Summary: WOW, your response to the Can Carl Retire? series in January and last Friday's results webinar were off the charts. I received so many kind comments and sharp questions from you. In today's episode, I'll answer a portion of your questions and will get to more next week. Please keep them coming. If you're wondering, no doubt thousands of others are, too.<br> <br> Want to Watch the Webinar Replay?<br> The webinar replay will remain available until Sunday, February 8th (11:59 pm). You can watch it by clicking below.<br> <br> Listener Questions Answered in This Episode:<br> <br> * From Ken: "I didn't see you mention an emergency fund. Why is that?"<br> * From Ken: "What provision is made to pay for taxes on his 401(k) plan when required minimum distributions are required since most of his wealth is in tax-deferred plans?"<br> * From Randy: "Quicken sells software, called "WillMaker Plus", to create "a Will, Health Care Directive, Durable Power of Attorney for Finances and other essential documents." Do you have an opinion on the value of such software?"<br> * From Joe: "I appreciate the webinar yesterday; helps me in thinking thru retirement planning. The question came up around pensions and taking a lump sum vs. taking annuity payments. You said something to the effect of "99% of the time it's better to take the annuity." That's one of my central planning questions, as I have a company pension that I will eventually be drawing from.<br> * From Ken: (Ken was getting into this) "I just listened to the replay and thought it was very informative and provided a nice example of the process. As you mentioned during the webinar, given Carl is lucky enough to have a healthy pension which is rare these days, it would be interesting to know what the equivalent lump sum in current investable assets would need to be to get him to the same answer if he did not have the pension."<br> * From Dave: Good podcast and interesting information about Carl's situation. I am wondering whether your estimated returns for Carl were too aggressive. Where the estimated returns (8+%) that you were showing after tax returns? It just seems, while the portfolio would be a nice blend, that the return estimates were higher than I have been estimating in my personal returns. Regards, Dave.<br> <br> Question for You: What do you want next?<br> The Can Carl Retire? series really resonated with most of you. It's been exciting to see you participating and asking questions.<br> What would you like me to focus on next?:<br> <br> * Another real world example?<br> * Case studies of plans I've worked through (good and bad)<br> * What to do if you're behind on savings?<br> * More webinars? If so, on what? Social Security Maximization, goal planning or understanding market returns are some topics that come to mind.<br> <br> Let me know in the form below:<br> <br> Transript<br> <br> The Retirement Answer Man Episode #51<br> Well, hello there and welcome to the Retirement Answer Man! My name is Roger Whitney. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is the show dedicated to helping you dream up your ideal retirement, plan a course to work towards it, and finally live out a plan that fits you best.<br> I’m so excited to have you here today. Today, we have sort of a recap show. We’re going to review the webinar that we had on January 30th and tell you how you can see a replay in case you missed it or you had so much fun you just want to watch it again. It was my first one. I haven’t watched it yet. I’m a little worried about that, I don’t know why.<br> And then, we’re going to talk about Carl. I think Carl ended up being happy with the results. He will be on hopefully next week to give us a debrief on some of the lessons learned and his thoughts on the experience. I’m really excited that the whole event, the whole January “Can Carl Retire?
