Asking yourself these important questions before retiring helps rule out any unwanted surprises. Joe Anderson, CFP® and Alan Clopine, CPA dig into the email bag to answer your questions. Original publish date January 21, 2017 (hour 1). Note that content may be outdated as rules and regulations have changed.

2:48 "When you use debt properly, it can actually be pretty effective."

9:32 "Here are 18 questions to ask yourself before you retire…let's start with the first one: what does being retired mean to you?"

13:02 "Absolutely make sure you communicate what your retirement vision looks like to your spouse."

16:58 "What would you like to add to your life and eliminate from your life?"

20:19 "How do you feel about downsizing? A lot of our equity and net worth is pent up in our home."

25:06 "Should I recharacterize my Traditional IRA contributions to a Roth IRA?"

26:12 "Virtually anyone that's working and has earned income can do a regular IRA contribution as long as you're under 70 ½, however here are a couple stipulations…"

27:31 "If you're single and your income is in between $118,000 and $133,000 you can do a partial Roth contribution."

28:48 "You can do a Roth conversion regardless of your income level and age, and you don't have to be working."

30:33 "Recharacterization means you're undoing your contribution that you made."

31:36 "Control is everything when it comes to your money in retirement, because in retirement you actually do have more control over how much you pay in taxes [according to] which accounts you take money out of, and each account may be taxed differently."