Category: Investing

  • Dealing With Financial Risk in Retirement

    In the last article, we looked at what I believe to be the greatest risk in retirement: retiring without a clear sense of calling and purpose. But I also mentioned some other risks—the financial ones. The Bible encourages us to take wise precautions as part of good stewardship to protect ourselves from the adverse effects…

  • Sustainable Retirement Income—Part One: Fixed Withdrawals

    In a recent article, I discussed spending in retirement and whether our costs go down as we age. In this article and the next, we’ll look at the other side of the equation: generating income, specifically the different ways to withdraw from savings to fund your spending, hopefully for as long as you live. This…

  • The Majesty of Simplicity

    Perhaps like many of you, I recently filed my 2022 tax returns. I always try to itemize my deductions, and this year, as I was working on them, I was struck by how simple it was to do that. I use Intuit’s Turbotax product and have for many years. That enables me to import all…

  • Back to Basics

    Many books and articles have been written about Christians and money, and some about retirement. This blog is about Christians and retirement, and I often write about money and stewardship. There’s much to say about these topics, but the Bible tells us what is most essential for us to know—not every practical detail about personal…

  • Buckets and Ladders

    It took me a while to publish this last article (at least I think it’s the last one) in this series on bonds, bond funds, bond ladders, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)—whew! As I worked through these topics and TIPS ladders, in particular, the path seemed clear. But then I had some concerns—not about TIPS…

  • Why a TIPS Ladder?

    So far, we’ve discussed bonds, bond funds, bond ladders, and TIPS in particular. In this article, we’ll look at TIPS ladders, which many retirement professionals consider the safest investment for the risk-free portion of a retiree’s portfolio. (reference past articles – safe income floor). To simplify things, I will use the term “ladder” to refer…

  • Why Invest in TIPS?

    The last three articles discussed why retirees might want to own bonds and possibly individual bonds instead of investing in a bond fund. Bonds come from many sources: governments, government agencies, blue chip corporations, and risky smaller companies (junk bonds). Municipalities also issue bonds (they’re called “munis”). Something is common to them all: the more…

  • To Ladder or Not to Ladder?

    In the last two articles, I discussed how retirees (and others) use bonds as part of a diversified portfolio because of their stabilizing effect in times of stock market volatility. Bonds can also be an excellent source of income and may provide capital gains under some economic scenarios (especially falling interest rates). We’ve also seen…

  • Individual Bonds or Bond Funds?

    Suppose you’ve decided to keep a portion of your portfolio in bonds, perhaps with a higher allocation percentage than stocks. In that case, you have another decision: Should you invest in individual bonds or a bond fund? With interest rates at higher levels than they’ve been in many years, some folks (including yours truly) wonder…

  • The Secure Act 2.0 May Have Passed While You Weren’t Looking

    The Secure Act 2.0 was finally passed as just one part of a massive funding package by the outgoing congress just before Christmas on December 23, 2022, and signed into law by the president as the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, an omnibus spending bill authorizing roughly $1.7 trillion in new Federal spending (yikes!). You’re…