What is a bond or CD ladder and how does it help retirement income?

A ladder is a set of bonds, CDs, or Treasuries with staggered maturity dates – for example, rungs maturing in one, two, three, four, and five years. Each year a rung matures, giving you a predictable chunk of cash for that year's spending, and you can reinvest or spend it. The benefit for retirees is certainty: you know exactly when money becomes available, you're not forced to sell at depressed prices, and you smooth out interest-rate swings because you're always reinvesting at staggered times. A ladder pairs naturally with the bucket strategy, serving as the safe medium-term bucket that funds the early, fragile years of retirement while your stocks keep growing. Treasury and brokered-CD ladders are easy to build at major brokerages and let you lock in known income with very low risk.