What is your biggest objection to purchasing an annuity?

That’s where you give over all your money and they pay you back a little bit at a time? I guess I’d be OK with that; it’s kind of like forced saving. It would help you have a certain peace of mind, I guess, which is important when you get up in years. I guess my biggest objection would be finding someone who wasn’t going to rip me off, like that guy — what’s his name? Bernie Madoff!
-Bridget, 73, Chandler, Ariz.

I don’t have any objection to annuities — in fact, we own one. Before we got into it, though, we needed help deciding which annuity would give us the best return, and we were told by one advisor that we needed to turn over all our assets before he would agree to help us. We didn’t like the sound of that too much, so we found someone else who wasn’t as greedy to get his hands on our entire estate. We’re glad we bought the annuity. It’s proven very valuable, especially during the economic collapse.
-Albert, 70, Omaha, Neb.

I have always been a do-it-yourself kind of person. I started my own business back in ’74, and through a lot of hard work and a little luck, I was able to build it into a successful enterprise. All that hard work and sacrifice has paid me back handsomely and now we’re pretty well off. So, the idea of just turning over control of everything to someone else is kind of hard to swallow. It’s definitely the feeling that I’d no longer be in control of my own money.
-Emery, 79, Toledo, Ohio