Kiplinger's Personal Finance and Athene Survey Examines Retirement Spending

Many retirees have carefully developed income plans. Others just take some cash out and hope for the best.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Athene have compiled some data on the “whatever” approach to income management in a summary of results from a survey of 818 U.S. adults, ages 50 or older, that was conducted in June.

About 35% of the retired participants said they had no set plan for deciding how to withdraw money from retirement savings. They said they withdraw whatever money they need.

Another 16% of the retirees surveyed said they weren’t sure what they do about retirement income.

What It Means

You might feel as if everyone knows what you know about income investing and income planning, but, apparently, this is not true.

The Survey

Kiplinger’s and Athene included data in their survey summary only for participants with $100,000 or more in household net worth, excluding the value of a primary residence.

Income Details

Many of the survey participants did say they were using savings withdrawal guidelines.

Other Findings

Results from a detailed summary sent to ThinkAdvisor show that 22% of the retired survey participants said they were getting at least some income from annuities.

About 39% of the retired participants with annuity income were getting 20% or more of their income from annuities.

About 5% of the retirees said they were getting income from a trust; 6.5%, from rental properties; and 1.5%, from reverse mortgage payments.