Ask Real Deal Retirement I’m retired and currently manage my IRA portfolio of 10 different funds. But I’m thinking I’d like to simplify my portfolio and my life. Short of hiring an adviser to oversee my investments, what do you recommend? —Paul It’s no surprise to me that you’d want to streamline your investment approach. After all, retirement is a time when you want to enjoy life, whether that means pursuing new interests, savoring the extra free time you have after calling it a career or both. So if monitoring the performance of your retirem ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I haven’t made the best decisions when it comes to retirement planning. As a result, my wife and I are in our early 50s and have next to nothing saved for retirement. Do we have any hope of a secure retirement? —John If it’s any consolation, you’re not alone. When the Employee Benefit Research Institute asked workers as part of its latest Retirement Confidence Survey how much they had set aside for retirement, more than a third of those between the ages of 45 and 54 who answered said they had less than $25,000 saved ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement  If I just invest my money in some good low-cost mutual funds, do I really need to pay a financial adviser for help? —Daniel The answer depends on you—but not just on your ability to pick mutual funds. Ideally, you also want to be sure you can put those funds to work in a coherent strategy to achieve your financial goals. Let’s start, though, by taking a closer look at the specific issue of choosing funds. You say you want to invest in good funds with low costs. That makes perfect sense. But even with those two criteri ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I plan to invest half of my savings in a Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund, half in a total bond market index fund, withdraw 3.5% the first year of retirement and then adjust that amount annually for inflation. Is this a low-risk way to ensure my money will last throughout a long retirement? —J.R. I can’t guarantee that you won’t outlive your money if you follow your plan. But I do think that if you embark on retirement with your strategy and are willing to make some adjustments along the way, there’s a ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I’m 53 years old and will soon come into a multi-million dollar sum that I need to manage properly for my retirement and for my children’s future. I’m not willing to just hand the reins over to anyone, but I also realize I’m not an experienced investor. I’d like to invest this money so it will continue to grow for all of us, but I don’t know where to begin. Any suggestions? —Lori Figuring out how to invest a windfall to ensure long-term financial security can be a challenge at any time even for an experienced investor. But thi ..read more

[Editor’s note: This column originally appeared a year ago. The advice still applies today, so I’ve re-published it for 2018 grads. Enjoy!] It’s that time of year again, when politicians, activists, business honchos and other luminaries don cap and gown to dispense sage advice to newly minted college grads in the time-honored form of commencement speeches. Somehow I didn’t receive a request to speak. Maybe my less-than-cum laude record as a student at Penn more than 40 years ago scared schools off. But I’ve never been one to let the mere lack&n ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I’m in my mid 60s and have about $1.2 million I would like to invest for the maximum income possible for the rest of my life. I don’t care for stocks or bonds because I hate the idea of seeing the value of my savings drop if the market has a correction. And I don’t understand annuities. Any suggestions?       —M.B. You’ve got a number of conflicting wants and needs that you’d do well to sort out if you hope to come up with a sensible plan to convert your nest egg into income that can support you the rest of ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I would like to buy an immediate annuity, but I want to know that I’m getting one from a reliable company. How can I do that?       —David H. Assuming you’ve already determined that putting some of your nest egg into an immediate annuity makes sense, you’re absolutely right to want to be sure you’re dealing with an insurance company that’s financially sound. But while identifying a reliable insurer is a good start when converting savings to guaranteed retirement income, it’s only that—a good start ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I’m 64 and recently met with a financial adviser who wants me to invest $400,000 of my $800,000 portfolio in an annuity. I read some nasty reviews of this annuity, but the adviser says it’s the best annuity out there. What do you suggest I do? —Anonymous Whenever an adviser suggests moving a big chunk of money from one investment to another it should automatically make you think hard about whether you’re making a smart move. A recommendation to put such a large sum into an annuity—a type of ..read more

Ask Real Deal Retirement I often hear people who want monthly payments in retirement refer to immediate annuities. Can you tell me what an immediate annuity is and how it works? —Susan Winston Churchill once described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Well, many people feel the same is true of annuities. And justifiably so. Not only can many of them be maddeningly complex, they also come in a dizzying array of types and variations—fixed, variable, indexed, deferred, immediate—each of which operates in its own way. I’d go so far as to say that an ..read more