly have to change course, then consider changing after you've waited long enough for the strategy to shine again. The worst thing you can do is to jump from hot strategy to hot strategy, because that pretty much guarantees paying too much in taxes and severely underperforming.

Don't delay saving. You don't need to wait until you have the perfect investment plan to start building up your savings for retirement. The key is to start saving, because you will inevitably learn more along the way and are free to make adjustments. By accepting that you may not know everything about investing, you can more easily take that first step, knowing you will be able to continually improve on what you've already started.

Determine when you will have enough to retire. Far too many people who have saved enough money to retire continue to work in miserable jobs because they want a bit more financial security. The condition is often called the "one more year syndrome." It's easy to delay retirement due to the fear of the unknown. Retiring later will pad your nest egg, but you will never be able to buy back the year of freedom and the stress-free life you could have had. Spend some time thinking about what you need to live comfortably in retirement, and then make it a reality by actually resigning when you reach your goal.

Plan for non-financial goals. Some people retire and have no idea what to do next, because all they ever worried about was how much money they needed to pay for living expenses. There is an unlimited amount of fun to be had in your golden years, but it takes some active planning in order to figure it out. Planning for fun in retirement can be an exciting and motivating activity. Dreaming about your new life in retirement makes it easier to delay current purchases to set aside money for the future, and you'll know exactly what you want to do with your newfound freedom in retirement.

Culled from US News

The pension freedom mistake that will halve your pension po-tBy Ed Monk

We chart how market swings from 2000 to 2010 would have affected an invested pension vs someone who bought an annuity

Retirees can cause irreversible damage to their pension pots if they withdraw at the wrong time. 

Swathes of ordinary people can now follow the example of the wealthiest savers who invest their retirement fund and live from the proceeds.

Many of these ordinary people, though, will have to do without the professional advice and guidance that the richest can afford.

Before important changes to pension rules came into effect this year, most ordinary savers would have swapped the savings they had accumulated during their working life for an annuity, which takes all your pension pot and gives you an income for life in return.

That income may have been disappointing, particularly after rates collapsed following the financial crisis, but it was guaranteed and removed the possibility of making mistakes that could mean your pension ran dry early.

Following the changes in April, however, more people will now draw an income from their pension while the bulk of the capital remains invested, benefiting from the growth that history suggests long-term investors enjoy if they can avoid handing all their money to an insurance company.

They can do this through a “drawdown” scheme or by using the new flexibility to withdraw lump sums when they need them.
This second option – known technically as “uncrystallised funds pension lump sum" or UFPLS – has been likened to using your pension as a bank account. As with drawdown,you leave the balance of your pension savings invested to grow, selling part of your pension pot when you need cash. The main difference between drawdown and UFPLS is with the former you take your 25pc tax-free lump sum in one go at the outset, whereas with the latter each withdrawal includes a 25pc tax-free element.
However savers decide to draw money from their pension, there’s a risk that too much is taken, the pot dwindles and future income is cut dramatically as a result. That risk is even more acute during periods of stock market turmoil, as we have seen in recent weeks.
Seasoned investors sit tight, knowing some of the best days for markets follow immediately after some of the worst (as we have also seen recently). Panic and you risk selling when prices have fallen and missing any bounce.
A similar misfortune can befall those who use their investments to generate an income – including those in drawdown. The income they wish to take, and assume is reasonable, is often not generated naturally by their investments but requires that they regularly sell assets to be sustained.
Fine if prices are rising and the value of the pot is maintained, but sell after a market fall and you are punished twice: by the price fall and your pot having fewer assets – the number of shares or fund units owned – when prices do recover. Put another way, to generate a given sum when markets have just fallen, you need to sell more units or shares. This is known as “pound cost ravaging”.
Even those withdrawing what seem reasonable amounts can be caught.

How much can it hurt your pot?

Modelling by financial advisers at Hargreaves Lansdown has shown how a fund will dwindle if markets turn against you, even if you are withdrawing sums that compare with the rates available on annuities.
The firm looked at 2000 to 2010, a period that included heavy market falls, to highlight the risk. It imagined a 65 year-old man with £250,000 of pension savings after any tax-free cash had been taken. In 2000, he had the option of taking the best “level” or fixed annuity he could find; this would have paid £15,000 a year (represented by the purple line on the chart below).
But he chose to enter drawdown, withdrawing the £15,000 the annuity would pay that year and leaving the rest invested, hoping it would grow. His withdrawal was not even the maximum allowed at the time. After a year he continued his plan and withdrew an amount equivalent to the best annuity his pot could buy (represented by the yellow line).
Withdrawals and falls in the stock market meant that, in three years, his fund (represented by the blue area) lost more than 50pc of its value. After 10 years, even with periods of rising prices, it was just £102,000. At that point, assuming he cut his losses and bought an annuity, he could have expected just £8,200 a year, 45pc less than available at the start of his retirement. (See chart).
Danny Cox, head of financial planning at Hargreaves Lansdown, says: “This example is extreme but the point is withdrawing unsustainable sums leaves you vulnerable if the market falls.’’
Ned Cazalet, a pensions consultant who has advised the Treasury, says: “If you can survive without all your dividends and reinvest them, then great. If you need to take dividends as income, fine. But if you need to start living off capital it’s very dangerous.”

So what can you do?

While anyone drawing from their pension via these methods is exposed to investment risk, there are steps to take to give yourself flexibility that reduces the need to sell assets at exactly the wrong time.

Take only ‘natural’ income

A portfolio of investments will include assets that yield an income, either through dividends from shares or bonds that pay holders interest. Equity income funds, for example, produce a typical yield of 3.5pc to 4pc of the amount invested. Keeping your income to this level means you won’t need to sell fund units when markets fall and there’ll be a better chance your pot will recover if they bounce. Most drawdown plans include a facility that pays the income into a cash account. Withdraw only from this and there is no need to sell out.

Build a cash buffer

It is possible to hold cash in your pension, alongside stocks, bonds and other assets. A cash buffer can be the difference between having to sell your investments at the wrong time, or not.
Mr Cox recommends keeping at least a year’s worth of income in cash, or even two. “Drawing cash is unaffected by market movements and this account can be topped up by income generated from investments, such as dividends from shares or interest from bonds,” he says. If your circumstances allow, periods when markets are depressed can be an opportunity to pay more into your pension at knock-down prices. Just as the hit to those withdrawing capital after prices have fallen is magnified, so too is the benefit to those paying more in.
Most people under 75 can pay more into their pension and still benefit from tax relief, even if they are not earning. If you are drawing income flexibly via drawdown from Sipps (self-invested personal pensions) or other “money purchase” (“defined contribution”) pensions, contributions are capped at £10,000 a year.

Try the Warren Buffett method

Last year, Warren Buffett, probably the world’s most renowned investor, wrote to shareholders of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. He relayed to them the advice he had given the executors of his will on how money he left to his wife should be invested for her retirement.
He said: “My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: put 10pc of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90pc in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund.”
He even tipped a particular tracker fund: “I suggest Vanguard’s.”
His plan is a variation of the cash buffer. Essentially, it allows the bulk of money to remain invested. This portfolio will produce some income naturally and the extra 10pc in short-term government bonds will regularly release more cash if it’s needed. Short-term bonds suffer only very slight price variations even if the wider bond market is very volatile, so they behave in effect as cash.

Culled from Telegraph

Global list of biggest pensions exposes Britain's flawed retirement plan By Andrew Oxlade

Two countries have half the world's retirement wealth. Britain has only one fund in the top 50 - but the BBC nearly makes the top 200. Andrew Oxlade offers lessons from the top 300

The BBC has the 205th largest pension fund in the world Photo: AP

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Sponsored by Telegraph Money Transfer

Reports on the pensions industry can be dull and are easily overlooked.

One such study published last week attracted few headlines yet offered wonderful insights.

The world’s 300 largest pension schemes, a study put together by Towers Watson, allowed for interesting conclusions to be drawn on who owns the world’s retirement wealth – and what that says about how each country will meet future pension costs.

First, I was surprised that only one British scheme made the top 50: BT Group which has accumulated $68bn to ensure it can pay employees past and present sufficient retirement income.

The next biggest British pensions were the Universities Superannuation Scheme, with big banks’ and utility companies’ schemes close behind.

BT may have only just made the top 50 but lower sections of the list were loaded with UK pensions.
The BBC, with around 20,000 employees, nearly made the top 200 thanks to its $20bn warchest. That size sets it up for an intriguing comparison with Tesco, with 500,000 workers, yet much further down the list due its mere $15.5bn fund.
The geographical spread of assets is fascinating. The US and Japan sit on half of the world’s retirement wealth: America has 38pc, Japan has 12pc.
Next is the Netherlands. It has only 17 million citizens (0.23pc of the world population) but holds 7pc of pension assets.Norway and Canada are close behind with 6pc each.
You may have begun to work out why, and certainly glancing the tables below helps. The countries punching above their weight do so because they have created pension funds to pay future pensioners and retired state workers. Holland has the $418bn ABP scheme for its 2.8m public sector employees while Norway’s $844bn sovereign fund will pay all its pensioners. Even the US has the $422bn Federal Thrift fund.
This isn’t to pretend that there aren’t problems with some of the large pensions, such as whether they can afford promises made, but what the data successfully highlights is that some countries are better prepared than others.
The UK has very few such funds. The plan is to pay both state pensions and some public sector workers’ pensions out of future tax. Yet despite this, the UK is 6th in terms of assets, with 5pc of the total. Why?
It’s a remnant of our once widely-admired final salary pension system. These schemes are now only for the lucky few. Younger generations must save for themselves into “defined contribution” (DC) schemes, where investment returns decide pension size.
DC schemes make up just 21pc of global retirement assets.
My conclusion from the report is that with no public sector pension to look forward to and higher taxes ahead, I should save more, and in places that offer the most protection from the taxman. That means Isa saving rather than pension saving, as pension income is taxed.
andrew.oxlade@telegraph.co.uk
Biggest pension funds  Photo: Towers Watson
<sup>N/A: Not available at the time or not ranked within the top 300 in 2004 

Culled from Telegraph</sup> 

Worried about retirement? You're not the only one -By Mark Fahey

It's been said that men think about something every seven seconds. But depending on your age, that something may actually be money.

Money and work dominate our daily thoughts, according to data from a report by GOBankingRates. About 1 in 4 Americans said that money is the thing they think about most on a daily basis-and another 1 in 4 spent most of their time thinking about work.
And that's pretty consistent across age groups and income-the only figure higher is seniors worrying about their health and young millennials (ages 18 to 24) thinking about their love lives.

Baby boomers and seniors said that their biggest financial challenge was planning for retirement, while younger people were most concerned with paying for college and sticking to a budget.
When asked about their financial fears, Americans said they are most worried about being in debt forever and living paycheck to paycheck their entire lives. Those concerns were, unsurprisingly, much more common among millennials, whose wealth accumulation was stymied by the recent financial crisis.
 
Even if we only include millennials who are living independently (excluding the full third of young Americans who are still living with mom and dad), the median young adult's net worth was about 30 percent lower in 2013 than in 1989, according to a recent study by the St. Louis Fed.
As you might expect, millennials are the least likely to be afraid of losing all their money in the stock market: Only 3 percent report that. That makes sense because only a quarter of the age group owns stocks to begin with. Older respondents were more worried about being too poor to retire or having their identities stolen.

But not all is lost: Young adults today may have fewer assets and higher debts, but they are more likely to have a retirement account and to own their own home and stocks than people a few decades ago, according to the Fed study. They have massive student loans, but they have less credit-card and automobile debt.

 

Katarzyna Bialasiewicz | Getty Images. Work and personal finances dominate Americans' every thou …

Private-sector employees worked an average of 34.6 hours a week in August, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's up from a low of 33.7 in June 2009 and the highest figure for the month of August since 2007.
 
Overall, Americans are the most optimistic about their finances as they've been since the recession, according to a financial security index created by Country Financial. But fewer than half of all millennials are confident that they can pay their debts as they come due, and financial fears are still alive and well throughout the country.

Results for the GOBankingRate study was compiled from five Google Consumer Surveys conducted in July and August. Sample sizes ranged from 1,000 to 10,003 respondents of U.S. adults ages 18 and older. Surveys are representative of the U.S. Internet population with a margin of error of 2.2 percent or lower. Click here for a complete methodology.

Culled from CNBC

Cities where you need a roommate to afford your rent -By Nezihe Soyalan

When you think of the most expensive places to rent, cities like New York and San Francisco come to mind. Sure, the average monthly rent for in New York was $1,228 and $1,598 for San Francisco in 2014. But based on how much someone’s income goes to rent, these coastal cities don’t even make the top five.

According to data released last month from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the share of American households that rent rose to a 20-year high of 35.5% in 2014. Conventional financial wisdom holds that you shouldn’t spend more than 30% of your income on housing – otherwise known as the 30% income rule. But that rule may have outworn its use considering that the share of renters aged 25-34 paying more than 30% of their income on housing increased from 40% to 46% from 2003 to 2013, according to the Harvard report. And of that group, those with more than half their income going toward rent rose from 19% to 23% over the same period.

Make Room, a group aiming to raise awareness of those struggling to pay rent, put together a list of the most expensive cities to rent using data from Harvard’s housing study.
Here are the five U.S. cities where you’ll definitely need a roommate to make the rent:

5. Fresno, Calif.
- What a typical household earns every year (median income): $26,600
- What that household can afford in monthly rent: $ 665
- What that household spends on rent and utilities: $870
-Percentage of households paying more than half of income to rent and utilities: 32%.

4. Los Angeles
-What a typical household earns every year: $40,000
- What that household can afford in monthly rent: $1,000
- What that household spends on rent and utilities $1,260
- Percentage of households paying more than half of income to rent and utilities: 32.3%.

3. New Haven, Conn.
-What a typical household earns every year: $30,000
-What that household can afford in monthly rent: $750
-What that household spends on rent and utilities: $1,020
-Percentage of households paying more than half of income to rent and utilities: 32.9%.

2. New Orleans, La.
-What a typical household earns every year: $27,000
-What that household can afford in monthly rent: $675
-What that household spends on rent and utilities: $ 903
-Percentage of households paying more than half of income to rent and utilities: 35%.

1. Miami, Fl.
-What a typical household earns every year: $32,000
-What that household can afford in monthly rent: $800
-What that household spends on rent and utilities: $1,100
-Percentage of households paying more than half of income to rent and utilities: 35.7%

Yahoo finance