How to Boost Retirement Income by Making It Safer

One of my Baby Boomer clients asked for help with a retirement plan that would provide her with a specified level of "safe income" every month. She realized that she did not have enough put away to live off interest on U.S. Treasury bonds or savings accounts alone, something that could easily require a nest egg of $2 million to accomplish.

Very few of my clients have accumulated that much in savings. So, she was looking for other, higher-yielding sources of safe income.

I agreed to work with her, but first we had to agree on what "safe" means. Then we had to decide the meaning of "income." Once we both accepted those two definitions, the plan was relatively