Let’s review my five retirement planning steps in case you missed any…click on the Steps to go to the appropriate Step. Step 1 – Total all retirement accounts. Step 2 – Estimate how much social security might provide. Step 3 – Estimate what the IRS standard deduction might be during my retirement years. Step 4 – Estimate…
Category: Tax Strategy
Retirement Planning: Step 4 – IRS Tax Brackets
It’s 2:00 a.m. on a cold February morning, do you know which tax bracket you’re in right now? If you don’t, you’re in luck because I put this table together from the IRS that shows the tax brackets for 2023. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that tax brackets are…
Retirement Planning: Step 3 – IRS Standard Deduction
Do you know what the IRS standard deduction is and how it fits into retirement planning? First the definition of the standard deduction from the IRS: The standard deduction is a specific dollar amount that reduces the amount of income on which you’re taxed. Your standard deduction consists of the sum of the basic standard…
Retirement Planning: Step 2 – Social Security
In Step 1, I gathered all my retirement accounts and established what pool of money I will have to be able to retire and that will be my largest bucket of money to live off of for the rest of my life. Another bucket of money that may or may not exist when I retire…
Retirement Planning: Step 1 – How Much Money?
Step 1 in retirement planning seems easy and straight forward but it can be a little complicated, especially if you have changed jobs, industries and types of employers. The goal of step 1 is to identify ALL the buckets of money you have in retirement accounts (tax deferred), bank and brokerage accounts (taxable) and accounts…
Are All Financial Advisors Snake Oil Salespeople?
After reading The New Retirement Savings Time Bomb by Ed Slott, it lit a fire under my feet to update my retirement plan. While retirement may be 10+ years away, I figured I’d better double check my strategy and confirm some of the choices and assumptions I’ve made. To that end I have been contacting…
Book Review: Look Before You LIRP by David McKnight
This is the second David McKnight book I’ve read which is somewhat of a companion book to the first, The Power of Zero which I reviewed here. I call it a companion book because where the first book explains what a LIRP is this second book explains what things to look for in a LIRP…
Book Review: The Power of Zero by David McKnight
I’m going to come right out and say it, if you’re not a high income earner you probably should just skip this book UNTIL you have a high income or you’ve build a very large nest egg and need some tax strategies to eliminate or reduce taxes in retirement. What I Liked The book is…
Retirement Ready Books I’m Reading Right Now
Do you know what IRMAA is? Neither did I until I did a search engine search to find out more after I heard about it from a chain of events that led me to it like bread crumbs leading me to the ginger bread house run by a hungry evil tax witch. An Unexpected Journey…
What’s The Best State To Retire In?
I have been thinking about that question for quite some time. It’s not an easy question to answer because there are so many variables and everyone has different priorities. I know some people that love being near National Parks so they move to states that have them. Others I know love being in large metro…