This following Paragraph in this month's Commentary provided by @CharlesLynnBolin or @lynnbolin2021 seems worthy of further discussion here on the board.
Thanks for sharing your personal experiences and decision that you have made.
@CharlesLynnBolin wrote:

The Modern Wealth Survey for Charles Schwab by Logica Research shows that of the participants, Americans believe that it takes a net worth, including home equity, of $774,000 to be financially comfortable and $2.2M to be wealthy. FatFIRE Woman has an interesting Net Worth Calculator. The concept behind FatFIRE is “Financial Independence, Retiring Early,” but with enough to have a good quality of life. The calculator shows that the median net worth of households in the 65-year age group is $189,100, including home equity, while ten percent of households at age 65 have a net worth of $2.3 million or higher. Pensions are often not included in net worth calculations and greatly distort comparisons.

We spend our working life depending on work income to provide the funding source for our "cost to live" a quality life. If we are lucky (and maybe a bit frugal) we also squirrel away some of our work income for retirement. The above paragraph captures where most of us (65 and older) are at. If we are at the median or below, we are probably still working (if that is even possible). Using a SWR (Safe Withdrawal Rate) of 4 % this "median net worth of $189K" would barely provide $600 per month ($189K*.04/12month) of "safe withdrawals" from somewhat "uncertain and illiquid sources" (our investments & home equity values).
@CharlesLynnBolin last line:

Pensions are often not included in net worth calculations and greatly distort comparisons.

Whether one will receive a pension, an annuity, a Social Security benefit or some other form of monthly/yearly income stream these "payments" are often difficult to quantify in terms of their worth in one overall portfolio or as part of one's net worth. After 40 years (25 - 65) of accumulating a retirement nest egg and living in a home, I personally struggle to think of these two assets as the first place to turn for income in retirement. In fact, I have often thought of my investments and my home's equity as the last place to seek income (withdrawals).
As important as our portfolio and home value is, it might be better for us to find alternative and additional income solutions to help meet income needs in retirement.
Social Security:
Most of us will receive a Social Security Benefit. Spend some time crunching numbers regarding SS strategies.
Annuities / QLAC:
Increases in Interest rates may now be making annuities more attractive. Annuities are a topic on to themselves. For example, a QLAC is an annuity that you set up early in retirement, then dispersed later in retirement at a higher payout.
Our Home/Vacation Property:
Aside from home equity, a home could be rented for inflation adjusted income in retirement. Rent part of your home and have this rental income help with expenses or provide funds for you to travel in retirement. Consider running a part time business out of your home.
Reverse Mortgage Line of Credit:
Consider setting up a reverse mortgage early in retirement. This allows the reverse mortgage's line of credit to grow over time. Then, later in life, you can access this reverse mortgage line of credit and make much larger payments to yourself. This strategy (setting up a reverse mortgage early in retirement (age 62) and letting the line of credit grow) reminds me of how a QLAC (purchased early in retirement then dispersed later in retirement at a higher payout) works. There is a cost to setting up the reverse mortgage similar to any mortgage.
how-does-the-line-of-credit-for-a-reverse-mortgage-work/

Pension:
Some pension plans have features that allow funds (retirement savings) to be added to one's pension so provide a higher pension payout. Spend some time understanding what is offered at retirement. What's a Pension Worth? It could be a lot:
what-is-a-pension-worth
Part Time / Volunteer Work:
Retirement might be the best time to work at a passion that either pays you an income or provide you a productive way to spend your time.
Some of these income payments have little or no death benefit (SS might provide a burial benefit), some have a diminishing cash value (upon death), and some die with the beneficiary, some have a date certain end date, but all provide a partial solution to a retiree's income needs and might help you sleep better at night.
Love to hear what others have planned and implemented for their retirement income.

Do they expect indigent nursing home Medicaid elderly to go out and get a job too?

They're trusting private equity firms to take care of that after they come up with suitable hooks, like:
"Empowering seniors!"

It's all described in the prospectus for the new Strategic Enhanced-Plus Alternative Option Senior Living Experience And Sustinance Retirement Opportunities Fund that's set to launch in Q3 of this year......

does no one watch Succession?

Do they expect indigent nursing home Medicaid elderly to go out and get a job too?

They're trusting private equity firms to take care of that after they come up with suitable hooks, like:
"Empowering seniors!"

It's all described in the prospectus for the new Strategic Enhanced-Plus Alternative Option Senior Living Experience And Sustinance Retirement Opportunities Fund that's set to launch in Q3 of this year......

The SEC writes in its Investor Bulletin "Bank Sweep Programs",

If you have more than $250,000 in cash in your broker-dealer’s bank sweep program, you may want to consider:

• Public Information about the health of the bank.
  You may want to take advantage of the financial and other information available to consumers on FDIC’s website at https://banks.data.fdic.gov/bankfind-suite/bankfind [corrected]. One relevant consideration when assessing the health of the bank may be the percentage of deposits derived from concentrated sources such as brokered deposits or one or more bank sweep arrangements.
• Your broker-dealer’s affiliation with the bank.
  Your broker-dealer could choose not to limit or end a relationship with an affiliated bank that experiences financial difficulties, even if doing so would be in the best interests of broker-dealer’s customers.

Brokers using affiliated banks include among others, Schwab (Charles Schwab Bank, Charles Schwab Premier Bank, Charles Schwab Trust Bank, TD Bank, TD Bank USA), E*Trade (self-directed accounts are limited to Morgan Stanley Bank and Morgan Stanley Private Bank; other accounts also use Citibank), and Merrill (Bank of America, Bank of America, Calif.; qualified Merrill retirement accounts may also use other banks)
Other brokerages do not have affilliated banks. Vanguard is only now beginning to roll out a couple of FDIC-insured products, Vanguard Cash Deposit (sweep account) and Vanguard Cash Plus Account. But those are pilot programs open by invitation only. Fidelity offers a bank sweep program with slightly different banks for its CMA accounts and for its IRA accounts for its IRA accounts.
Fidelity shows that it uses First Republic Bank, but that the bank is now unavailable in its program. According to Fidelity, that means only that it cannot add new money to First Republic (or presumably its successor bank?). This seems reasonable and responsible, as the moneys deposited there are below the FDIC limit and pulling money out would simply exacerbate the run on the bank. (First Republic is also on Merrill's list of banks for qualified retirement accounts.)
Notable also is that Huntington National Bank is on Fidelity's IRA list of banks but not on its CMA list of banks. Recent change? I don't know. Huntington National Bank is the principal subsidiary of Huntington Bancshares, listed a month ago as a vulnerable bank. More recently, the bank said that it was working to shore up its assets and provided figures to substantiate that.
So long as one's cash in a bank is below the FDIC limit, I don't think there's any reason to be concerned about losing money. The 2014 SEC warning about bank risks due to concentrated sources seems prescient.

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 5/1/23
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
+25 bps for RC, RA, RCP, SRA; huge +175 bps for Newer IRAs.
Restricted RC 6.50%, RA 6.25%
Flexible RCP 5.75%, SRA 5.50%, Newer IRAs 5.20% (!)
TSP G Fund hasn't updated yet (previous monthly rate was 3.625%).
Options outside of workplace retirement plans include m-mkt funds, bank m-mkt accounts (FDIC insured), T-Bills, short-term brokered CDs.
#401k #403b #StableValue #TIAA #TSP
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1024/thread

"...I'd venture that most posters on these discussion boards are fairly good savers/budgeters (or at least, were at some point). That's simply not the case for the typical American. In general, we are good at one thing - spending.
On the flip side, some of the supposed Financial Planning experts push the limits of what you really need to retire. Not everybody requires over $2M or $3M in savings to retire comfortably."
*******************
Bingo. 66% --- isn't it--- of the USA economy depends upon CONSUMPTION???
And really, if the proper arrangements are made, no one needs anything near a million dollars. If you work for a nonprofit, you're not going to earn a lotta money. But there are choices to be made and saving and investing to be done, which will stand you in good stead when retirement age comes around.I never owned a home. STILL renting, in retirement. Works for me. Affordable SENIOR housing isn't very costly compared to the standard apartment rents. And I'm not in a senior-living arrangement. There might be a wait. But it's worse, quite a long wait, for under-employed single moms around here. I know one, personally. She applied, and the system simply never came through for her on that score. At least she's been smart enough to put $$$ into her 401k.
Hank mentioned critical thinking skills. There certainly is quite a dearth of that stuff, I note, these days. I talk to ordinary people all around and am shocked. Missing the forest for the trees. Or missing the forest AND the trees. Or not CARING where that forest might be. Or not knowing what a forest IS. OMG. And these people VOTE, I presume.

I know. But it seems irrelevant to say Americans aren't saving enough when so many have nothing left over to save after paying their bills. I often think the constant complaints posed in the media over "financial illiteracy" are really just a coded repeat of the "personal responsibility" mantra, blaming the victims of massive income inequality for their own suffering when that inequality is systemic and, largely, by design, and not primarily due to individual moral or ethical failings. Yes, people should save more and put more in their retirement plans. But there are often really good reasons they can't, and in certain cases lousy reasons. There tends to be a fixation on the lousy reasons.

I think it's a combination of structural inequity AND lack of personal responsibility.
If money's tight, do we really need to go into hock for that summer vacation just because it's summer vacation and everyone is 'supposed' to take a trip? I would argue no; find something local that's more cost effective and go when you're not going to spend the next 10 years paying interest on the credit card debt used to finance the week away.
But at the same time, one can argue that the structure of the capitalist system also runs against people, too. For example, think how many things are now subscription-based versus years ago. Or why is there a 'PBM' dictating what medicine you can get when they're NOT your doctor? Etc, etc.
And don't get me started on the insane nature of our retirement system, account limitations on contributions, etc. I long since quit playing the annual contribute-and-convert-to-Roth game because for only 5-7K/year it wasn't worth it. If you want to create responsible savers, let them save what they want WHEN THEY WANT TO. Had a windfall year and can sock away 50K? Great! Had a bad year and couldn't contribute more than 5K? Okay, that's fine, too. But things like the Roth phase-out and the huge delta between 40X contribution levels and IRA contribution levels remains a sore spot for me. Nobody these days can expect a comfy retirement in 2050+ on tucking away 5-7K a year in an IRA no matter how much it might grow or how lucky the investments are.
And there's the whole single-person-penalty when compared to married couples on taxation and more. Hell, our tax code in general is slanted against most people anyway. Grargh....
Living within your means and staying debt free is what enables true freedom, but that thinking just ain't profitable.
(sorry, I'm on a roll this week - I'm hosting 2 different sessions for our uni's financial literacy week)

I know. But it seems irrelevant to say Americans aren't saving enough when so many have nothing left over to save after paying their bills. I often think the constant complaints posed in the media over "financial illiteracy" are really just a coded repeat of the "personal responsibility" mantra, blaming the victims of massive income inequality for their own suffering when that inequality is systemic and, largely, by design, and not primarily due to individual moral or ethical failings. Yes, people should save more and put more in their retirement plans. But there are often really good reasons they can't, and in certain cases lousy reasons. There tends to be a fixation on the lousy reasons.

Topics this Month:
Hitting Your Retirement Savings Goal
5 Things to know about the New RMD Rules & Secure 2.0
20 Years of Target Date Funds
Non Financial Aspects of Retirement
Investor Insight Magazine

What I find interesting regarding index funds is what Fleckenstein refers to the endless money train into said index funds (my paraphrasing, not his words) from retirement investors into 401Ks etc., just like what folks were thinking in Japan years ago...this is going to go on and on, until one day it doesn't and whammo. Drives stocks/indexes up no matter what the true fundamentals are (note what AAPL did last quarter, earnings I think were flat or so and market cap goes up what $5-6Billion? What's up with that?
I think that his one of the reason's some/many invest with funds that are NOT index funds...thinking is that index fund results are based on group psychology to an extent and "it works until it doesn't"...
Hmm.

There are no guarantees in finance, but I would say the likelihood of a private shop as big as Vanguard being acquired is slim, and a $70 billion target date fund that is a mainstay in thousands of employees retirement plans probably won’t change its stated strategy.

What would you hold for the next 20 years? The $70 billion 2040 Target Date VFORX is the most obvious solution for many investors but not here. The notion that you can’t get a reasonably smooth ride purely by indexing isn’t true. You can index a lot of things, including bonds. VFORX is all index, has a 0.08% expense ratio and will grow gradually more conservative in its allocations as 2040 approaches. A target date fund isn’t right for tinkerers and traders like on MFO, but I actually think it’s quite useful for many employees in retirement plans who don’t understand investing. One and done.

Check FMI international FMIJX. It was discussed a lot here as well on M* forums when it was a top performer for a few years. As usual, it is not mentioned anywhere as it's been underperforming for the last few years. I held ARTKX for a long TIME in one account or another, and bought it in my retirement account when they announced about closure.
Also, check VTRIX, VWICX, and Avantis International Large Value ETF AVIV if you are OK with ETFs.

John Miller manages several HY muni funds at Nuveen (OEFs NHMAX, etc; CEFs NMZ, etc). He is retiring from Nuveen.
Nuveen also settled with Preston Hollow and will invest a small amount in it.
https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/nuveens-miller-steps-aside-as-head-of-munis-ahead-of-june-1-retirement
More
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nuveen-appoints-daniel-close-as-head-of-municipals-301792931.html
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/preston-hollow-community-capital-and-nuveen-reach-global-settlement-of-all-litigation-claims-announce-nuveen-investment-in-preston-hollow-301792929.html

One of the best retirement income optimizer I have come across and it's free.
This is the extended version (more inputs):
https://i-orp.com/Plans/extended.html
This is the basic version:
https://i-orp.com/Plans/index.html

Thanks for commenting @Observant1 - I appreciate links so much more when folks add a personal comment. Generally, the only time I’ll watch a linked video is if the poster has commented on it.
Benz’s “Buckets” conjure up an image of somebody in a Bonanza - like western walking to and from the well. Prefer “allocation model” myself, although the label doesn’t matter much. In both personal and financial affairs I’m usually better off having a disciplined approach. So I’d be lost without my allocation model written down and securely stored among the digital archives. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on viewpoint) mine is a whole lot more complex than Benz’s. It’s evolved over nearly 25 years in retirement as my knowledge base has grown, opportunities available have multiplied and age has advanced. I’d hate being still crammed into the same “bucket(s)” today as a quarter-century ago.
Benz is no Einstein, but she appears generally well versed on the fund landscape as one would expect from Morningstar. I think 25-30 years back when I was in the process of ditching the Templeton assigned “advisor” (commanding a 4%+ front load) and developing my own self directed investment approach Benz’s advice would have been both stimulating and helpful. Today, not much. I think she’s appealing mainly to inexperienced investors.
Some pertinent thoughts / observations:
- Benz leads off characterizing bonds as a portfolio-wrecking “torpedo” in 2022. An interesting analogy, though I might have said “weighty anchor”. Equities could have have sunk your investment sloop even faster and driven it deeper than bonds last year, depending, of course, on which ones.
- Benz suggests holding 1-2 years worth of cash reserve to “ride out” rough stretches of the market. Surely this is optimistic. While not one to hold a lot of cash myself, in reading others’ posts over the years it appears that her suggested 1-2 years worth of cash reserve is on the low end. Some well-versed investors here who subscribe to the “rainy day” approach have been known to hold anywhere from 3 to 5 years’ supply of cash to draw on in event of a prolonged bear market - a more realistic time frame. (Either you have religion or you don’t.)
- Just 3 buckets seems rather basic - actually pretty simplistic.
- The contents of Benz’s buckets appear to slosh around a bit. She mentions international funds “might be” an asset to include today. OK. Probably good advice. But a staunch “bucketeer” might well adhere to static allocations, periodically rebalancing. Adding / deleting components would appear tantamount to going off the reservation. She suggests some precious metals (now that they’ve appreciated significantly). Consider that there have been periods as brief as 2 or 3 years over which precious metals funds have fallen 50% or more. How many novice investors (to whom she seems to be appealing) would have the staying power to hold on to to an asset like that near the bottom?
- She’s fond of index funds. If one has a 10-25 year time horizon that’s probably great advice. Over longer periods lower fees should translate into better outcomes. But it’s not that simple. First, today’s investors generally have shorter time horizons / are prone to hold funds for shorter periods than a generation ago. Timing decisions might well impact returns more than fees. Secondly, the advice to invest in indexes ignores the extent to which some of those may have become distorted / overpriced after decades of outperformance. For example, the cap-weighted S&P 500 might not be the best place to invest today. Some knowledgeable investors actually maintain small short positions on it, wagering, in effect, that other market areas will outperform.

T Rowe Price/TROW has bought the retirement income software firm Retiree Inc. This Software can take into account a variety of household accounts to come up with retirement solutions to meet various goals (optimize income, bequest value, etc). BTW, several firms offer retirement income calculator that may have limited capabilities.
News: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2023/03/30/t-rowe-price-to-buy-income-planning-software-maker/
Websites
https://www.retireeincome.com/
https://incomestrategy.com/
Founders: https://incomestrategy.com/about-us-2/
Initial Source: Kitces at TwitterLink

Christine Benz discusses six retirement "blind spots" in this weeks episode:
Retirement Date Risk
Sequence-of-Return Risk
Low-Yield Risk
Inflation Risk
Health Care, Long-Term Care Risk
Longevity Risk
Video

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1511699/000089418923002492/aquixsupplement-liquidation.htm
(I can see the one liners with this one)
97 1 aquixsupplement-liquidation.htm 497
Ecofin Sustainable Water Fund
Supplement dated April 6, 2023 to the Fund’s
Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”),
each dated March 31, 2023, as amended
Based upon a recommendation by Tortoise Capital Advisors, L.L.C. (the “Adviser”), the Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Managed Portfolio Series (the “Trust”) has approved a plan of liquidation for the Ecofin Sustainable Water Fund (the “Fund”), a series of the Trust, pursuant to which the Fund will be liquidated on or around April 21, 2023 (the “Liquidation” or the “Liquidation Date”). The Adviser has determined that the Fund has limited prospects for meaningful growth. As a result, the Adviser and the Board believe that the Liquidation of the Fund is in the best interests of its shareholders.
In anticipation of the Liquidation, effective as of the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (“close of business”) on April 11, 2023, the Fund is closed to new investments. In addition, effective immediately, the Adviser may begin an orderly transition of the Fund’s portfolio securities to cash and cash equivalents and the Fund will cease investing its assets in accordance with its investment objective and policies.
Shareholders may voluntarily redeem shares of the Fund, as described in the Fund’s Prospectus, before the Liquidation Date. Shareholders remaining in the Fund until the Liquidation Date may bear increased transaction fees in connection with the disposition of the Fund’s portfolio holdings. If the Fund has not received your redemption request or other instruction prior to the close of business on April 21, 2023, your shares will be automatically redeemed on the Liquidation Date.
Prior to the Liquidation Date, the Fund may declare one or more dividends to all holders of record as of a date or dates to be determined consisting of any undistributed income and capital gains (net of available capital loss carryovers) of the Fund.
Prior notice of any such dividends will be posted to the following website: https://etp.ecofininvest.com.
If you take no action prior to the Liquidation Date, your shares will be automatically redeemed on the Liquidation Date. Remaining shareholders as of the Liquidation Date will receive a liquidating distribution in an amount equal to the net asset value of their Fund shares, less any required withholding. For shareholders that hold their shares in a taxable account, the redemption of Fund shares will generally be treated as any other redemption of shares (i.e., a sale that may result in a gain or loss for federal income tax purposes).
If you hold your shares in an individual retirement account (an “IRA”), you have 60 days from the date you receive your proceeds to reinvest or “rollover” your proceeds into another IRA and maintain their tax-deferred status. You must notify the Fund’s transfer agent at 855-TCA-FUND (855-822-3863) prior to April 21, 2023 of your intent to rollover your IRA account to avoid withholding deductions from your proceeds.
If the redeemed shares are held in a qualified retirement account such as an IRA, the redemption proceeds may not be subject to current income taxation. You should consult with your tax advisor on the consequences of this redemption to you. Liquidation proceeds will be issued to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on the Liquidation Date.
Please retain this supplement for future reference.

@Crash If you only lost your shirt , you'd be one up on me & my shorts !

Giggle. Ya, it's not been pretty. But it's the only game in town. I'm investing for heirs, anyhow, at this point. The day to day stuff is interesting to track. Retirement is fabulous to me.