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Inflation and Retirement Planning–Some Suggestions
Virtually every consumer is painfully aware of the inflationary cycle our economy is enduring, and not everyone is buying the thought that it’s a temporary–or transitory, to use a vernacular term–phenomenon. Retirees and those planning for their retirement years are grappling with the effects of continued escalation in nearly every spending category, and in fact are strategizing on how to cope with the loss of buying power that has developed over time. The Senior Citizens League, for example has noted that “the oldest adults, especially those (age 85 and older) who retired before 2000, have lost 36 percent of their buying power” as a result of rising prices–prices that are not likely to fall when the inflati0n rate abates.
So, what do you do about it? For those already in retirement and drawing Social Security benefits, there’s the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) process, and that helps a bit, but as crosstimbersgazette.com contributor Jeffrey Price notes in a post on their website, “it’s unlikely that will offset all rising costs.” For those not yet in retirement, there are other potential ways to deal with inflation, and he outlines them in his post. Read it here.