Rob Berger

1 month ago | robberger.com | Rob Berger

ProjectionLab just released several updates to its financial planning software. Its new partner life expectancy milestone makes it easy to model one partner outliving the other. While not something one likes to dwell on, the death of a spouse has significant implications for the surviving spouse and their retirement plan. The new feature makes it easy to set the life expectancy of each spouse and to change it to model different scenarios.

1 month ago | robberger.com | Rob Berger

I started doughroller.net in May 2007. For 11 years I grew and nurtured the site into a vibrant destination that helped millions of visitors improve their finances. It was a blast writing about personal finance and investing, as well as learning to build and run a website. I loved it!In 2018 I sold the site. A company in Israel was buying personal finance sites. That was a great experience as well. The buyer worked hard to continue what I had started, and for a time it worked.

Dec 29, 2024 | robberger.com | Rob Berger

Morningstar recently released its annual report on the state of retirement income. It's the fourth such annual report. In each, Morningstar uses assumptions about future market returns and inflation to estimate the safe withdrawal rate (SWR). In this year's report, Morningstar estimates that the SWR is 3.7%. This means that one could spend 3.7% of their savings in the first year of retirement. Thereafter, they could increase their spending annually by the rate of inflation.

Nov 14, 2024 | robberger.com | Rob Berger

When it comes to saving for retirement, there are four account types to consider:Workplace Retirement Accounts401(k)403(b)TSP457Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA)Health Savings Accounts (HSA)Taxable AccountsThe different account types raise an important question about saving for retirement–Does the order in which we fund these accounts matter? In many cases, it does. In this article, we'll walk through an optimal order of funding retirement accounts.

Oct 30, 2024 | robberger.com | Rob Berger

The cost of financial advice and how that cost is calculated are hotly debated topics among financial professionals and the clients they serve. The most common fee structure is based on Assets Under Management (AUM). An advisor charges a client an annual fee equal to a percentage of the amount of investments they manage for the client. A 1% AUM fee is often quoted as the industry standard, although many advisors charge much more, and a few charge less.