Ready to Retire? How to Ensure You'll Have the Income You Need

You have worked your entire life for the big payoff: financial independence. Most of us think of it as just plain old retirement. It happens the day you can decide what you want to do, not what you have to do. To reach that point you must determine that there will be enough money coming in to meet your cash flow needs.

How much is enough? You'll realize rather quickly that nothing is static -- nothing is really "fixed" when you reach retirement. The bigger question (and it's a doozy based on your Email) is whether your retirement planning is flexible enough to respond to your changing lifestyle and the changing economy.

Today I want to discuss one narrow but important aspect of retirement: income needed from your portfolio. To take money randomly from a portfolio will not work over a long period of time. You need a strategy. But before creating
an income strategy, you must define what your income
needs are.

Once you have figured out how much total income you will need, the next step is to credit Social Security, pension, lottery payments and any other steady sources of income against your needs. The difference, if any, will need to come from your investment portfolio. ...