Types of Retirement Income That Count Toward Your Income Floor

What types of income can you use in retirement?

The short answer, in good old North Carolina fashion, is all of them. Every single thing that hits your bank account counts as income.

That’s it. That’s the rule.

If it shows up in your checking account and helps pay the bills, it’s retirement income.

Start With the Checking Account

Retirement income planning isn’t complicated, but people love to overthink it.

Picture your checking account. Money goes in. Money goes out.

Everything that goes in is income.

That’s how you should look at retirement. Forget statements, charts, and glossy projections. Focus on cash flow.

Social Security Is Already Income

First things first, you already own an annuity.

It’s called Social Security.

That money goes into your checking account every month. It increases with inflation. And whether people like it or not, it’s part of your retirement income.

That check is one of the foundations of what I call the income floor, the money you use in Chapter Two of your life.

Pensions Count Too

If you’re one of the lucky few who has a pension, that’s income as well.

If it hits your checking account, it counts.

Simple.

Investment Income Still Counts

Income doesn’t stop with guaranteed sources.

Dividends from stocks count.
Interest from bonds counts.
Treasuries count.
CDs count.
Money markets count.

If you have Multi-Year Guarantee Annuities kicking off interest and you take that interest, that counts too.

You don’t have to complicate it.

Peel off the interest. Put it in the checking account. That’s income.

Rental Income and Other Cash Flow

If you own rental property and it produces income, that’s retirement income.

Side hustles?
Royalties?
Anything that reliably shows up?

It all goes into the same bucket.

If it helps you live your life in retirement, it belongs in the income floor calculation.

Chapter Two Is About You

Chapter One was about work.

Chapter Two is about you.

Sleeping in.
Drinking coffee.
Traveling.
Seeing kids and grandkids.
Going to games.

That’s what the income floor supports.

And before you say, “We’ve lived frugally for 25 years,” remember something important.

There’s no U-Haul behind a hearse.

You can’t take it with you.

What If There’s an Income Gap?

Here’s where the math matters.

Add up everything hitting your checking account.

If your goal is $4,500 a month and you’re only at $4,000, you have a gap.

That gap doesn’t get solved with hope.

It gets solved with contractual guarantees.

That’s where annuities come in, not as investments, not as magic, but as tools to fill a specific income shortfall with the highest contractual payout from a highly rated carrier.

Inflation Isn’t a Guessing Game

Inflation is personal.

It’s not a headline. It’s what you spend money on.

Instead of guessing where inflation goes, you reverse engineer it.

If seven years from now you need another $700 a month, you solve for that amount at that time using contractual guarantees.

Anyone promising an annuity that magically adjusts for inflation is selling fantasy.

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Every time.

When You Don’t Need an Annuity

If you add everything up and you’re good, great.

High five.

You don’t need an annuity.

But if there’s a gap in the income floor, that’s when you call The Annuity Man and my team, real people, not bots, sitting in Las Vegas, Nevada.

My Bottom Line

Every type of income that hits your checking account can be used in retirement.

Add it all up.
Build the income floor.
Identify the gap, if there is one.

That’s how retirement income planning actually works.