Dana Anspach has been writing as an expert on retirement related topics since 2008, spending eight years as About.com's MoneyOver55 Expert, which has now evolved into the topic of Retirement Decisions at The Balance. She also contributes content to MarketWatch as one of their RetireMentors.
She is the founder and CEO of Sensible Money, LLC, a registered investment advisory firm which provides retirement income planning for clients throughout the United States.
Dana is also the author of Control Your Retirement Destiny, now in its second edition, and of Social Security Sense. You can download the first chapter of Control Your Retirement Destiny for free at www.controlyourretirementdestiny.com.
You can follow Dana and her firm on Facebook or Twitter.
Practicing since 1995, Dana is a Certified Financial Planner, Retirement Management Analyst, Kolbe Certified Consultant, and a member of NAPFA (National Association Of Personal Financial Advisors), FPA (Financial Planning Association), and RIIA (Retirement Income Industry Association).
I think of retirement income planning like a different kind of road trip. Normally with a road trip you know about how far you'll be driving, and whether it will be mostly city or highway driving. With that information, you can estimate gas mileage and about when to fill up. But retirement is like a road trip where you don't know how long you'll be driving (what is referred to as longevity risk) and you don't know what driving conditions you'll encounter (what is referred to as sequence risk - meaning what rate of return will your savings and investments earn). You need a flexible plan to account for these unknowns. You have to know which items you can control to work around the items you can't.