Income Planning
Generating sustainable income from a portfolio
Week 25 Day 1: The Two Ways to Get Cash From Your Portfolio
You can live off dividends and interest (income investing) or sell shares as needed (total return withdrawal). Both work. Neither is clearly better. The right choice depends on your psychology....
Week 25 Day 2: The 4% Rule Revisited: How Much Can You Spend?
The 4% rule says you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one of retirement, then adjust for inflation each year, and your money should last 30 years. It has survived 100 years of backtesting....
Week 25 Day 3: Sequence of Returns Risk: Timing Matters in Retirement
Getting bad returns early in retirement is devastating because you are selling shares at low prices to fund living expenses. The same average return in a different order can mean the difference betwee...
Week 25 Day 4: The Bucket Strategy: Organize Your Money by When You Need It
Divide your retirement portfolio into three buckets: cash for 1-2 years, bonds for 3-7 years, and stocks for 8+ years. Spend from the cash bucket and refill it from the others as needed....
Week 25 Day 5: Social Security: Your Government-Backed Annuity
Social Security is an inflation-adjusted income stream guaranteed by the federal government for life. Delaying benefits from 62 to 70 increases your monthly payment by 77%. That is the best guaranteed...
Week 25 Day 6: Building a Retirement Paycheck
Combine Social Security, portfolio withdrawals, and any pension or rental income to create a stable monthly 'paycheck' in retirement. The goal: replace your working income with passive income....
Week 25 Day 7: Your Retirement Number: How Much Is Enough?
Multiply your annual expenses by 25. That is your retirement number. $50,000 in expenses means you need $1,250,000. $80,000 means you need $2,000,000. The 4% rule makes the math simple....
Week 48 Day 1: Social Security Basics: How the System Works
Social Security is the largest retirement asset most Americans own, yet few understand how it works. You earn credits by paying FICA taxes during your working years. After 40 credits (about 10 years o...
Week 48 Day 2: When to Claim: 62 vs. 67 vs. 70
You can claim Social Security as early as 62 or as late as 70. Claiming at 62 permanently reduces your benefit by about 30%. Waiting until 70 increases it by about 24% over your full retirement age am...
Week 48 Day 3: The Bridge Strategy: Using Savings to Delay Claiming
If you retire before 70, you face a gap between your last paycheck and your optimal Social Security claiming age. The bridge strategy fills this gap by withdrawing from your portfolio (or using a pens...
Week 48 Day 4: Spousal and Survivor Benefits: Protecting Your Partner
Marriage unlocks two critical Social Security features. Spousal benefits allow a lower-earning spouse to receive up to 50% of the higher earner's benefit at full retirement age, even if their own work...
Week 48 Day 5: Social Security and Taxes: The Stealth Tax Bracket
Up to 85% of your Social Security benefits may be taxable, depending on your total income. This creates a hidden 'tax torpedo' where each additional dollar of income from pensions, withdrawals, or inv...
Week 48 Day 6: Social Security and Early Retirement: The FIRE Angle
If you pursue early retirement or financial independence, Social Security still plays a role in your plan -- just a different one. Working fewer than 35 years means zeros in your benefit calculation, ...
Week 48 Day 7: Your Social Security Strategy: Making the Claiming Decision
Social Security is not an all-or-nothing decision. It is a claiming-age decision that depends on your health, your finances, your marital status, and your other income sources. For most healthy people...