Courtesy of Chuck Carnevale.
Introduction: The Plight Of The Retiree Conflicting Investment Advice
The most prudent retirees have spent their lifetimes accumulating a retirement portfolio that can support them and their families once they've quit working. At that point, it's imperative that the retiree's portfolio and the money it represents works as hard or harder for them as they did for it. In the best-case scenario, the prudent and successful retiree will have amassed enough assets in their portfolios to provide a comfortable lifestyle for their remaining years. This is especially true when the portfolio assets are large enough to generate enough income to meet their needs without having to harvest their principal.
I am a strong advocate of creating a retirement portfolio that's capable of producing an adequate and growing income stream to meet future needs. I understand that many people entering retirement have not amassed enough assets to accomplish that goal. This is a tragedy; those unfortunate retirees might be forced to liquidate assets just to live on. However, this article is oriented to those prudent retirees that have systematically contributed enough to their retirement plans over their working lives in order to adequately fund a comfortable life in retirement from the income their portfolio holdings generate.
If an adequate portfolio has been amassed, the retiree is now faced with the critical decision of how to properly invest those assets for income. This can be confusing on many fronts because there is a lot of conflicting advice on the best course of action, even from and among professional registered investment advisors. However, even worse is the plethora of scaremongering pundits attempting to scare the retiree into accepting their own often self-centered agendas.
One common tactic is the effort to convince the retiree that they are incapable of managing their own affairs. I disagree, and further direct this article to those retirees with the confidence and desire to trust their affairs to their own capable hands. Like most aspects of living and enjoying a fulfilling life, I believe that decisions based on applying their natural common sense will serve most people quite well. Investing retirement assets is not rocket science, therefore, contrary to the opinion of many; I believe most people are quite capable of doing it effectively.
