I get some variation of this question on a regular basis and it usually falls into one of 2 scenarios. The first is when someone is getting ready to retire. 
The other is when a mid-career family is buying a new home, thinking about refinancing, or has just come into some additional money, say from a promotion or inheritance. For the sake of brevity, I’ll cover the first scenario here and the other in a future post. [Read more…] about Should We Pay Our Mortgage Off Early?
Withdrawals
Sequence of Returns – A Key Aspect of Investment Performance
When reviewing investment alternatives, average annualized returns are important, but they don’t tell the whole story. The sequence of returns matter as well. And as we’ll see, while they can have an impact when accumulating savings, their effects can be more dramatic for portfolios in distribution, such as during retirement. [Read more…] about Sequence of Returns – A Key Aspect of Investment Performance
Washing Dishes and Retirement Withdrawals
When Chrystal and I got married, I soon realized there were some activities I thought I had long mastered but had actually been doing wrong. A case in point was loading the dishwasher. B.C. (Before Chrystal), I thought that if the dishes came out clean, the dishwasher had been properly loaded. After we got married, I found there was another criteria just as important as dish cleanliness – Her satisfaction that it had been loaded correctly. [Read more…] about Washing Dishes and Retirement Withdrawals