Fisher’s 99 Retirement Tips: EDU # 2608

Feb 25, 2026

They dig into estate planning basics like wills, living wills, incapacity planning, and revocable trusts. They tackle longevity statistics and why using age‑65 cohort numbers matters for retirement income. They debate annuities versus self‑funding longevity strategies and unpack annuity complexity, fees, and surrender penalties.

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ANECDOTE

Referred Dental Pain Solved By A Crown

Jim recounts his tooth pain and referral to an endodontist where a cracked molar caused referred pain in his canine.
A temporary crown fixed the cold sensitivity overnight, avoiding an immediate root canal.

ADVICE

Regularly Update Your Estate Documents

Do create and regularly review core estate documents like a will, powers of attorney, and living will.
Jim Saulnier and Chris Stein recommend checking these every 3–5 years or after major life changes to ensure beneficiaries and instructions remain accurate.

ADVICE

Plan For Incapacity Not Just Death

Do add incapacity-focused documents like a living will and consider a revocable living trust to manage assets if you become incapacitated.
Jim explains RLTs let a named trustee keep managing titled assets (including selling a home) without court involvement.

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Chris’s Summary
Jim and I review Fisher Investments’ 99 Retirement Tips and begin working through the list, covering only a handful in this episode. We discuss estate planning basics such as having a will, the importance of reviewing estate documents, and considering living wills and trusts, with emphasis on incapacity planning. We then examine longevity statistics, why life expectancy at birth is often misapplied, and how that connects to retirement income decisions, including Fisher’s warning on annuities.

Jim’s “Pithy” Summary
Chris and I start digging into Fisher Investments’ 99 Retirement Tips and, true to form, we only make it through a few because I may have wandered down a rabbit hole or two. The estate planning stuff is straightforward—have a will, review it, don’t ignore the documents that matter if you’re alive but not fully capable. Death is easy administratively. Incapacity is where things get messy, and that’s where families struggle. And that’s where better planning matters most.

Then we get into longevity. If you’re going to say people might live longer than they think, you better use the right numbers. Not the “life expectancy at birth” headline stat. If a couple makes it to 65, the odds shift. That matters. That changes the runway. That changes how you think about income. It also changes how long that portfolio has to work, and how long decisions have to hold up.

And from there we run into the annuity warning. We’re not pro-annuity and we’re not anti-annuity. Many deserve criticism, but if longevity risk is real—and it can be—then you should evaluate lifetime income options on their merits. Social Security is guaranteed lifetime income. Income annuities are too, so they should belong in the conversation. Whether you use them depends on the situation, but you can’t talk about taking longevity seriously and then issue a blanket warning against annuities.

The post Fisher’s 99 Retirement Tips: EDU # 2608 appeared first on The Retirement and IRA Show.