This Is Your Pension On Inflation

What do you think will be the Word of the Year for 2022?

My heart says it should be “Ukraine,” but my head says it will be “inflation.”

If I was a betting man, I’d bet with my head.

To be fair, one of the driving factors of 2022’s inflation is Russia’s illegal and immoral war in Ukraine. Specifically, it is the grain and gas shortages caused by the war and the international sanctions against Russia. However, that’s not the only cause of 2022’s inflation problem. It turns out that inflation’s rise in 2022 is a complicated story, one with many villains and few heroes, which also means it may be sticking around for some time. As a result, it’s an excellent time to analyze the vulnerabilities of a pension without an inflation-fighting mechanism. Continue reading →

The Pension Couch: Pension Roll-Over Questions

Posted on 28-November-21 by Grumpus

What should pensionable employees who leave their job before normal retirement age (NRA) do with their pension at their former employer? Should they roll the pension over into a self-directed retirement account like an IRA? Or, should they wait until NRA and collect the annuity?

These are simple enough questions, but not ones I ever had to deal with personally since my pension never accrued a value while I worked. That said, there are ways to determine the answers to these questions. But, as with many things connected to pensions, such as the Golden Albatross inflection point, it often involves a mix of math and emotion. It certainly did for one reader who had a pension roll-over question, so I made it the topic of this Pension Couch post.

For those that don’t remember, Pension Couch articles are created from lightly edited and sanitized email/message exchanges in which I answer readers’ pension questions. Names and some details have been sanitized to protect the innocent. Also, don’t forget that I speak in general about pensions throughout this post because every pension plan is different. So, make sure you research your specific plan before taking any action! Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 7): How to Create Your Own COLA

Posted on 29-October-17 by Grumpus

St. George’s Thesis

“Cry — God for Harry! England and Saint George!”

How was your week? Productive I hope. I spent most of my spare time drafting my pièce de résistance for the Pension Series as a guest post for one of my favorite blogs and bloggers. I’m excited, so stay tuned for the announcement as to when and where you can find it. Unfortunately, it means I’m short an article because I (stupidly) don’t keep any posts in the bank.

However, I am about to let you in on a little blogging secret. Facebook provides an endless amount of material to write about. As proof of this point, about 10 days ago George, one of my awesome Golden Albatross Facebook Group members, asked the following sizzler of a question related to pensions and inflation-adjusted Cost of Living Allowance (COLA):

Basically, if my pension is say $50k [a year] with no COLA provided by my employer, what do I have to have saved in an IRA to be able to grow my pension with cost of living for the next 30 years? (50k+4%)+4%)+4%)etc. For 30 years…)
Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 3): What is Your Pension Worth?

Posted on 16-September-17 by Grumpus

Grumpus Types Too Much

Anybody else exhausted from Part 2 of the Pension Series? I know I am. At 3200+ words it wasn’t concise. Amongst all those words, you may remember my promise to help you determine your pension’s worth in future posts. Well, the future is now, or at least partially. Unlike Part 2 though, I intend to break up the discussion over the next several posts. How many? I don’t know yet; at least two, maybe more. Since calculating your pension’s worth is more of a “how to process”, I hope the articles don’t need to be overly verbose. I understand people don’t have time to read 3200+ word posts every week, and frankly, I don’t have the time to write them.

Calculating Your Pension’s Worth … Ain’t Like Dusting Crops

For this post, I will examine the three key inputs in determining your pension’s worth. I will also examine some of the basic mathematical formulas used to calculate your pension’s worth. I will keep it simple because I am not a math genius by any means (liberal arts major here!), and more than likely you are going to use a pension calculator to make the calculations anyway. However, you should understand the inputs and formulas because like Han Solo said in Star Wars: A New Hope: Continue reading →