We receive a lot of questions from listeners either by phone, mail or email and today we're opening up that mailbag of questions and Victor is answering your questions on today's show.

For years, annuities have gotten a bum rap. Too expensive. Too many strings attached. Your money is locked up forever. You’ve heard all the “cons” of annuities for years. But with private company pensions dying out, the tide is starting to turn with younger baby boomers and even Gen Xers showing more interest in annuities as part of a retirement strategy.

It’s probably no surprise that what’s right for your money now, probably won’t be the case in ten or 20 years. There are five main stages to your financial life, and the third stage is an important one: your pre-retirement years.

MarketWatch says nobody suffers more from high inflation than retirees. Back in the ’70s, retirees living on a fixed income were hit the hardest as prices continued to skyrocket. Every year, they got poorer as costs went up. And right now, inflation is 5.4 percent … a 13-year high. So, with pricing going up on everything from the homes we buy to the food we put on our tables, it’s so important to have a plan to help make our money last.

How much should you save for retirement? Where should you save it? And how can you make sure it will last after you leave your job for good? Saving is a good start … a really good start to getting ready for this next chapter in your life. But you need to do more than just save, you need an income strategy after you stop earning a regular paycheck.

So many people are worried about not saving enough for retirement, but what about saving too much for retirement? Can there even be such a thing? It’s a big challenge to figure out how much you need to save for retirement. You don’t want to under-save and come up short. But you also don’t want to save so much and spend so little that you never really enjoy your retirement years. Victor and Guy talk through that balancing act today.

Victor and Guy stumbled upon a Kiplinger report about the Five Pillars that can lead to a successful retirement.  Victor and Guy break down each pillar for us.

For many of you, retirement means the freedom to do what you want to do when you want to do it for as long as you can. Independence from the daily grind. As we celebrate our nation’s Independence Day this weekend, we’ll talk about how you can achieve – and celebrate – your own financial independence in retirement.

In the mid-70s, the start of individual retirement accounts and 401(k) plans spurred a drive in American workers to pile money away for retirement. But more than 40 years later, more of us are realizing there could be a better way to think about your money for retirement. People get caught up in how much they’ve saved. But what you really need to think about is how much you may need to spend in retirement. If you’ve been focused on saving and not on income, there’s a lot you will learn from today’s show.

You visit your doctor every year for your annual check-up to stay healthy and to be aware of any potential issues when it comes to your health. Why should your financial health be any different? That only multiplies in importance once you get in retirement, because you’re no longer earning a paycheck. This show examines what you need to be aware of to be cognizant of your financial health in pre-retirement and retirement.