Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement Review
Resources
Content Quality
Value
Summary
Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement is a service designed to help you maximize your retirement. The service offers professional financial advice for retirees and those who are planning for retirement. Is it worth the money? Read our review to find out.
What is Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement?
Motley Fool is one of the leading financial news and investment advice companies. The company was founded by Tom and David Gardner in 1993 and has since grown into a financial media powerhouse.
The Motley Fool website is known for offering free market news as well as premium investment advisory services. The company runs stock picking newsletters like Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers, as well as specialized financial services catered to select groups of investors.
Today, we are going to be looking at one of those specialized services called Rule Your Retirement. Keep reading to find out what this service is all about and whether it’s right for you.
Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement is a retirement service designed to help investors with personal finance management and retirement preparation. The service offers resources that can help you navigate major financial decisions and feel comfortable with your retirement planning.
Rule Your Retirement caters to both retirees and individuals who are still planning for retirement. The service could be described as the ultimate guide to retiring the right way. Members get access to professional financial advice and an online community for support.
Rule Your Retirement is run by Robert Brokamp, a certified financial planner who specializes in retirement planning. Brokamp has a long history in the financial industry and has spoken at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Senior Summit.
Rule Your Retirement offers advice related to:
Planning for retirement
Personal finance
Managing budgets and debt
Saving for retirement
Investment strategies
Social Security penefits
Estate planning
And more
Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement Pricing
You can purchase a Rule Your Retirement subscription at a rate of $99 for one year or $149 for two years using this discounted link.
Clearly, the two-year plan is a much better deal, especially considering this is a service that you will likely want access to for at least a couple of years.
Every purchase is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee. So, if you are unhappy with the service, you can reach out to the customer service team and get your membership fee back.
What Do Rule Your Retirement Members Get?
Rule Your Retirement is a service that offers financial advice to help you be in the best possible financial position for retirement. Unlike with Motley Fool Stock Advisor, you don’t get specific stock picks or investment ideas. Instead, you get general guidance related to financial strategy and model portfolios to follow.
This service is designed to help you understand the strategy you need to follow in order to retire comfortably. Again, the advice is relevant to both current retirees and those planning for retirement.
All of the advice comes in the form of articles and guides. There are more than 1,000 articles available to members and new guides are posted on a regular basis.
The articles cover both timeless concepts and time-sensitive events. For example, you will find guides on general investment strategy along with articles covering recent market activity and tips on how you should react.
The articles are organized into a few categories that relate to the different financial aspects of retirement. The best way to help you understand what you’ll get is by sharing a few of the articles in each category.
Here are some of the main categories and a few example articles from each category.
Portfolios
Do You Own Enough Stocks?
Rule Your Retirement Model Portfolios
How Much Risk Should You Take?
Funds
7 Ways to Make the Most of Your 401(k)
The Rewards and Risks of Replacing Bonds with Dividend Stocks
How to Monitor Your Actively Managed Funds
Saving
Complete Guide to Health Savings Accounts
6 Ways Successful Retirement Planners Think about Saving
How Much Income Will You Need Each Year in Retirement?
Everyday Finances
How to Reduce the Risk That You’ll Outlive Your Money in Retirement
The Most Important Social Security Chart You’ll Ever See
How Long Will You Live?
Estate Planning
How to Improve Your Entire Family’s Finances over the Holidays
5 Long-Term Care Stats That Will Blow You Away
5 Things You Might Not Know about the Estate Tax
How to Retire
Tools That Maximize Your Social Security
How to Take the Pulse of Your Retirement Plan
Does Saving More Matter in Your 50s and 60s?
Property and Mortgages
Could Relocating in Retirement Salvage Your Savings?
Advice for Selling a House
Retiring Soon? Should You Downsize Your House?
Insurance
4 Things You’ll Need to Pay For Yourself Under Medicare
Could a Single Emergency Room Visit Destroy Your Finances?
How to Manage the Unexpected in Retirement
Paying for College
Your Complete Guide to College Savings Plans
Your Guide to College Tuition Tax Breaks
How Are Americans Coping With College Costs?
Health and Wellness
How to Reduce the Risk That You’ll Outlive Your Money in Retirement
5 Ways to Be Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier
Will You Be Able to Work as Long as You Want?
As you can see, the service covers just about every aspect of retirement. Rule Your Retirement is essentially an encyclopedia for how to retire and be financially sound. The 1,000+ articles answer just about every question you could come up with. More important, they bring up questions you may not have even thought of.
While you can do your own research online for free, you can’t always trust the source. With Rule Your Retirement, you have access to high-quality resources from a certified financial planner. These resources can help you create a retirement plan that is ideal for your personal financial situation.
Members also have access to special reports. These are in-depth guides focused on specific themes, such as “The Ultimate Guide to Your Retirement Accounts.” The special reports often feature more specific data and guidance than the articles.
You will also have access to an online community where you can start conversations and get advice for your personal situation.
Model Portfolios
Another major feature of Rule Your Retirement is model portfolios. There are three of them included with your subscription, broken down based how where you are relative to retirement:
10 years from retirement
Within 10 years of retirement
In retirement
The model portfolios show how you should split up your portfolio among different asset classes. The portfolios include slices for:
Large cap, mid cap, and small cap stocks
International stocks
Real estate
Bonds
The portfolios also offer recommendations for low-cost ETFs and mutual funds that fit into each of these portfolio slices.
Who is Rule Your Retirement Best For?
We all hope to retire comfortably one day, so the financial advice offered in the Rule Your Retirement service is relevant to everyone. The service is fairly priced at $99/year ($149 for two years). Considering the amount of information Rule Your Retirement provides, it’s hard to imagine members not getting at least $99 of value out of the service.
That said, different age groups will use the service differently.
If you are still a long way away from retirement, a one-year membership might be all you need. You can use that year to absorb as much of the information as possible and start your retirement planning on the right foot. Many retirees wish they had the proper knowledge about how to plan for retirement in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. The resources provided to Rule Your Retirement members can help younger investors start planning properly so they can retire smarter and maybe even sooner.
If you are nearing retirement or already retired, you may prefer a two-year membership. Whereas some people are planning for retirement, you are living it and you will likely have questions on a more continuous basis. You may wonder when it’s time to adjust your portfolios, how to maximize your Social Security benefits, and how to take advantage of tax-favorable income strategies. Rule Your Retirement can serve as a resource that is always at your disposal. If you plan on referencing the resources continuously, you may as well take advantage of the cost savings of a two-year membership.
How Does Rule Your Retirement Compare to Other Motley Fool Services?
Rule Your Retirement is a unique retirement service offered by Motley Fool. It’s very different from Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers stock picking services, which offer monthly stock recommendations. There’s not much attention paid in these services to building a diversified portfolio, and the high-growth stocks that Stock Advisor focuses on might be too risky for many people who are nearing or already in retirement.
On top of that, Rule Your Retirement is mainly focused on education. Although it focuses on stock market-related topics, the service covers far more information related to retirement planning (i.e. retirement cost, setting up a retirement fund, dealing with retirement income issues, etc.).
With that in mind, Rule Your Retirement is not an alternative to a stock picking service like Stock Advisor. It can be used as either a standalone service or a complementary service. Rule Your Retirement can be used to help you plan for every aspect of retirement, while a stock picking service can be used to help you pick stocks to include in your retirement account.
Rule Your Retirement Review: Final Verdict
The internet is teeming with financial advice from a variety of different news outlets, bloggers, and advisors. The problem is, who do you trust?
The Internet is an excellent resource, but there are issues with credibility. When you read a random blog post or watch a random YouTube video, you don’t really know if the creator is qualified to give financial advice. Getting ineffective financial advice can be costly.
This is the problem that Rule Your Retirement solves. We were impressed with the resources we uncovered in our Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement review. This Motley Fool service offers financial advice from a certified financial planner and a credible team of Motley Fool analysts. The advice is well-written and organized on a dashboard that is easy to use.
At only $99/year, the service is a good value. A single helpful financial tip may end up covering the subscription fee and then some.
Pros
Excellent value for two-year subscription
Easy-to-understand retirement planning articles from a certified financial planner
1,000+ evergreen and timely articles available
Access to three model portfolios and suggested fund
Cons
Doesn’t offer Motley Fool stock picks