retirement paycheck

Using a retirement income buckets approach: One of the most common questions financial planners receive from soon-to-be-retirees is, "What's the safest way to give myself a paycheck once I quit working?" The question often stems from the knowledge that needing to withdraw funds in a down market can be both ill-advised and scary. Those who have been around long enough probably know someone who retired close to a particularly bad market year, like 2001, 2007, 2008, or now 2022. Because that someone had to, or chose to, sell some investments at that terrible time, they ended up living off of much less than they originally thought. This can be a scary thing to watch. It makes one wonder, "How do I make sure that doesn't happen to me?" A Buckets Approach Enter a buckets approach to retirement income. Below is a link to a video excerpt from the online course, "Retirement Readiness," outlining the approach in more detail. (A link to the course can be found at the bottom of this article and here.) A description for each of the buckets follows below. https://youtu.be/mkeqzgJfeFc Bucket 1 - Cash and Money Market Accounts The first bucket will provide your paycheck. Here is how it works. Calculate any retirement income you will have (pension, Social Security, dividends, interest, rental property, for examples); Figure your annual recurring expenses (do not include one-time expenses such as replacing a car, roof, or paying for a special trip or wedding); Subtract 2 from 1 to come up with the difference; and Keep 1 to 2 years of that difference in Bucket 1. For example, Justine retires at 65. She expects to live past age 82 so she is waiting until 70 to claim Social Security. She has a pension of $800/month ($9600/year). Her recurring expenses are $70,000 annually. The annual difference is $70,000 - $9,600 = $60,400. To start retirement, she decides to keep 1.5 years of the difference in Bucket 1 so $60,400 x 1.5 = $90,600. She puts that in a high-yield money market account and sets up an automatic transfer of $5833.33 monthly to her checking account. Voila - she has a new paycheck. When she turns 70, she will collect $45,000 in Social Security. At that time the annual difference will fall to $70,000 - ($9,600 + $45,000) = $15,400. She decides to keep 2 years of the new difference in Bucket 1, so $15,400 x 2 = $30,800. She reduces the monthly transfer from the money market to $1283.33 per month. Bucket 2 - Bonds, CDs, and Bond Funds The second bucket replenishes Bucket 1. As the paychecks come out, the principal in the money market account will naturally decrease. Eventually it will decrease to a level that makes you say, "Yikes! I only have xx in my checking and money market." Everyone has a different level of "Yikes." When the balance approaches your unique Yikes level, a transfer is made from Bucket 2 into Bucket 1. Bucket 2 is comprised…