Planning

Estimating Costs in Retirement

Planning for retirement requires one fundamental question: How much will it cost to live the life you want when the paychecks stop? The challenge lies in balancing precision with practicality. Retirement can last decades, and costs evolve with lifestyle, health, and inflation. While no method is perfect, understanding the tools available—and their limitations—can help retirees and pre-retirees set realistic expectations. Common Methods of Estimating Retirement Costs 1) Rules of Thumb Replacement Rates Perhaps the most common starting point is the “replacement rate” approach—estimating retirement needs as a percentage of pre-retirement income. Traditional guidelines suggest 70%–80% of working income, based on…
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The Dangerous Game of Financial Scorekeeping

Imagine you’re given a choice:Option A: You’ll earn $60,000 a year, while everyone around you earns $50,000.Option B: You’ll earn $100,000 a year, but everyone else earns $150,000.Which would you choose? On paper, Option B is the obvious winner—you’d have more money to spend, save, and invest. But when real people were asked this exact question in a Harvard survey popularized by economist Robert H. Frank, many chose Option A. They preferred making less overall, as long as it meant making more than the people around them. The Comparison Trap It’s easy to see how comparison sneaks into everyday life. At first,…
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How to Start a Scholarship Fund

Creating a scholarship fund can be one of the most rewarding ways to invest in the future. Whether you want to honor a loved one, support students in a particular field, or give back to your community, the process involves more than just setting aside money. You’ll need to choose the right setup, work with key partners, and establish a plan for ongoing management. Step 1: Decide on the Scholarship’s Purpose and Scope Before getting into the legal and financial details, spend time defining the heart of your scholarship.Ask yourself:Who do you want to help? First-generation college students? STEM majors?…
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What to Do If You’re Burned Out

Whether you’ve been running on fumes at work, juggling too many responsibilities at home, or simply ignoring your own needs for too long, burnout is a signal that something must change.Here are some tips on how to recover from burnout — and build safeguards so it doesn’t happen again. Recognize the Signs You can’t fix burnout if you don’t acknowledge it. Symptoms can include:Constant fatigue and low energyIrritability or cynicismFeeling detached or unmotivatedTrouble concentrating or making decisionsPhysical symptoms like headaches, insomnia, or digestive issuesIf you’re nodding “yes” to most of these, you’re not just stressed — you may be burned…
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How to Avoid Burnout and Keep Your Fire Alive

Burnout doesn’t happen overnight.It’s the slow leak in your enthusiasm, the creeping heaviness in your mornings, the quiet shift from “I love this” to “I can’t do this anymore.” It’s more than fatigue — it’s the depletion of your emotional, physical, and mental reserves.But here’s the good news: burnout can be stopped before it takes hold. With the right habits, you can protect your energy, sharpen your focus, and keep your work — and your life — feeling purposeful.Here are 8 strategies to protect yourself from burnout: 1. Draw the Line (and Keep It) Your time is your most valuable…
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How to Assess if You’re Close to Burnout

Burnout doesn’t usually arrive in one dramatic moment—it creeps in gradually, often disguised as “just being busy” or “having a lot going on.” By the time you recognize it, you may already be running on fumes. That’s why regularly assessing your mental, emotional, and physical well-being is so important.See The Price of Pushing Too Hard: Burnout’s Toll on Your Health and Career – Gilbert WealthHere’s how to tell if you’re nearing burnout and what to look for before it takes a serious toll. Check Your Energy Levels One of the earliest and most telling indicators of burnout is persistent exhaustion. This…
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Financial Projection Assumptions in Personal Financial Planning

When you sit down to map out your financial future—whether for retirement, education funding, or simply knowing if you’re “on track”—the numbers you see don’t appear out of thin air. They’re built on a foundation of assumptions. These assumptions shape the plan’s outlook, influence the decisions you make today, and determine how much flexibility you’ll have in the future.Getting them right won’t guarantee your future unfolds exactly as planned—but it will give you a much stronger guide. Why Assumptions Matter In personal financial planning, assumptions are the estimates we use for the key factors that drive your financial future. They…
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Holding Gain vs. Tax Loss: How You Can “Lose” and Still Be Ahead

You’re looking over your quarterly performance review. There it is—one of your investments is proudly showing a healthy gain. You feel good about it.Later, you pull up your brokerage statement. Same investment… but this time it’s showing a loss. Not just a tiny dip—an actual negative number in the gain/loss column.You stare at it for a moment. Which one is right? How can the same holding be up in one place and down in another?Here’s the twist: both are right. Two Different Ways to Measure the Same Investment What’s happening comes down to two ways of looking at investment results:…
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Should You Aim for 100% Success in Monte Carlo Retirement Simulations?

Monte Carlo simulations are a staple in retirement planning. They run thousands of potential future market scenarios to estimate how likely your portfolio is to last throughout retirement.Monte Carlo projections can generate a number of outputs but one of the most commonly discussed is the Probability of Success. It goes like this: "Based on our assumptions, you have a 90% Probability of Success". One question often comes up next: What about the other 10%?This portion of the projection has been dubbed the "Probability of Failure" and can be a confusing or scary thing to see.  But what exactly does “failure” mean? And is it really bad…
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Three Core Ways to Project Retirement Success — and How They Compare

If you’ve ever asked, “Will I run out of money in retirement?” — you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common (and most important) questions people ask.To answer it, financial planners and DIY'ers use different types of retirement projections. Each method takes a slightly different approach, and depending on which one you use, your results — and your peace of mind — can look very different.In this guide, we’ll walk you through the three main ways to project retirement success: Straight-Line Projections (The Spreadsheet Method) This is the classic retirement projection and often people start here. Straight-Line Projection can be…
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