Other Resources
The following are pointers to a few resources on the Internet. Of course, a web search will lead to many more. These vary in quality and the amount of “hype” involved.
There is a useful review of retirement calculators (what I call retirement modeling tools) here: Whitecoat Retirement Calculator Review
Bob Berger has a weekly newsletter with useful tidbits and pointers. A lot of this is retirement or near-retirement relevant. You can register for it here: Newsletter – Rob Berger.
Retirement Researcher is a private organization head-lined by Wade Pfu. They have a paid membership that offers to dig deep into retirement topics, but (as I understand it) they do not really offer “personal” services. They have a frequent and free e-mail newsletter as well as a series of free webinars. Both are information packed.
Two Sides of FI is focused on the “Financially Independent, Retire Early” movement. But a lot of the information presented is more related to the “retire” and “financial independence” part than it is to the “Early” part.
The Center for Retirement Research bills itself as a liaison between academics and organizations implementing retirement-related policy. As such, it is not really aimed at the individual. But it does have a lot of freely available and apparently relatively unbiased information. The sponsor list would be a great place to start for additional sources of information.
Most full-service brokerage firms (financial account custodians) have resources available to the individual. Many of these resources are available to both customers and non-customers. The following are a few examples. Fidelity as a variety of calculators and lots of other resources. Vangard has a variety of whitepapers. Merrill Lynch also has lots of information available. The material provided by the large brokerages is relatively “unbiased” and free of sales-hype. Of course, the overall goal of providing this material is to steer you towards the financial products they offer, but it is subtle; it is the fact of the existence of the material that vouches for the services they offer more than the content. You should start with your broker since some of the resources such as planning tools are more effective when integrated with your account.
As we move away from large account custodians to other commercial players, the material tends to become more product oriented. It can still be quite useful, but it needs to be interpreted a little more carefully. Consider for example, the Prudential’s site. There is some good general information here, but it is mostly about steering you to their insurance-related products such as annuities. On the flip side we have the Fischer Investments site that also has lots of good material, some of which is aimed at dissuading you from an annuity and pushing you towards their advisor service.
Then, there are financial media sites; these are places where the message is the product. One example is Kiplinger’s Retirement Site which has many resources to help you understand virtually every aspect of retirement finances. But be prepared for occasionally over-the-top articles such as Kick the IRS to the Curb. No, traditional IRAs are not fundamentally a bad idea and No, you cannot really avoid the IRS as the click-bait title infers. Other examples include Moneywise and MarketWatch which is outside-the-paywall resources from the Dow Jones Corporation. In each case, be prepared for an exhausting amount of advertising as it appears that much of the business model is based on “views” and “clicks.”
Lasty, there are Personal Finance Pundits. These are individuals, possibly with a support organization, who have become personal finance media personalities. Examples include Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman. Their business model appears similar to the financial media sites. They tend to provide a stream of hyper-ventilated advice which is sound for some people and totally wrong for others. But good food for thought in many cases.
From a JRTN perspective what most of these information sources should do is to get you thinking, raising questions that you can then test with your retirement model.
Something we should link to?
Please drop me a line!