Annuitizing the safe part is precisely what my econ teacher advised me to do many years ago. His additional income came from a considerable amount of real estate income, which was more volatile, and the annuities served him for more than 20 years of retirement, which he took early. He passed away at age 82 and had a wonderful life. I hope you get many more years from your annuitiesI've been with TIAA for nearly 50 years. I'm 82 now. I annuitized part of my accumulation at age 66, and another part at age 72. I find it hard to give specific advice because each employer seems to have agreed to different rules with TIAA, and some have changed since I retired. Here is what I can say. I have degrees in economics and am reasonably well informed about retirement finance issues. I feel that TIAA traditional has been a good choice for the "safe" part of my retirement savings. Although TIAA traditional does not promise increases, it grants them when it can. In the past years I have seen multiple small increases.
It seems that you have been dealing with a projection of what you might have in 2031. If all your funds are in TIAA traditional this is probably quite accurate. However, as some or all seem to be in equities this is quite hard to predict. Or is TIAA making a projection assuming you move funds to trad today? If so then it is probably quite accurate.
Another way to think about this is to assume that TIAA will meet and slightly beat an annuity quote from another insurance company. Immediateannuities.com can give you a rate for an annuity isssued today for a person af a given age. Don't assume that TIAA will do a lot better, but probably will give you some small increases over time if they can.
Finally, you don't have to convert all to TIAA traditional to annuitize. I also annuitized funds in CREF and a total market index fund. Their payout is based on an assumed 4% return, and has gone up because returns have averaged more than that.
Statistics: Posted by notoriousMG — Wed Mar 05, 2025 2:12 am