The great Alabama coach “Bear” Bryant once said, “Defense wins championships,” and you can bet every great coach in every sport has shared that same philosophy. Just think about some of the great sports dynasties, teams that won championships year after year: The Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, the Boston Celtics under Red Auerbech, [...]

If you’re like most people, you believe there’s a great deal of truth in the old adage that history tends to repeat itself more often than not. That’s an important adage to keep in mind when it comes to saving and investing for retirement because it allows you to get a glimpse into the future [...]

Have you ever bought a pair of pants for your child or grandchild that were too big? It’s a common occurrence, and when it happens you basically have two options: One, you can throw the pants in the wash and try to shrink them. Or two, you can just sit back knowing that child or [...]

The idea behind required minimum distributions, or RMDs, is that the government wants to give us a tax incentive to save for retirement – but they also want to make sure we don’t misuse it. So, if we're in the 30% tax bracket and we put money into a tax-deductible IRA or a 401k, each [...]

Making sure your IRAs are allocated properly for required minimum distributions (RMDs) once you reach the age at which you must take them is as simple as following a bit of advice your parents probably used to tell you: live off your interest, don’t touch your principal. That may sound simple enough, but there are [...]

Before you can retire, you should know what all of your sources of income are going to be, and how much you can expect to receive from each. Social Security benefits will, obviously, be one of those sources, but how much you can expect to receive depends on a variety of factors. There are ways [...]

Nothing exists in a vacuum, meaning that even if you’ve determined the best time and method of taking your Social Security benefits based on your age, objectives and lifelong earnings, it won’t matter unless you properly coordinate your benefits with your overall retirement income plan. Most people agree that Social Security is not enough to [...]

There are three basic categories of investments: conservative, moderate and aggressive. Aggressive instruments are those primarily invested in for growth. As the chart shows, they include things such as common stock, stock mutual funds, speculative real estate and commodities. Again, these are typically invested in for growth or capital appreciation, not income. They’re considered “aggressive” [...]