Annuity guides

Many retirees want reliable passive income once they stop working. Two of the most common strategies people consider are real estate investing and annuities. Both can work. I personally like both. But the reality is they serve different lifestyles and different retirement goals, and the right choice depends on your situation, taxes, and how involved […]

If you’re nearing retirement, you’ve probably heard the typical advice: reduce risk, move to safer investments, and protect what you’ve built. But what if there was a strategy that actually lets you take MORE risk, while still protecting your retirement income? That’s exactly what the right annuity strategy can do. I’m John Stevenson, the Guaranteed

If you’re planning early retirement, one of the biggest questions you might have is: Can an annuity provide income before age 59½ without penalties? This is a question I get all the time from people who want to retire in their 50s or early 60s. The challenge is that the IRS has rules about withdrawing

If you’re approaching retirement, one of the most common questions I hear is this: “Should I buy an annuity inside my IRA or 401(k)?” It’s a great question. Many people want lifetime income, but they also want to keep the tax advantages of their retirement accounts. The good news is that you can buy an

If you’ve been invested for a while, you already know one thing about the stock market: it goes up… and it crashes. Over the last few decades we’ve seen major downturns caused by wars, inflation spikes, interest rate changes, and economic turmoil. And if history tells us anything, market volatility isn’t going away. So many

One of the most common retirement questions I hear is this: “Should I just take 4% from my investment portfolio… or are annuities a better option?” For decades, advisors have recommended the 4% rule as a “safe withdrawal rate” in retirement. But today’s market conditions are very different than when that rule was created. And

If there’s one thing most retirees and pre-retirees agree on, it’s this: nobody likes paying more taxes than they have to. I certainly don’t. The good news is that there are legal ways to reduce taxes in retirement, and annuities can sometimes play a role in that strategy. But it depends on how the annuity

One of the most common questions I get from people approaching retirement is this: “How much of my portfolio should actually go into annuities?” And it’s a great question. If you’re researching retirement income, you’ve probably heard everything from “never buy an annuity” to “put everything into one.” The reality is somewhere in the middle

If you’re thinking about buying an income annuity, there are a few things you need to know before you sign anything. In my experience, this is where a lot of people get blindsided. They’re shown one or two annuities, told it’s a great fit, and never really shown what else is available. That’s a problem.

If you are researching annuities right now, one of the biggest questions you should be asking is this: what is the true cost of an income rider? I get asked that all the time, and for good reason. Income riders can create powerful lifetime income, but they are not free, and if you do not