There’s really no easy way to define the experience of waking up your first Monday morning after a lifetime of work, and realizing you’re retired and financially independent. You made it! You don’t have to go to your cube/office/practice/business again - EVER.
For some, this first Monday morning is a Zen experience, transformational in essence, very spiritual and very powerful. For others, it’s one of the most terrifying days of their life.
What will it be for you? Ahhhhhhh retirement.... or AHHHHHHHH retirement!!!
You may be one of the lucky (but very few) who have no retirement worries as a result of a generous and secure pension. For the rest of us, there is some very careful and strategic planning to be done. But before crunching the numbers, it’s imperative to begin with the emotional side of retirement planning.
It's true - if you want to achieve financial success, you'll need to develop your delayed gratification skills.
Sunset magazine had an article in the Feb 2012 issue featuring 20 'dream towns' in a best places to live list. The criteria was that these towns had to be slow paced and stress free - not easy to find anymore in our crazy busy world.
Who could resist fantasizing about taking off for Nelson, BC or Whitsunday Islands in Australia. It's interesting to read about these couples who actually did it, leaving behind friends, family, careers and homes in search of a more mellow lifestyle.
When it comes to retirement income planning, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is the assumption for your projected rate of return.
Before the market crash of 2008, counting on your retirement savings growing 8, 9 or even 12 percent plus, year after year after year, are likely gone. In the ‘new normal’, cautious investors are learning to revise their expectations downward and for good reason. Recent market volatility, the debt crisis in Europe, a slower growing global economy, a weak real estate market and political gridlock have all contributed to revisiting long-term growth forecasts.
Helping people understand personal finance and then make good financial decisions is what keeps me in business.
In a recent survey by Fidelity Investments, 500 couples were asked about their plans for retirement. The survey targeted couples near retirement or those who had already retired.
What the survey revealed was that although many couples work hard in the savings aspect of retirement – they do a very poor job at communicating with each other about their individual goals, dreams and expectations around retirement. Since they hadn’t previously discussed it, a large percent of couples reach retirement age without having decided on the big questions like where to live or at what age to retire.
We’re only three weeks into the New Year and hands down, almost every potential client I’ve spoken with so far is concerned about one thing and one thing only - retirement planning. More specifically, they want to know, based on their current financial picture, if they’ll be able to maintain the lifestyle they desire when no longer working for money. That, ladies and gentlemen, pardon the cliché, is the $6 million dollar question on many a boomers mind these days.
Where most of us do really well is on understanding and executing on the accumulation phase, such as saving and investing X amount in your IRAs, 401ks, 403bs, each year. We get that concept. Where things become murky for many people is when you get to the income distribution phase of retirement planning. This is when you need a long-term strategy to fill the gap between your social security and possible pension payments and your lifestyle expenses. To do that, you ask the following questions:
