Where’s the best place to get investment/retirement advice? A book you’d recommend? Some place on-line? Hire a financial planner? This website?

My wife is 58 and will retire in two years. I’m 60 and only have rental properties, which produce a decent income and plan to retire at 70. We have two 20-something children who are self-sufficient. One of our parents is still alive and self-sufficient. Our net worth is 60% real estate equity, 30% in 401K’s and 10% in after-tax investments.

How do you know what to plan for (investments, health insurance, long-term care, what else?) and how do you learn, or hire someone, to come up with good plans for these areas.

There’s ton’s of stuff on-line, but how do you know who’s being truthful and who’s knowledgeable? Same question on how to hire someone?

Thank you!!!

Good questions.

The answer of course is everyone is different and there is no guarantee of the future, so we must:

1) Assess what we believe we want things to be like when we retire.

2)Figure what is the most probable way to make that happen - usually a combination of incomes most likely to achieve that. 3)Make some allowances for the unlikely and the unknown --who would have predicted the things that happened over the last 2 years?

4)Build/have a reserve and a Plan B and Plan C in case things go really sideways/bad.

So with all that to consider:

* What happens if the elderly parent needs help? Do you or can you provide quarters/granny flat?

*What about health problems? Insurance? Do you have assets in a trust/LLC's to protect them?

*Insurance to protect all these things?

*Cash flow? Do the rentals provide enough?

*What about the potential for the govt to add more rules that hamper landlords? If your rentals are in NJ, that seems to me like a possible problem.

*Do you have too much equity locked up in properties that could become inaccessible?

*Your kids - What if they lost jobs/income or became sick, etc. Can you cover them or give them a place to live if necessary?

*Your own health? Covered? Plan B? Plan C?

*Is your house paid off? Cars paid off? Plans for payments, if there is a problem?

Some other things: If you have less than about 500K in assets/equity, the financial advisers usually don't want to do much for you because not enough cash in it for them. Then they put you into one of those computer generated programs that makes the advice. I don't care for that myself,as those don't take into account each of our needs. The books and online advice are too generic for me as well.

Too much depends on what you and the wife want as you go through life, the family and what happens.

If you want a basic idea, here is one (just one man's idea here):

Move to the country or a small town. Get a good sized piece of land (at least an acre, better yet 5+ acres) with a modest home on it and a big garage (to work in - side hustles -hobbies- if needed, for storage and for emergencies). Have it paid off in full. Have it in a trust or LLC or both, depending on your situation. Whatever rentals you have, maybe keep a couple free and clear for cash flow or use by family if needed, the rest draw some cash out for opportunities. Have or get a granny flat on the house you live in, or at the minimum a decent paid off travel trailer for additional quarters if needed. Have a home garden if possible. Get rid of any newer cars and have an older (over 20 years old) pickup truck that's paid for in full. You can rent a car for long trips if you need one. Get any money in the stock market into defensive type stocks that do better in a recession/depression. Have a pretty good cash hoard because in tough times, cash is king BUT beware of things that look too good to be true. Stay out of crypto stuff until things settle down at the minimum.Get/have a second/third source of income/side hustle because you never know when a current source may be cut off.

This would probably make you as self sufficient as possible, likely safer in the country than in a big city, with minimal drains on any cash flow. Add in the garden, fishing and hunting if necessary, room for family or friends if needed, and you'll probably do fine. That's the way I'm going at it, with a few modifications that apply to my particular situation.

Do you have any self directed accounts yet? If not I would be researching 401K/SDIRA accounts.

At your age, it would a toss up if these accounts should be traditional or Roth. That would depend on your life expectancy and family health history.

I was poking around a few site about three weeks ago that gave probability of a specific life expectancy. If longevity is your genes then maybe a Roth would make sense.

Also have you started to create a budget on what life style you want in retirement?

Are you retired / on social security? Do you have a pension? If you're worried, could you work the two years until your wife retires? Will your wife receive a pension? Are the rentals cranking out an income? Is your home paid off? Are the rentals paid off? How much equity do you have in the rentals? How much time do you spend per month on the rentals? What kind of lifestyle do you want to live after your wife retires and how much will that lifestyle cost you monthly? These are all questions you need to think about - then write down all your assets and liabilities.

As you can see there are too many questions to figure it out on a forum like this with strangers, and it has to be a two-way conversation with someone who focuses on your situation, not tell you what worked for them for the last 40 years because your time horizon is shorter than 40 years.

If you have a tax preparer, I've found that they often (not always) provide good referrals for local financial planners. Dave Ramsey has a website that provides referrals for certified financial planners as well. You may be tempted to visit a planner who offers advice for free, but that usually means they're being paid by commission on the stuff they try to sell you, which is a conflict of interest (they may sell you the products that earn them the highest commission whether the product is good for your needs or not). You want a cfp who is a fiduciary meaning they charge you for their time and that's how they make their money instead of giving you advice for free, but selling you investment products that they make money on, but you may not.

BillW [NJ] you want a blog of retirees with their experiences, where you can ask questions & get information from others who have gone through similian experiences.

Have a look at:

Early Retirement & Financial Independence Community,

early-retirement dot org slash forums slash

I am 71 and very comfortably retired. Wife still works but she loves it. PLAN - PLAN - PLAN. Richard M made some excellent points, especially about the care of elderly parents. ALSO ED CA excellent points.

I may suggest something that really helped me was a detailed spreadsheet of expenditures. Put the minor items such as Birthdays - gifts to relatives and children - small donations. The objective is to determine EXACTLY what it takes to maintain your current standard of living.

The wife's 401k - leave it with the company she works for until you decide about management of that money and how much you will need.

Health care - Determine availability and cost when your wife retires - make sure your numbers are correct.

I could go on and on.

When I was going to retire from outside work in my construction company, I had a lot of things going for me in the investment world. Such as:

Certificate of Deposit (FDIC Insured) were paying around a 5% rate.

My State and Federal Bonds were paying 4% Tax Free.

My Stocks were paying great Dividends -"Qualified, less taxes".

Rents were rising.

My small interest in business were on the upswing.

Then things happened that were not so obvious.

CD rates dropped from 5% down to under 1%.

The cost/value of Tax Free Bonds dropped 40%.

Stocks tanked and so did their dividends.

Rents were frozen and tenant don't have to pay rent because of

the pandemic, from February 01, 2020 thru March 01, 2024.

And many of my small business could not operate a full

capacity and then failed.

Not to cry over spilled milk, image your interest income from "cash in the bank" dropped from $100,000 per year to $12,500.

Then your bonds dropped $500K in principal value.

Your stock dividends used to pay for everyday cost of living. Food, transportation, insurance, kids college education. And now you have to pay that out of your savings.

Then your tenants can decide to pay or not to pay their rent and there is nothing you can do about it!

So you need a solid retirement plan that does not rely on one single source of income. In my case I still had plenty of income and resources (Savings, Stocks, bonds, small business income/partnership and rental income).

"WHAT EVER YOU THINK YOU'LL NEED IN THE WAY OF INCOME WHEN YOU RETIRE, DOUBE IT as a minimum. Cost of good and services are up and medical costs are rising".

Because I have several Degrees and have a wide area of expertise, I am always employable as a last resort. Always leave a door open as a back-up plan.

I would say set up a budget for a year as if you were both retired and missing any benefits your wife's job provides, such as access to inexpensive health insurance, etc.

Live on whatever level of income you anticipate your retirement investments, pensions, etc would produce. If you can do it for an entire year without touch any of your principle, then you're ready to give is a serious go.

I would also be sure to have a minimum of 6 months liquid cash reserves not only for yourself, but also for your rentals. Nothing like having to replace 3 roofs to chew into your income.

The key I would want to ensure is that the principle is always growing to keep your income ahead of inflation. As we have seen these past couple of years: stagnant stock market returns and double digit inflation can eat up a fixed pot of wealth quickly, so you want to be sure you're not banking on some traditional piece of advice such as the adage that you can safely use up 4% of your wealth every year. That's poor planning because it assumes a relatively stable economy, and there is no reason at this time to assume that will be the way we operate going forward.

At age 60, you have to realistically plan on living at least 20 if not 30 or more years. Drawing down your nest egg now may cause you a big strain in the future, especially if you plan on doing anything "fun" (i.e. that costs money) in your golden years. Too, be sure you have a plan if one or both of you end up needing assisted living care. That gets expensive quickly. I would want a minimum monthly income of around $10,000 for each of you in case you need specialized care.

Robert, that’s a good point about energy costs rising. I think there’s low hanging fruit at my older houses on energy.

Wow Richard. Thanks. You covered bases I hadn’t considered. Like trusts and new rules to hamper landlords and reduce property values.

The average interest on my 4 loans is 3.5% Should I still be paying them off early, you think?

I’m fortunate my wife is frugal, and this has helped to real in my spending.

And good thoughts on a plan if things go upside down. Thanks.

Ray-N-Pa, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’ve just be dumping my after tax rental earnings into taxed accounts. You’ve inspired me to get going with some tax advantaged plans. Thanks!

Good advice Ed. Thank you. I listen to talk radio all the time but yeah I should start spending some productive time listing to investment radio. And up until now, I haven’t used an accountant or tax preparer, but I would like to tap into some of that expertise, if I could figure out who to trust. I see what you mean about conflict of interest on CFPs.

Coplin, this site is the only place I ask questions, but that’s a great resource to take advantage of, a retiree blog.

Thanks PG. We used to track our expenses on quicken and it was way more than I would have estimated.

Thanks for site recommendation, Chris :-)

Those are some heavy scenarios Robert J!, but seeing what’s going on recently, not too farfetched. And sounds like my renovation estimates, “double it”. Makes me think I shouldn’t let my engineering skills wilt away. Thanks.

Before I retired, I decided that I didn't want too many repairs, upgrades or issues. So one by one I completely renovated each of my single family homes as they became vacant. It took me several years to accomplish this.

But it wasn't cheap. 1950-1960's homes being remodeled from 2000 thru 2007. I did:

New kitchen and appliances. New roof. New exterior color coated textured stucco. All interior painting. All new flooring. Window coverings. New bathrooms. All windows replaced and upgraded. New front doors. Electric garage roll up doors. New fencing where needed. New sprinkler systems and SOD lawns. Landscaping. Upgraded plumbing and electrical where needed. New lighting. etc.

Many homes I purchased from 1978 thru 1986, from $66,000 to $210,000. I am a contractor and the average cost of each remodel was $65,000 -- more than I paid for the homes.

With my apartments, I did upgrading to each unit as they became vacant. But before I retired, I replaced most things that could cause me problems.

So after I did the remodeling and upgrades I retired. The Homes and Apartment I had done most everything too required around 1 service call per year!

The homes and apartments I wasn't able to do because the tenants were long term and didn't leave, required service calls around 1 per month -- more than 10 times more than the upgraded ones.

SO instead of having to work 5 days a week to maintain all of my solely owned properties, I now have to work around 1 and a half days per week.... Free time to chane the animals, swim in the pool and make life simpler for the family.

I also purchased for myself (family) a new house, cars, appliances and furniture before i retired.

Thanks Sid, that’s an interesting test. I like it, but I don’t see how we could do it without touching the principal. Right now, we basically live off my wife’s salary, minus her deductions for 403b, insurance etc. and invest the income from the rentals into a taxable brokerage account. If her salary were to go away, we would only have rental income and would have to pay for health insurance. We don’t have any pensions, dividend producing stocks, etc. So, in your scenario, we would just be living off rental income, which might be doable. That is, if I stopped adding ethernet, heated garages, etc. to the rental properties and gave up my hopes to be a race car driver :-) I see when we’re in our mid 60’s we get social security and Medicare.

Your point is well taken on the cost of assisted living care. My dad lost it all there and ended up on Medicaid which wasn’t too bad, as the nice Continuing Care Facility didn’t kick him out and accepted the Medicaid payment for his time in memory and nursing care.

Well, as you can see, you got me thinking about what the reality is here, and I thank you for that!

Most of my retirement plans have been spoiled by changing tax laws and poor returns on invested money, so you don't want any advice from me.

Bill, you have already received lots of good tips. However, Absent dollar amounts like gross rents, expenses, mortgage payments, payoff amounts, cash in the bank, the advice may miss the mark.

Frankly, I assumed that you were debt free until your mortgage question.

Robert J, that’s an interesting approach you took before retirement. Made sense to do it before retirement and good results compared to the non-renovated places. Wow, a lot of work!

Oregon, thanks for the vote on that. I was talking to a guy at the dog park the other day who told me the company that handles his 403b does a financial review and thought it worthwhile. It’s the same company that handles my wife’s 403b, TIAA

Yes Ed, less heated garages :-) I think I’ve heard your profit should be 50% of your income but mine is closer to 30%.

Sisco, my rental income is better than my old engineering job. I really don’t understand the value of paying off 3.5% mortgages. I guess in hindsight, I could have sold off stocks at that peak to pay off loans before the dip.

BILL: As my husband retired 2 years ago in February, I had been planning a bit in advance. PG(SC)s advice of a detailed spreadsheet of expenses has been the most valuable tool for us. I started using it, coupled with all information needed for taxes built into the spreadsheet. Taxes play a large part of your plan.

Financial planning is like a giant puzzle. Each piece affects the rest. Even though inflation is up 9% or more, taxes without planning can take a much higher chunk out of your earnings. And the wrong move can make it worse. I give you the example of moving traditional IRA dollars to a ROTH. It's helpful to have some money in a ROTH which can help with tax planning. Putting all of your money in a ROTH in one year, depending on the amount and your current tax situation might not be the best approach. Converted traditional IRA money is counted as income, depending on the amount, also raises your taxes. Another piece of this puzzle is that it could also raise the monthly Medicare premium one must pay. (Which is akin to double taxation.) So if you are thinking of putting some $ into a ROTH please look into all involved. I've just scratched the surface on that not knowing your situations.

MY strategy is to watch our taxes closely and plan to reduce them by deferring income, or putting money into trusts - which I know nothing about yet. Any money being converted into a ROTH will be smaller amounts over time, if govt doesn't do away with future conversions to ROTHs.

ROBT J's plan of several streams of income can help you with Plan A, B and C if things go upside down. I've always had a plan B for everything I do. And good thing, because what I planned to do for my occupation was cut short by something out of my control and had to parlay into real estate.

Some good thoughts Dee Ann that spurred my thinking. I see what you mean about keeping an eye on how one part affects the rest, and your example of how moving money from an IRA to a Roth IRA increases your taxes and can push you into a higher tax bracket.

And yes, pieces of the puzzle. Like, I’m wondering if we can avoid paying capital gains tax on selling the rentals, by willing them to our children when we pass and if they would inherit the rentals with a stepped-up basis or a depreciated basis and will it help or hinder our children to receive it? Or is it better if I retire from the rentals, sell them, and invest the money in stocks and bonds? As I think more into it, if I’m going to will them to our children, I better start showing them how to run things.

I guess I’m still trying to figure out the initial question I posted, that is, what sources to trust to get smart on this stuff, and if who to trust if you hire someone. There’s so much info online, and how do you find: a) what’s relevant to your situation, and b) solid advice?

Well, enough whimpering, time to stop putting my toe in the pool, jump in and learn, then do. Thanks for your encouraging post!