Income from capital [Wireless Investor]

A flexible approach to managing retirement assets was presented in the August 2008 column. This approach uses a retirement asset inventory to obtain a unified view of a portfolio of retirement assets regardless of the nature of each asset (i.e., pension or investment account balance) and regardless of the tax status of each asset. The column also reviewed some other factors, such as the role of a cash buffer, the impact of taxes on asset allocation, and whether or not to pay off a mortgage. The issue of converting capital to income was alluded to but was not discussed. The present column picks up the narrative at this point.