Let's take a moment an introduce you to the concept of laddering a series of deferred income annuities for retirement income purposes...

There are some deferred income annuities currently offering 8% contractually guaranteed* annual compounding growth rates on your future income payout (think of how Social Security payouts work and how they grow at 8% if you defer to 66 or 67 or 70 for example).

These types of annuities work in a similar manner to deferred SS income but are insured and guaranteed* by 150 year old A+ rated insurance companies.

"...And is that safe?", you may ask...

Well, there has never been a "run" on insurance companies in U.S. history, nor has there ever been a documented case of anyone losing principal as a result of an A+ rated insurance company going under - because it’s never happened!

(That includes AIG in 2008. Remember, AIG's banking, lending, and brokerage division got into trouble and needed the government bailout, NOT their insurance and annuity division. The annuity and insurance policyholders were never at risk!)

So bear with me on this concept…

Generally speaking, in most cases, if you were to take approximately 40-60% of your current portfolio and ladder it into several of these types of annuities, you can stagger the start dates of income to create a predictable, automatically increasing retirement income stream that is never susceptible to market/economic downturns and that gives you automatic raises to your lifetime income every few years of your retirement.

Does that sound like something you'd be interested in seeing a visual example of?

I will be going over a few real life case studies (with screenshots) in Lesson 7 of this course. So hang in there with me.

I have a annuity laddering software that you can play with to determine how much principal to deposit into each “leg” of the annuity ladder and when to turn on be income stream (I.e. turn one on at 65, another at 70, another at 75, etc.) while each deferred annuity income grows at 8% per year while it’s in deferral waiting for its turn to produce future income.

Why is this so effective? Well first of all, this approach completely eliminates downside market risk and sequence of return risk from ever impacting your retirement income for the rest of your lifetime - which are two of the biggest legitimate risks most people are afraid of when it comes to their annual retirement cashflow.

Yes, the annuities will all ultimately deplete the principal that originally went into the annuities, but the income streams are guaranteed to last your lifetime - even long after the principal is depleted. (And can be set up with full survivor benefits if there is a spouse)

Additionally, (and here is the other enormous benefit of a concept like this) the remaining 40-60% of your portfolio that was NOT used to build the annuity ladder can then be invested long term without ever having to bear the burden of income production.

We call this the "Recovery Leg" of the ladder. It's the last leg in the sequence and is designed to regrow and "recover" all or even more than 100% of your original lump sum principal throughout your retirement.

At a relatively humble average return over time (5-7%), that’s all it would take for the remaining non-annuity side of your portfolio to easily regrow and recover your original principal.

So imagine a 60 year old re-growing and replenishing all of their original liquid lump sum retirement principal within the non-annuity side of their portfolio by age 80, but it's on top of and in addition to multiple streams of guaranteed annuity income that are still paying like clockwork at that time.

Or maybe you are thinking "golly, I'm not sure if I have 20 years to spare?" Well, that is fair, but the reality is with a concept like this you don't actually have to wait 20 years to get your principal back.

It's there whole time. How?

My software helps us design it so as the annuity "legs" are depleting from payouts, the recovery leg of the ladder (all your non-annuity growth money) is regrowing proportionately at the same time.

So at any point if you stop and add up the balances of your annuities AND your non-annuity portfolio, you should basically always have your total portfolio value in tact! How cool is that?

That is a mathematically correct plan where you can redesign your portfolio for the income and preservation phase of life, and it is capable of being easily customized and modified to accommodate most retirement ages and various sized portfolios. (We have clients actively using this plan anywhere from ages 55 - 80 and with portfolio sizes anywhere from $150,000 - $15MM)

The specific percentage of your total portfolio that goes into annuities vs. what stays in the market or other non-annuity investments is TOTALLY UP TO YOU, and these plans can be customized to fit your exact requirements.

That is the beauty of my laddered annuity planning software.

We can input your numbers and requirements for income, growth, and preservation of principal, and you can see immediately in simple math exactly what type of results you can expect from a concept like this.

Ultimately, a custom laddered annuity portfolio combines significant overall reduction of risk exposure, increasing income to offset inflation, long term preservation/recovery of principal, and a much easier way to digest market risk long-term without ever having to worry about downturns impacting your retirement cash flow.

And I want to say it again for your comfort and peace of mind...

This concept does NOT involve putting all your money into annuities.

The whole purpose is to help you determine the right MIXTURE of annuities, along with market-based money or other types of assets to give you a well-balanced total plan that is capable of accomplishing your most important retirement priorities.