Life After Work - Will I Be "OK"?

  We were lucky enough to inherit a lake house on the Lake of the Ozarks from my wife’s parents.   For those of you that watched the show “Ozarks” let me say for the record that the actual Lake of the Ozarks is nothing like the fictional Lake of the Ozarks in the show.   The show makes it look like a backwoods place with cabins and a few small boats.   In reality, it’s a happening party place where 40+ foot boats seem to be everywhere.   We spend most of the summer here for a change of pace and a break from the Florida heat.   The break from the heat part hasn’t worked out very well this year.   Today, it’s “only” expected to reach 97 degrees, which will break our five-day 100-degree streak.   In fact, I think we’ve experienced more 95+ degree days here than we would have had we stayed in Florida.                                    Another Beautiful Sunse...

  In 2000, Christina Hoff Summers published a book entitled "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men”.   If you don’t want to read the entire book, you can find a YouTube video that lays out her premise for the book ( War on Boys | 5 Minute Videos | PragerU ).   In short, she argues that our public schools have evolved to the point where typical boy behavior is viewed as disruptive to the learning process and therefore is actively discouraged.   Girl behavior – attentively sitting still and listening – is what is rewarded.   Consequently, boys are increasingly underperforming girls in the K-12 years.   And since they underperform in those years, they are less equipped for college, which in turn makes them less prepared to get a job in today’s economy.   This educational failing of boys is often referred to as “the boy crisis”.   Not surprisingly, this theory quickly became controversial.   In a world where w...

  Twenty years ago, I put together a training session on fixed indexed annuities (FIAs).   The annuity world was much different back then.   Variable annuities made up almost 70% of total annuity sales.   FIA sales were only $25 billion in 2006 – only about 20% of what is being sold annually today.   To say that most financial advisors didn’t know how these products worked back then would be an understatement.   In order to take away the mystery of how a product could provide upside with downside protection, I needed a simple way to explain the mechanics of the product.   I invented a fictional FIA I called the “Sports Team Annuity.”   Rather than base the returns on a stock index, I proposed that an insurance company credit interest based on how a particular sports team performed during a season.   I explained that the insurance company would take a portion of each policyholder’s deposit and place bets on that team in Las Vegas.   I rea...

  In order to help generate ideas for this blog, I read a lot of articles on retirement planning and annuities in general.   It seems that every article I read on annuities mentions “high commissions” as a reason people should be wary of annuities.     As an example, a July 21, 2026 article in Rethinking65 entitled “The Behavioral Errors Ruining Retirement” ( The Behavorial Errors Ruining Retirement, Financial Planning Articles for Financial Advisors & Wealth Managers ), says annuities “…are a prime example of conflicted advice, in which customers are sold a product attached to an often-large commission.”   Before I delve further into this issue, I want to first say that I really liked this article.   It was a great summary of the emotional challenges many retirees face when trying to spend in retirement.   Without knowing how long they will live and what their actual expenses might be – especially health care expenses – many retirees end ...

  A year ago, I purchased a Brighthouse Shield Registered Indexed Linked Annuity.   Yes, that’s a mouthful.   The industry refers to these as RILAs – an acronym that means absolutely nothing to almost everyone.   But the industry has never let practicality get in the way of a good acronym.   Since I just past my policy anniversary, I sat down today to see how this annuity has performed thus far. First let me do a refresher on RILAs.   Similar to fixed indexed annuities (FIAs), RILAs base your return on specific stock indexes.   Also, like FIAs, the return you receive is limited in some way.   In exchange for this upside limit, the insurance company absorbs some of the potential downside should the selected stock indexes fall in value.   Think of it as getting a portion of the upside of stocks, but only some of the potential downside.   The first RILA was introduced by AXA/Equitable back in 2010.   LIMRA estimated total RILA sale...

  Multiple recent studies have found that approximately three out of every four Americans think the economy is only doing “fair” or “poorly.”   Gallup recently reported that 44% of Americans think the economy is “poor”.   Only 22% think it’s either excellent or good.   Two in three Americans also think the economy is getting worse.   ( U.S. Economic Confidence Improves in July ).   This negative view has generally persisted since Covid. This is probably not surprising news to anyone.   It’s hard to pick up a newspaper without finding at least one if not multiple articles about higher costs, new layoffs, problems with Social Security, etc. (well, it is hard to actually “pick up” a newspaper, but you know what I mean).   And since bad news sells better than good news, news stations love to talk about how bad things are. But is it really true?   The Federal Reserve recently reported that baby boomers and the silent generation are now sitti...