[originaltext] Learning to live off your investments in retirement is harder

Learning to live off your investments in retirement is harder than saving the money to begin with. Particularly in this unpredictable investment environment,cutting yourself a regular retirement check from your investments can be scary. (26) Purchasing a fund is a retirement planning possibility that many retirees are reluctant to embrace because there’s no inflation protection and no flexibility. In the last couple of years,some investment management companies have rolled out an alternative called a managed-payout fund. Last weekend,the Wall Street Journal examined how well some of these funds have done and the news was pretty discouraging. (27) The report made it clear that living on investment income on a tight budget can be rough. If you are still a distance from retirement, here’s a little exercise you might consider. (28) It doesn’t require spending any money and you might learn something important about your ability to live on your savings. Choose a managed-payout fund, see how it is invested, and allocate your savings in the same way the fund does. Once every quarter,subtract the amount of money that you would be taking out and see how well you do. If you feel good about how the fund is managing your money,you might consider including it in your retirement strategy. (28) Or maybe this exercise will convince you that you can manage your money yourself—and save the management fees. If you don’t like the result,you haven’t lost any real money and you can cross that strategy off the retirement planning list.
26. Why are many people reluctant to invest in funds for retirement?
27. What did the report by Wall Street Journal find out?
28. What’s the benefit of the exercise according to the passage?