The amount of money socked away in retirement accounts jumped up 6% from year-end 2013 to the end of 2014, according to research by the Investment Company Institute.

U.S. retirement assets totaled $24.7 trillion at the end of December 2014, compared to $23.3 trillion at the end of 2013, the research found...

This excerpt from an article by Amit Chopra hits on a key point we emphasize in retirement planning: often what the government reports as its official inflation numbers does not reflect what consumers actually experience. Retirees especially are aware of this. What makes it even worse is the fact that even though Social Security is supposed to be adjusted for rises in the cost of living, because government numbers are so out of sync from real inflation it does little to help retirees keep up.

Good piece from the John Hancock website below that illustrates one of the biggest risks facing retirees – sequence of returns. Market performance varies year to year, and during the years you are building your nest egg this is not as much a concern since you can afford to wait out the cycles. However, this can be potentially devastating to retirees because they usually need to take money out of their accounts for income regardless of what the market is doing. In poor performing markets this acts as a double whammy to savings and can really throw the best laid retirement plans off track...

Some concerning statistics for American women when it comes to retirement readiness were released by BlackRock last week.  In nearly all instances, women lag behind their male counterparts in savings, and further exacerbate the issue by their conservative approach to investing...