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There are all kinds of “rules for retirement” out there, but who’s setting them and why should you feel like you must follow them? A common piece of advice given to people on the verge of retirement is to downsize your home. While it’s true that this move can reduce your cost of living in several ways, that’s not the only factor to take into consideration. Here are some of the pros and cons of downsizing for retirement that you can use to inform your decision.

One pitfall of most investment accounts is that you must pay taxes any time you sell investments for a gain, or you receive dividend payments. Individual retirement accounts, or IRAs for short, are great options for those looking to defer taxes. They are primarily designed to help people without 401(k)s save for retirement, but they can also help you save on taxes. 

If you want to see global economic history in a single colorful graph, keep reading. The following was produced by The Atlantic magazine and it shows the share of global GDP for various countries from the year 1 AD to 2008 AD.

Broadly diversified portfolios structured within prudent risk parameters just do not seem to be making any money these days. The stock market has been seesawing up and down wildly all year long, but finishing right where it starts. Currency fluctuations are wiping out otherwise positive international investment returns, and bonds, if anything, are showing negative total returns due to concerns about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates.

It’s a little-know fact that the SEC allows mutual funds to spend a portion of investor assets on marketing and distribution. Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, limits that spending to a whopping 0.75% of a fund’s average net assets a year.

Patience, the act of resisting compulsive reaction to emotion-provoking stimuli, is what separates serious investors from capricious speculators.  – Jay Hutchins, 2015

 In the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart plays a famous photographer laid up with a broken leg, aided by a visiting nurse named Stella, played by Thelma Ritter.  In a scene apropos of what we'll be hearing from a few stock market mavens in the coming weeks, Stella boasts to Stewart’s character, “You heard of that market crash in ’29?  I predicted that.”  To which Stewart’s character inquires curtly, “Oh, just how did you do that, Stella?”  “Oh, simple, explains Stella, “I was nursing a director of General Motors.  Kidney ailment, they said.  Nerves, I says. And I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?”  Overproduction, I says; collapse.  When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go.”

There are all kinds of “rules for retirement” out there, but who’s setting them and why should you feel like you must follow them? A common piece of advice given to people on the verge of retirement is to downsize your home. While it’s true that this move can reduce your cost of living in several ways, that’s not the only factor to take into consideration. Here are some of the pros and cons of downsizing for retirement that you can use to inform your decision.

One pitfall of most investment accounts is that you must pay taxes any time you sell investments for a gain, or you receive dividend payments. Individual retirement accounts, or IRAs for short, are great options for those looking to defer taxes. They are primarily designed to help people without 401(k)s save for retirement, but they can also help you save on taxes. 

If you want to see global economic history in a single colorful graph, keep reading. The following was produced by The Atlantic magazine and it shows the share of global GDP for various countries from the year 1 AD to 2008 AD.

Broadly diversified portfolios structured within prudent risk parameters just do not seem to be making any money these days. The stock market has been seesawing up and down wildly all year long, but finishing right where it starts. Currency fluctuations are wiping out otherwise positive international investment returns, and bonds, if anything, are showing negative total returns due to concerns about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates.

It’s a little-know fact that the SEC allows mutual funds to spend a portion of investor assets on marketing and distribution. Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, limits that spending to a whopping 0.75% of a fund’s average net assets a year.

Patience, the act of resisting compulsive reaction to emotion-provoking stimuli, is what separates serious investors from capricious speculators.  – Jay Hutchins, 2015

 In the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart plays a famous photographer laid up with a broken leg, aided by a visiting nurse named Stella, played by Thelma Ritter.  In a scene apropos of what we'll be hearing from a few stock market mavens in the coming weeks, Stella boasts to Stewart’s character, “You heard of that market crash in ’29?  I predicted that.”  To which Stewart’s character inquires curtly, “Oh, just how did you do that, Stella?”  “Oh, simple, explains Stella, “I was nursing a director of General Motors.  Kidney ailment, they said.  Nerves, I says. And I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?”  Overproduction, I says; collapse.  When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go.”