Hello-
Newbie to the site. Looks like a lot of good info>
Short story - married couple, early sixties. In Seattle (expensive real estate!). Home is paid for. Both will drop to part-time work next year but have medical coverage. House is paid for, no debt, $1.8M in retirement savings.
My spouse is a teacher and will be substituting next year - she can collect her small pension in 3 yrs at 65. The union offers free financial classes which were informative - but also a few sessions with a planner from Valic. Like most here I've managed our investing over the years keeping it simple - cheap index funds, bonds, and fannie mae funds. Used to do stocks but it made my stomach hurt.
So this planner, of course, is pitching a whole management system for our portfolio, which is a no go. He also pitched a variable indexed annuity which sounds good but is pretty complicated. And then a simple indexed annuity - can take out only 10% in first 7 yrs. After that - no limit. Guranteed never to have a 0% interest year no matter what index does. Tied to Merrill Lynch Dynamic Index.
Over last 20 yrs index has varied between -1.5% to 12%. They take a 1.2% cut.
My take is - can't I just manage my portfolio to manage risk among cash, bonds, and stocks as I've been doing? Their take is this is a conservative pot that is better than CDs and is one pot in the strategy. Thoughts?