What is the perfect financial planner for a Baby Boomer? I thought I might put some thoughts down and let my subscribers comment on it. Together we might come up with the perfect financial planner for us all.

We might also get the wealth management industry to sit up and take notice. We will be telling them what to sell us without all that expensive market research!

It often seems to me that with about 85% of our retirement nest eggs invested in Mutual Funds there are no other options. But that is not the case. There are many options and what to chose depends on the amount we have but also what is happening in the markets and in the asset classes. If we have saved enough all might be well. But even if we think we have saved enough an extended bear market can wreck our retirement plans unless our nest egg is actively managed.

I know I keep saying it but I do not want to wait until I have lost 40% of my nest egg to take action. And I do not want to be told by my financial planner to sit back and wait for my nest egg to recover the losses because in retirement it may not.

Off the top of my head here is my list for the Perfect Financial Planner for someone who is in retirement. It is in no particular order. It could do with some refinement and maybe I’ve missed some things but I think it is a good start. I wonder if there is a financial planner out there that is my perfect financial planner? Read the rest of this entry »

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Baby Boomers are forever being told to invest their nest eggs in risk-based investments for the long term. But you could be committing financial suicide unless you understand you will need short term luck for long term survival in retirement. It doesn’t matter how long you have been investing in your nest egg. The day you retire and start to draw a pension and stop contributing to your nest egg everything changes.

It is important to understand this and make sure your financial planner understands this too. Your long term begins the day you retire. But initially short term market volatility can have an adverse affect on your retirement nest egg.

What is different in retirement is you need short term luck with a few years of good returns to get you into the long term for your retirement success. If this does not happen in the first few years your nest egg may sustain losses too large for it to recover from, no matter how long you live.

At 25, 40 or even 50 you have some chance to recover over the long term because you are still contributing to your nest egg and you are not drawing a pension from it. But at the point of retirement this all changes and there is no more time to recover to get into the long term and there may be no other funds to invest to recover your nest egg’s capital.

You may say that you intend to continue working. That’s fine, but what if you can’t work or can’t find work. As we get older our insurance premiums go up because we are more likely to become ill or get injured. If the insurance industry knows this we should take notice. Why risk it if you don’t have to?

Baby Boomers will need short term luck for long term survival if they continue to believe that putting all their retirement nest egg in risk-based investments makes sense after  they retire. They may need short term luck too if they are relying on staying healthy in retirement so they can continue working. Both are high risk strategies in retirement. There are ways to manage and control risk in retirement. It is in your long term interest to find out how.

I thought I’d have some fun with the serious business of why Baby Boomers often fail to take control of their nest eggs. Here are 22 reasons I thought of that might cause this to happen. I’m sure there are many more. If you have one or more why not add them to the list?

1. I don’t understand financial things at all, I leave that to the professionals.
2. My partner/spouse handles all our financial issues.
3. My financial planner does all that for me.
4. I don’t have enough money to worry about.
5. I am nowhere near retirement yet.
6. I believe it will all be fine when I retire.
7. I have plenty of money in my nest egg so I needn’t worry about it.
8. I doubt I’ll ever have enough to retire.
9. I intend working for as long as I can.
10. I’d rather spend it now and live off social security if I have to.
11. My kids will look after me in my old age.
12. I’m waiting on an inheritance from my relatives.
13. It’s none of your business.
14. I don’t like to think about it.
15. The government will take care of me.
16. I am going to downsize and live off the excess.
17. I am moving to a less expensive location.
18. I’m going to find someone rich to marry.
19. I’m going to make my fortune on the Internet.
20. I’m going to work part-time in retirement.
21. I have a friend in the business.
22. I have a friend who knows someone.

Most of us hate thinking about financial matters. A dentist drill may be more welcome than facing the reality of managing our nest egg. But failure to take control of our nest egg could seriously jeopardise our long term financial survival in retirement. Conversely, a little time spent learning how to take control of our nest egg could seriously enhance our long term survival. This does not necessarily mean doing our own investing. It may just mean learning how to manage our financial planner.

Technorati Tags: baby boomers,protect your nest egg,financial planners,retirement income,retirement planning

This eBook is all about how your Nest Egg can be taken from you in retirement unless you learn how to take control and protect it. Fees from Financial Planners can seriously reduce your Nest Egg in the long term. There are many other things too which are explained in this eBook that will help you take control of your Nest Egg.

At less than $US10 you will be better informed than most financial planners about how to manage your Nest Egg in Retirement. It is an easy read and gives plenty of information for you to use and many places to go on the Internet to get more “no-hype” information on what you can do.

John P. Greaney of The Retire Early Home Page website has just reviewed my ebook today 22nd April 2008.

You can read it at Retire Early Book Review.

Technorati Tags: Baby Boomers,Protect Your Nest Egg,Retirement Income,Pension,Financial Planners

Baby Boomers, unless you live under a rock you will be well aware there is stock market turmoil and the possibility of your Nest Egg being a lot smaller for your retirement. You need to Protect Your Nest Egg Now.

This article is not intended to alarm you but to arm you. You see most Baby Boomers don’t understand how their Nest Egg is managed. In fact most find the whole subject totally boring.

It’s a fact people spend more time planning which restaurant to go to rather than planning their retirement. But what’s worse is they spend no time planning how to protect their Nest Egg against a major loss.

Over time Stock markets have always recovered. More recently it seems these recoveries have been quicker, giving us a false sense of security. If you were in the work force and accumulating your Nest Egg it was easy to sit tight and let the market take care of itself. But if you are in Retirement the whole situation changes dramatically.

For a start you might no longer be earning any income and so will not be contributing to your Nest Egg. Plus if you have no other source of income you will be drawing your income from your Nest Egg. If you take just 4%, which is suggested by many experts, this is equivalent to the stock market dropping by 4% on top of any real stock market drop.

So you have the worst of situations. Your Nest Egg is reducing in value and you are taking money out. Talk about punching a guy when he is down!

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for dropping by and taking a look at my blog. As the title suggests it will be all about how to protect your nest egg in retirement.

I’m not talking about all the financial wizardry spoken of by the Wealth Management industry. I’m talking about how your nest egg can disappear over time through things that have nothing to do with the Stock Market. It is my own experience that has motivated me to create this blog and to write an eBook based on my research.

Why should you listen to me? That’s a good question and I hope I can answer it for you on this Blog over time and with my eBook.

First I am in semi-retirement and so my income has been reduced considerably. I do have enough of a nest egg for a reasonably comfortable retirement. At least that is what I thought. I have done my own investing for the last 25 years until last year when I decided to hand it all over to a financial planner via a WRAP account and Mutual Funds. Whilst I was nervous I liked my financial planner and trusted him so in November 2007 I handed over my nest egg to my chosen wealth management team.

I wasn’t looking to make a “killing” I told my planner. I was happy to protect my capital and make 8-10% if I could. This was very conservative I was told. It was strange at first but I wanted to spend my time doing other things. Read the rest of this entry »