The way boomers define ‘retirement success’ is changing rapidly. The old model of ‘success’ - where your goal is to accumulate as much money as you possibly can by the time you reach the finish line, regardless of the stress and impact on your physical, emotional and spiritual health, well, that model is no longer sustainable.
Think about how many years of your adult life you spend accumulating enough money in order to have financial security and the lifestyle you desire when you stop working for money. You do your best, save as much as possible, live within or below your means, fund your retirement accounts, maintain a low cost, well diversified investment portfolio, and then the big day arrives, and you say adios to your job, career or business.
Suddenly, all those years of saving and accumulating come to a screeching halt and instead of being in the accumulation phase, you now move into the distribution phase with your money. On paper, theoretically, this all makes sense, right? Your nest egg now needs to last your entire lifetime. No worries, right?
In the hyper consumer society we live in today, buy now, pay later has become the norm. Saving enough money for a secure retirement all too often takes a back seat to the immediate gratification of purchasing the shiny object in the window. Practicing the concept of delayed gratification - fuhgeddaboudit.
If you’re among the millions of boomers beginning to plan for retirement, you’re most likely feeling a range of emotions that may range from euphoria to downright fear. Nonetheless, as you begin to prepare for this next phase of your life, step one is assessing where you stand financially right at this moment.
Yet on the road to assessing your financial readiness for retirement, unexpected events could occur that rock your world and change your life in ways probably unimaginable to most people. The story below actually happened. Names have been changed but events that occurred are unfortunately real.
If you’re like the majority of people, come the New Year, you feel almost a primal urge to do something about your finances.
It may be something simple like checking to see how your investments performed last year or perhaps something more ambitious like developing a comprehensive financial plan.
What exactly you do is not the point, but definitely do something, anything, just get started. What you’re looking to do is get into the habit, at least once a year, of investing some time in not only how your relationship with money is going individually as well as with your partner, but also in assessing the previous year from a your money and your life holistic perspective. Call it the year in review.
If you find yourself just about ready to say yes and commit to the development of a comprehensive financial plan but for some reason you keep getting stuck on making the final move, my guess is the thought of compiling the documents needed is your roadblock.
So imagine my joyful surprise when a new client just emailed me her very positive feedback after gathering all the info needed to design her financial plan...
Of the many aspects involved when designing a comprehensive financial plan, probably my favorite element of all is helping clients decide on their number. The number I’m referring to is your total net-worth, but more specifically, the amount of liquid assets you’ll need to accumulate by the time you’re ready to retire or stop working for money.