The Reading Room
A hand-picked library on the questions your retirement actually turns on — the income your savings can pay you, the taxes you’ll owe along the way, and what your family inherits after you’re gone.
You don’t need more information about retirement. You need to know which of it to trust.
Type any retirement question into a search bar and you’ll drown in answers — most of it written to move a product or win a click, not to help you decide. That fog of information overload is real, and we watch it wear people out.
This page is our answer to it. Every article here cleared the same three bars before it went up: the publisher answers to a reputation (regulators, universities, major research houses, established institutions — no content farms), it’s open to read (no paywall, no login, no handing over your email address), and it’s current (no stale advice dressed up as new).
You’ll notice the collection leans hard toward one subject: turning savings into income, not piling savings higher. That’s deliberate. The financial industry pours nearly all of its energy into the climb — accumulating.
But when the British Medical Journal studied deaths on Mount Everest, it counted 94 climbers lost above 8,000 meters between 1921 and 2006, and 56% of them died on the descent from the summit. Only 10% died on the way up.* Retirement is the descent — the years you live on what you built — and it deserves the same seriousness the climb got.
One caution before you start reading. Any rate, tax bracket, or exemption amount quoted here was true when its article was written; those figures move every year. Look up today’s figure before you make a move.
Take what fits your situation and leave the rest. And if a piece leaves you wondering how the idea applies to your own savings, good — that’s the page doing its job.
*Everest figures: British Medical Journal descriptive study, 2008 (PubMed 19074222) — 94 climber deaths above 8,000 meters on Mount Everest, 1921–2006; 56% occurred on the descent from the summit, 10% on the ascent.
A fixed annuity belongs in the same conversation as your bonds — the conservative side of your savings — never in the same conversation as your stocks. These pieces, from actuaries and independent researchers, walk through how that works and what it costs you: a surrender period restricts access to your money for a set term, caps put a ceiling on the interest an indexed contract pays, and every guarantee rests on the issuing insurer’s ability to pay its claims.
A neutral actuarial explainer of FIA mechanics — principal protection with interest linked to an index, and the trade-offs (caps) that come with it.
Annuities are insurance products, not bank deposits, and are not FDIC-insured or government-guaranteed. Any guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Features such as surrender charges, caps, spreads, and participation rates limit returns and access, and index-linked interest credits are not guaranteed. This is educational only, not a recommendation to buy any specific product.An independent analytics house examines how fixed indexed annuities with guaranteed-lifetime-withdrawal riders behave, so you can weigh the income feature on its own terms.
Annuities are insurance products, not bank deposits, and are not FDIC-insured or government-guaranteed. Any guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Features such as surrender charges, caps, spreads, and participation rates limit returns and access, and index-linked interest credits are not guaranteed. This is educational only, not a recommendation to buy any specific product.An institutional study on the role a traditional annuity can play as an alternative to a portion of a retirement bond allocation.
Annuities are insurance products, not bank deposits, and are not FDIC-insured or government-guaranteed. Any guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Features such as surrender charges, caps, spreads, and participation rates limit returns and access, and index-linked interest credits are not guaranteed. This is educational only, not a recommendation to buy any specific product.A non-partisan think-tank on how lifetime-income products can reduce the uncertainty of funding a long retirement.
Annuities are insurance products, not bank deposits, and are not FDIC-insured or government-guaranteed. Any guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Features such as surrender charges, caps, spreads, and participation rates limit returns and access, and index-linked interest credits are not guaranteed. This is educational only, not a recommendation to buy any specific product.Retirement researcher Wade Pfau addresses the common "why buy now if rates may rise" question for deferred fixed annuities.
Annuities are insurance products, not bank deposits, and are not FDIC-insured or government-guaranteed. Any guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Features such as surrender charges, caps, spreads, and participation rates limit returns and access, and index-linked interest credits are not guaranteed. This is educational only, not a recommendation to buy any specific product.Wade Pfau examines the FIA as an alternative within the fixed-income part of a retirement plan — compared to bonds, not stocks.
Annuities are insurance products, not bank deposits, and are not FDIC-insured or government-guaranteed. Any guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Features such as surrender charges, caps, spreads, and participation rates limit returns and access, and index-linked interest credits are not guaranteed. This is educational only, not a recommendation to buy any specific product.If you only read one section, read this one — every other retirement decision hangs on this question. These articles dig into the origin of the famous “4% rule,” test it against today’s research, and explain why the same average return can produce very different outcomes once withdrawals begin: which years the losses arrive in matters, not just how big they are.
A plain-language guide to where the "4% rule" came from and how researchers think about a sustainable retirement spending rate today.
A current look at how the classic 4% withdrawal guideline stacks up against updated retirement-income research.
A neutral glossary definition of sequence-of-returns risk — why the order of returns matters once you start withdrawing.
The most-cited independent study on sustainable retirement spending, for readers who want the full research.
An institutional paper on structuring reliable income in the drawdown phase.
Foundational research on the "retirement spending smile" and the real cost of retirement across the years.
Here’s the idea these articles teach: match your must-pay bills — the mortgage, the groceries, the insurance premiums — to income that shows up every month for as long as you live. Nothing sits idle in that arrangement. Your steady dollars carry the household, your invested dollars keep compounding, and every dollar you saved stays on the job: one coordinated plan. The panel just below this section explains how we turn the concept into an actual monthly number for you. (These articles are independent explanations of the general concept — not a description of any specific Asset Lift product or guarantee.)
A consumer-friendly explanation of covering essential expenses with dependable income first, so the rest of your money can be invested for growth.
A plain-language introduction to building an income "floor" for the expenses you can’t afford to leave to chance.
Why retirees with dependable income often feel free to actually enjoy their savings — the "spend more, worry less" reframe.
A recognized retirement academic’s overview of the income-floor concept.
A current walk-through of how to size the "soon" bucket that funds your first years of retirement.
The Answer in Dollars
Underneath every article on this page sits one question: how much can you spend each month without running out?
The industry’s standard answer is a probability — some version of “your plan has an 85% chance of success.” Nobody has ever paid a bill with a probability.
Our answer is a dollar figure. Your specific safe monthly amount, with guardrails on either side of it. When your portfolio gets above what the plan needs, the guardrails say it’s safe to raise your spending; when it slips behind, they say when to trim. As the markets and your life change, we revisit the number — so you’re never guessing.
We’re agnostic about the outcome — two plus two is four, same as it is for you. Math and numbers don’t lie. If you’d like your number, that’s what a first conversation is for.
Legacy planning isn’t only for the wealthy — it’s for anyone with an account and someone they love. Inside this section: how the federal gift and estate tax rules stand today, the ten-year payout clock your heirs face on an inherited IRA, and a detail worth five minutes of your week — on most retirement accounts, the beneficiary designation, not your will, decides who gets the money.
A custodian-grade reference on the 10-year rule and how it changes what heirs must do with an inherited IRA.
A clear, current summary of the federal gift and estate tax figures and what changed.
A plain explanation of the most misunderstood beneficiary issue: the 10-year distribution rule.
An authoritative white paper on current estate-planning considerations, for readers who want depth.
In retirement, your tax bill stops being automatic. The order you tap your accounts, when you take your withdrawals, and whether you convert some pre-tax savings to Roth all change what you actually keep. These pieces lay out that withdrawal order, and show when a Roth conversion earns back its up-front tax cost — and when it never does.
How the current permanent-bracket landscape reframes the timing of a Roth conversion.
A foundational guide to the order you draw from taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts in retirement.
An institutional look at blended and proportional withdrawal approaches to manage the tax bill in retirement.
A current, approachable guide to when to take withdrawals to keep more of your money.
A clean explainer of the current RMD rules and ages.
A balanced look at the situations where converting to a Roth makes sense and where it may not.
A plain-language primer on an under-taught lever: which account type each investment belongs in for tax efficiency.
A plain framing of why large pre-tax balances can create a future tax problem, and how planning ahead helps.
An elite institution’s checklist of year-end tax actions.
The dollars you refuse to gamble with still deserve a paycheck of their own. These explain Treasury bonds built to keep pace with inflation (TIPS), how a ladder of staggered maturity dates smooths out your reinvestment timing, and the catch in rolling CDs year after year: each renewal resets you to whatever rate the bank is offering that week.
An independent explainer of how a TIPS ladder can help provide inflation-adjusted income.
A custodian-grade primer on Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities and how they work.
A major asset manager’s current outlook on the fixed-income market.
An explanation of reinvestment risk — the reason CDs alone can fall short for retirement income.
A look at the role the fixed-income sleeve plays in a retirement portfolio.
A clean walk-through of laddering bonds to manage timing and reinvestment.
A neutral glossary-tier overview of more conservative investment options.
Still have questions?
At some point every good article ends the same way it started — with a question only your own numbers can answer.
Want a personal answer, not just reading?
The articles linked here are third-party educational content published by outside sources. They are provided for general education only, are not individualized investment, tax, or legal advice, and do not constitute a recommendation or an endorsement by Asset Lift Wealth Management. Asset Lift does not control and is not responsible for third-party content; figures such as rates, tax numbers, and exemption amounts change over time — verify all figures against current primary sources before relying on them.