Retirement Reality

Many of you — visitors to 403(b)wise — are in the accumulation phase of retirement planning. Hopefully you are dutifully putting away money in low-cost, well-diversified investments (no such thing in many 403(b) plans, many of you are saying — a point we concede but a point we and many others are working to rectify). I purposefully used the adverb hope to start the last sentence. This is because at the accumulation stage, you (we) are relying on a whole lot of hope. We hope we are saving enough. We hope we are investing in the right type of assets. We hope we have enough to retire on. But what happens when retirement hope, becomes retirement reality? What happens when we actually have to live on the money we saved for retirement? Longtime teacher and 403(b) advocate, Dr. Steve Schullo, recently did just that. In July 2008, on the cusp of what is now being called The Great Recession, Steve joined his longtime partner in retirement. They share their retirement reality — warts and all — in a multi-part story for 403(b)wise. I think for those of us in the accumulation stage, much can be learned from those living the retirement reality. Steve writes in a refreshingly honest way that I think you will enjoy.
 
Read the first installment of this series »