facebook twitter instagram linkedin google youtube vimeo tumblr yelp rss email podcast phone blog search brokercheck brokercheck Play Pause
5 Strategies to Generate Income in Retirement Thumbnail

5 Strategies to Generate Income in Retirement

 

5 Strategies to Generate Income in Retirement
 

When it comes to saving for retirement, maybe you've done everything right. But now comes the hard part: making sure you don't outlive your money.

That's a tall order for today's retirees. Taxes, unpredictable investment returns, rising health care costs and inflation down the road can significantly erode the value of your nest egg. And perhaps the biggest challenge is that you'll probably need the money for a long time. A 65-year-old man has a life expectancy of 19.3 years; it's 21.6 years for a 65-year-old woman. If you're married, there's a 45% chance that one of you will live to age 90 and a nearly 20% chance that you or your spouse will live to 95. In fact, longevity risk is one of the greatest risk to a successful retirement.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to generate extra income and extend the life of your portfolio.

  1. Put Your Money in Buckets

A bear market just as you enter retirement couldn't come at a worse time if you're forced to sell securities after prices have plunged. Certainly, many investors today worry about how long the bull market can keep running. That's where the "bucket system" can help. Basically, you divide your money among different kinds of investments based on when you'll need it.

The Now bucket holds what you'll need in the short term.  We recommend setting aside enough so that, when added to Social Security or a pension, it will cover your basic expenses for up to a year. It should also have enough for major expenses that are likely to crop up over the next couple of years, such as paying for a new roof or that once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world, plus cash for unexpected emergencies.

Money in the Soon bucket will be your source of income for the next 10 years.  

The assets in the Later bucket aren't meant to be tapped for more than a decade into your retirement, so they may be invested more aggressively in stock funds, which provide greater growth potential, and alternative investments such as REITs. Consider selling securities in the Later bucket to replenish the Soon bucket starting about five years before it runs out of money. If the market is in a downward spiral, you can wait, knowing you still have a few years before the Soon bucket will be empty.


2. Get Income from Your Investments

    If you need to boost your retirement paycheck to supplement Social Security and other sources of guaranteed income--or to generate cash while you wait for delayed benefits to supercharge your Social Security--dividend-paying stocks in a taxable portfolio should be high on your list. They can make up one-fourth to nearly one-half of your stock portfolio.

    A number of blue-chip stocks have yields of 2.5% to 4. Look for companies with a record of regularly increasing dividends over time, which can serve as a hedge against inflation. But beware of chasing the highest yields. Outliers that boast yields of 7% or 8% may not generate enough profits to sustain those dividends.

    As alternatives to individual stocks, consider exchange-traded funds and mutual funds that focus on investing in companies that pay dividends.Bonds are another key source of income.

    Bond money can be spread among TIPS, high-yield bonds (also called junk bonds), international bonds, strategic bond funds, floating-rate bond funds and preferred stocks. (Preferreds behave like bonds, paying out regular fixed payments.)

    KIP TIP: Real estate investment trusts, which own and manage properties such as offices, apartments and shopping malls, must distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders. Plus, REITs are a hedge against inflation. You can invest in REITs through ETFs and mutual funds.

    3. Delay Social Security Benefits

    You might not think of Social Security as an inflation fighter, but for many people it will be their only stream of income with an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. The COLA was only 0.3% for 2017, but was more than 2.% in 2018. (When inflation was soaring in 1981, the COLA hit a record high of 14.3%.)

    More than 45% of people take Social Security retirement benefits as early as they can, at age 62. For those who have taken early retirement, perhaps because of poor health, this often makes sense. But grabbing benefits early comes at a steep cost. If you claim Social Security at 62, your benefit will be reduced by as much as 30% compared with delaying until full retirement age (currently 66 but gradually rising to age 67). And if you're patient and have other sources of income, you get a generous bonus for waiting until age 70 to claim benefits: For every year you wait to take Social Security beyond full retirement age until age 70, your benefit increases by 8%. Even better, future COLAs will be based on that bigger benefit.

    KIP TIP: Spouses should coordinate their claiming strategies to maximize the survivor benefit. A married couple is likely to maximize lifetime income from Social Security if the higher earner delays taking Social Security until age 70, so no matter who dies first, the survivor gets the largest possible benefit.


    4. Minimize Taxes

    To get the most out of your retirement savings, you need to shield as much as possible from Uncle Sam. Fortunately, there are plenty of legal ways to lower your tax bill, but they require careful planning and a thorough understanding of how your different retirement accounts are taxed.

    Let's start with your taxable brokerage accounts--money you haven't invested in an IRA or other tax-deferred account. Because you've already paid taxes on that money, you'll be taxed only on interest and dividends as they're earned and capital gains when you sell an asset.

    Next up: your tax-deferred accounts, such as your IRAs and 401(k) plans. Withdrawals from these accounts are taxed at ordinary income rates, which range from 10% to 39.6%. The accounts grow tax-deferred until you take withdrawals, but you can't wait forever. Once you turn 70½, you'll have to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) every year, based on the year-end balance of all of your tax-deferred accounts, divided by a life-expectancy factor provided by the IRS that's based on your age. The only exception to this rule applies if you are still working at 70½ and have a 401(k) plan with your current employer; in that case, you don't have to take RMDs from that account. You'll still have to take withdrawals from your other 401(k) plans and traditional IRAs, unless your employer allows you to roll them into your 401(k).

    Finally, there are Roth IRAs, and the rules for them are refreshingly straightforward: All withdrawals are tax-free, as long as you've owned the account for at least five years (you can withdraw contributions tax-free at any time). There are no required distributions, so if you don't need the money, you can leave it in the account to grow for your heirs. This flexibility makes the Roth an invaluable apparatus in your retirement toolkit. If you need money for a major expense, you can take a large withdrawal without triggering a tax bill. And if you don't need the money, the account will continue to grow, unencumbered by taxes.

    Conventional wisdom holds that you should tap your taxable accounts first, particularly if your income is low enough to qualify for tax-free capital gains. Next, take withdrawals from your tax-deferred accounts, followed by your tax-free Roth accounts so you can take advantage of tax-deferred and tax-free growth.

    There are some exceptions to this hierarchy. If you have a large amount of money in traditional IRAs and 401(k) plans, your RMDs could push you into a higher tax bracket. To avoid that scenario, consider taking withdrawals from your tax-deferred accounts before you turn 70½. Work with a financial planner or tax professional to ensure that the amount you withdraw won't propel you into a higher tax bracket or trigger other taxes tied to your adjusted gross income, such as taxes on your Social Security benefits. The withdrawals will shrink the size of your tax-deferred accounts, thus reducing the amount you'll be required to take out when you turn 70½.

    Another strategy to reduce taxes on your IRAs and 401(k) plans is to convert some of that money to a Roth. One downside: The conversion will be taxed as ordinary income and could bump you into a higher tax bracket. To avoid bracket creep, roll a portion of your IRA into a Roth every year, with an eye toward how the transaction will affect your taxable income.

    KIP TIP: If the stock market takes a dive, you may be able to reduce the cost of converting to a Roth. Your tax bill is based on the fair market value of the assets at the time of the conversion, so a depressed portfolio will leave you with a lower tax bill. If your investments rebound after the conversion, those gains, now protected inside a Roth, will be tax-free. Should the value of your assets continue to plummet after you convert, there's a safety valve: You have until the following year's tax-filing extension (typically October 15) to undo the conversion and eliminate the tax bill. If prospects for major tax reform and rate cuts come to fruition, it could open a golden era for Roth conversions. Keep an eye on Congress.

    5. Plan for Health Care Costs

    Fidelity Investments estimates that the average 65-year-old couple retiring now will need about $260,000 to pay out-of-pocket health care costs, including deductibles and Medicare premiums, over the rest of their lives. That doesn't include long-term care, which can be a major budget buster.

    There are a variety of options to help pay these future medical bills. One tax-friendly way is a health savings account. As long as you have an eligible high-deductible health insurance policy, you can contribute to an HSA either through your employer or on your own (but you can no longer contribute after you've signed up for Medicare).

    An HSA offers a triple tax advantage. You contribute money on a pretax basis to the account. Money in the account grows tax-deferred. And withdrawals are tax-free if used to pay medical expenses, either today or when you're retired. (You'll owe income taxes and a 20% penalty on withdrawals used for other purposes, although the penalty disappears once you turn 65.)

    To make the most of the HSA, contribute as much as you can to the account and pay current medical bills out of pocket. That way, the money in the account has time to grow. Years from now, you can use HSA funds to reimburse yourself for medical bills you're paying today.

    Employers are increasingly offering workers this option to contain costs because premiums for high-deductible plans tend to be lower than for traditional insurance. The average employer contribution is $541 for singles and $991 for families.

    You can use HSA funds to pay for long-term-care premiums--but that's a small compensation given the steep price tag for a long-term-care policy. If you can't afford a long-term-care policy that would cover at least three years of long-term care with inflation protection, another option is to buy enough coverage to pay the difference between the cost of care for three years and what you can afford to pay from savings and income.

    Another solution: a hybrid policy that combines life insurance and long-term-care benefits. It's basically a permanent life insurance policy that allows you to spend down the death benefit to pay for long-term care should you need it. You can also get a rider that will cover long-term care above and beyond the death benefit. If you don't need long-term care or don't entirely use up the death benefit, your heirs will collect what remains of it.

    One company, for example, offers a hybrid policy that you purchase with an up-front lump sum or in installments over 10 years. A 60-year-old man paying $10,000 a year over a decade could get monthly long-term-care benefits at age 80 of $7,983 for up to six years, growing at 3% annually. The death benefit at that point would total $106,400, or he could cash in the policy and get 80% of his premiums returned. Under a similar scenario, a woman would get $7,076 per month for long-term care or a $113,600 death benefit.

    KIP TIP: If paying for long-term care is your chief goal and you don't need more life insurance, buy a stand-alone policy rather than a hybrid policy. Today's long-term-care policies are more accurately priced than those issued years ago, so it's less likely that you'll see steep premium jumps in the future. Plus, you may be able to deduct part of your premiums on your tax return, something you generally can't do with a hybrid policy.

    Retirement can be a great experience for those that are prepared.  For those that are not, the thought of retiring can promote anxiety, stress and worry about the unknown.

    There are so many things to plan for:  Healthcare, kids, elderly parents, social security decisions, income needs, Medicare. Trying to get a game plan together can be overwhelming.

    After hours and hours of exhaustive research, we have developed a comprehensive checklist.   Simply Click Here to get: The 15 Things That You Must Do Before You Even Think About Retiring. [ACCESS NOW].