Are you planning an early retirement? We urge you to check out our retirement income arithmetic before you hurry off into the sunset. Let’s look at the arithmetic of a financially secure and comfortable retirement. First, we start with a portfolio balance of 50/50 stocks and bonds. A 50/50 mix offers a nice defense against down years and dampens your overall portfolio volatility. Next we make some return assumptions. Our long-term return expectation for stocks is 8.8%. If you’re still using historical returns of 10%+ you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Our stock return assumption is … [Read more...]