It sounds great! Retiring with your spouse at the same time would mean you could travel together, take up some hobbies together, have more time to spend as a couple. And how long has it been? Often, by the time we are nearing retirement we have only recently said goodbyes to our youngest child. Which means that over the last 20 or more years, spouses have seen little of each other as day-to-day obligations eat up alone time. It is for these reasons that simultaneous retirement has its appeal. But it is important, especially for women, to know where the pitfalls lie.

You may have heard of the 4% rule for withdrawals during retirement as you approach your retirement. I would like to clarify this rule in this blog post and offer some thoughts on how to withdraw from your nest egg to make the money last for at least your lifetime.

It takes years to accumulate and grow your nest egg with disciplined saving and investing to an amount where you finally feel comfortable hanging up your spurs and starting the next phase of your life, Retirement.  Now you are about to start ticking off the items on your bucket list; perhaps traveling with family to amazing destinations, pursuing your passion in music or the arts or volunteering with some non-profit organizations. Your portfolio, on the other hand, must continue to work hard for you in order to last at least your lifetime, and that can be 30 years or more.  

In the year 2017, the US Bonds’ return was just 3.54%, much lower than stock market returns. Globally, stock market returns were great in 2017: US Stocks (measured by S&P 500 Index) 21.83%, International Stocks (measured by MSCI EAFE Index) 25.03% and Emerging Market Stocks (measured by MSCI Emerging Markets) 37.28%. Bonds, they say, are a pretty boring asset class. The stock market is far more exciting. That’s where the biggest returns are found and it’s also the segment that the financial media tends to focus on.

Last month, one of my new clients and I called the administrator of her old 401(k) plan to rollover the balance to her IRA account at TD Ameritrade.  To her surprise, she had $36,000 in after-tax contributions (not the same as a Roth) with earnings of $70,000 from the after-tax contributions she made many years ago in addition to $700,000 pre-tax contributions and earnings.  She was able to request two checks - one for the $36,000 to a new Roth IRA account (a Roth conversion that is tax-free because there is no taxation on otherwise after-tax funds!) and one for the $770,000 to a traditional IRA account (which does not incur an income tax assessment by virtue of being a rollover).  The end result – now she has $770,000 of all pre-tax funds in an IRA, $36,000 in a Roth IRA, and her tax cost this year is zero!