Retire by Degrees

  • Dan McDermott

    Retire Gradually: A Change of Scenery

    “A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”― Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. As I’ve been informally polling people about their retirement plans – especially in the wake of the pandemic disruptions – travel is a prominent theme.  It’s hardly surprising given that people have put many of their travel plans on hold these…

  • Dan McDermott

    Retire Gradually: Work at a Million Dollar Part-time Job

    While the rules of retirement spending may be shifting (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rules-of-retirement-spending-are-changing), the notion of withdrawing approximately 4% of your portfolio annually is a good rule of thumb. It allows you to withdraw a portion of your savings to augment Social Security and any other pensions or income sources without depleting your nest egg too soon. If you follow this approach your portfolio…

  • Dan McDermott

    Retire Slowly: Plan your Weeks Wisely

    This isn’t another retirement planning post suggesting that you map out each week to maximize your calendar and to-do list. Rather, if retiring by degrees is on your horizon, this is a post to remind you of the bigger picture.  To visualize and plan ALL your weeks wisely so you can make the most of your time doing things that…

  • Dan McDermott

    Forget SMART goals…START goals!

    A key part of planning a successful (slow) transition to retirement is setting goals. We’re accustomed to doing this for our work or our clients, but we’re not always so good at envisioning goals for ourselves. And yet we know it’s important. Take some of the friction out of goal-setting. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming or over-complicated. It just has to be valuable for…

  • Dan McDermott

    Retire Slowly – Land the Plane

    Over the past 18 months or so it seems we’ve heard a lot more about retirement. Some workers were forced into a sooner-than-planned retirement due to Covid furloughs and then layoffs. Others chose out of the workplace for a variety of personal reasons. And, of course, the Great Resignation has gotten plenty of press and emphasized that the conversation isn’t 100% a…

  • Dan McDermott

    Retirement In the News

    The Wall Street Journal recently published an interesting article on retirement by David Ekerdt who studied retirement and now is IN retirement: https://www.wsj.com/articles/44-years-studying-retirement-11634913113?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1 The article is insightful (and behind the WSJ’s paywall unless you have a subscription or read it via your library) but what surprised me were the reactions it stirred on social media! Some were supportive of working/saving/planning…