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 Series (Part 18): Social Security – The People’s Pension

Waffles and Chicken(shit)

I’ve waffled in recent weeks on the need to write a post about Social Security for the Pension Series. On the one hand, since the American form of Social Security pays out in annuity form, it seems like a relevant topic for the Series. Plus, an overwhelming majority of American workers pay into the program. Therefore, it’s the sole remaining Defined Benefit Plan (DBP) that almost all Americans workers still have access to in retirement. Finally, because almost everyone’s eligible for Social Security in America, there’s uncertainty surrounding the future financial viability of the program. That uncertainty alone is enough to justify the need for an article since much of the Pension Series is built around the idea of quantifying the uncertainty surrounding pensions.

On the other hand, there are a lot of drawbacks to writing an article on Social Security. First and foremost, is the sheer number of articles already written about the subject. From books to news articles, to blogs, and podcasts; I doubt there’s a format of media that hasn’t been utilized to discuss Social Security in the USA. That’s partly due to the fact that Social Security is an extremely controversial topic. Since nearly everyone’s entitled to it, nearly everyone has a strong opinion about it. In fact, the government calls it an entitlement, and as an entitlement, it’s earned a reputation as a third rail in American politics — meaning a politician touches it at their own peril much like the electrified third rail in a subway system. Continue reading

Retirement Anxiety: How I Retired Mine

Anxiety Check

Retirement anxiety

I think it will take more than this to calm me down.

How are your retirement anxiety levels at the moment? I must admit my levels were high earlier this week. As described in my previous post, I recently realized that I’m (probably) not going to make it to 21-years of military service. Thus, I’m (probably) going to retire after my pension vests at 20-years. This means that I won’t secure the transferability of my GI Bill to my kids prior to retiring. As a result, I’m leaving a lot of potential money on the table.

I spiked my anxiety levels even further this week by breaking the above news to Mrs. Grumpus. She doesn’t routinely read my blog. She’s too busy with the kids and running the household to find the time to read my 3500+ word tomes (i.e. articles). As a result, if I come to some major insight about my life while writing, I can’t rely on her to read about it. This meansĀ I actually have to talk to her. Unfortunately, I’m a much better writer than a talker, so I usually make a mess of the conversation. Continue reading

Test Your Retirement Plan: FI Numbers Don’t Lie, But … (Part 2)

Test your retirement plan

Sister, I killed Colonel Grumpus in the Drawing Room with a lead pipe.

Grumpus The Confessor

I have a confession to make.Ā  I put off writing this post for a while.Ā  When I first started my blog, I had always intended to demonstrate how to test your retirement plan.Ā  I wanted to do this by using a high powered retirement calculator.Ā  Doing so would complement what I consider the biggest strength of my website: the series of practical “How To” retirement plan articles in the Planning section.Ā  However, I needed to tackle some other topics first.Ā  I wanted to walk financially novice readers up to a point where they could understand the subject matter of this article.Ā  Yet, I essentially hit that point weeks ago, and still, I delayed.

Part of that delay was due to the complexity of what I intended to describe.Ā  It’s hard to write effectively about the steps needed to test your retirement plan.Ā  A technically savvy blogger would simply post a video of how to do this, but that is beyond my capability at the moment.Ā  As a point of reference, I was happy enough when I figured out how to embed a spreadsheet into this post.Ā  Maybe someday I will circle back and create a video once I obtain the skills, and find the time. Continue reading