This week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast, I’m talking about the 5 ways to ruin your retirement...and all have nothing to do with the economy, the stock market, social security, inflation, or interest rates. 

Today, I’m talking about how spending can ruin your retirement. Now when I talk about spending you probably think I’m talking about overspending. And that certainly is one of the easiest ways to ruin your retirement - spend down your assets, run out of money, move in with your kids and live off of social security checks for the rest of your life.

But that’s a rare occurrence. Thankfully, I’ve never had a single client spend down all of their assets in 14 years, and we have about 300 clients. I bet if you polled 10 financial advisors with the same number of clients, they would only have at most 1 or 2 rare tragic case to tell where someone ran out of money in retirement. It’s a big fear, but with careful planning and adjustments along the way, it’s possible to avoid what might scare you the most about retirement.

What I see more often is ruining their retirement by underspending. They are so fearful about spending down their assets that they don’t actually enjoy their retirement years. They stay home rather than take vacations. They deal with lukewarm water in their shower for years rather than paying a plumber to come fix it. They drive around an old, unreliable car, not because they can’t afford a new one, but because they refuse to spend any money. 

Retirement years are meant to be a new adventure, particularly the younger years of retirement when you’re still healthy and active. But I see too many people waste it away watching Fox News or CNN all day and not doing much of anything else that’s meaningful or fulfilling. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast, I’m talking about the 5 ways to ruin your retirement...and all have nothing to do with the economy, the stock market, social security, inflation, or interest rates. 

Today, I’m talking about how health care costs can ruin your retirement. Healthcare is one of the biggest expenses for most retirees - ranking right up there with housing and transportation costs, and it comes with an equally big lifetime price tag. 

Fidelity estimates that about 15% of the average retiree's annual expenses will be used for health care-related expenses, including Medicare premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. 

In that same study, Fidelity found that the average retired couple age 65 in 2019 will spend $285,000 on health care expenses in retirement. For single retirees, the estimate is $150,000 for women and $135,000 for men. Ouch! 

On an annual basis, in my experience I find that most of my clients end up spending $5,000-$15,000 per year on healthcare costs. 

And then there’s the big unknown of long-term care costs. If you require long-term care for an extended period or if you develop dementia or Altzheimer’s, the costs skyrocket. The estimated lifetime cost of care for someone with dementia is $341,840.

There’s about a 50/50 chance that you’ll need some form of long-term care in your lifetime, and 15% of Americans will spend more than $250,000 on long-term care in our lifetime. 

Those expenses can wipe out your wealth, which is why it’s so important to understand your options and protect yourself.

If you’re in your 50s it’s a good time to look seriously at a long-term care policy and decide if you’re going to purchase coverage or take your chances with self-funding if you need expensive long-term care later in life.

The takeaway with today’s episode is that understanding your annual costs for healthcare in retirement is essential. Medicare isn’t free. You’ll still have out-of-pocket expenses each year. Make sure you understand what those costs are likely to be and make sure you include those expenses in your annual retirement budget before you retire. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast, I’m talking about the 5 ways to ruin your retirement...and all have nothing to do with the economy, the stock market, social security, inflation, or interest rates. 

Today, I’m talking about a rather unpopular topic, especially when it comes to retirement...divorce. When you’re desperate to get out of a marriage, thinking about how that can ruin your retirement isn’t usually top of mind, but I wish couples in troubled marriages would more carefully consider the financial consequences of a divorce before pulling the plug. 

Divorce rates among those 50 & over are skyrocketing. It’s become such a noticeable trend that it even has a name - gray divorce. 

The main financial problem with gray divorce is that the asset split that happens in nearly every divorce cuts your wealth in half. Research from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research found that someone getting divorced after age 50 can expect their wealth to drop by about 50%. And unlike someone who divorces in their 20s and 30s, you’ve nearly run out of time to make up for that lost wealth since you’re so close to retirement. So unless you want to keep working until well into your 70s, it’s going to be very hard to regain your lost ground. 

Someone once told me that the secret to building wealth is: don’t switch cars and don’t switch spouses. 

If you or someone you know is in a troubled marriage, I strongly urge you to work through the financial implications of a divorce and determine how your life might be made more miserable in the long run because of the devastating combination of a divorce and losing half of your assets. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast, I’m talking about the 5 ways to ruin your retirement...and all have nothing to do with the economy, the stock market, social security, inflation, or interest rates. 

Today, I’m talking about how a vacation home can ruin your retirement. I live in Oregon where the crown jewel of the state is our endless miles of breathtaking beaches and coastline. Maybe Oregonians dream of owning a beach house. If I owned a beach house it would be in Manzanita - my favorite Oregon beach town. I would get a house perched high on the hill - just outside the tsunami zone where I can watch winter storms roll in my lookout tower…

Can you tell I’ve been daydreaming about my beach house? It may or may not have a yellow door and it definitely has a hot tub. 

Here’s the problem when you own a beach house or any vacation home for that matter. Many people buying a second home aren’t paying cash. If you can afford to pay cash for your 2nd home, it’s a bit different, but let’s assume you are carrying some debt on your house. You have the mortgage and the taxes and insurance, plus all the maintenance and repairs. Interest cost of the debt. I would hardly consider most vacation locales investments, because the housing prices don’t grow enough to justify it for investment purposes. Then there’s the decision of whether you’ll rent out your vacation home when you’re not using it - the extra wear and tear that will cause, and the net income after expenses that you can expect. 

And then there’s the big question of usage. Most people overestimate how much they will use a 2nd home. If you think you’re going to pack up and head there every weekend, or spend 6 months out of the year there, it’s best to try that out with renting first before you commit to buying. 

The point here is that the cost of ownership needs to be carefully calculated, and then you have to take it a step further and calculate your expected and realistic usage to see if it really makes financial sense and practical sense to buy vs. rent. If owning a 2nd home costs you $4000 for each week you’re there, because of how seldom you spend time there, but you could rent a place that’s twice as nice for $2000/week and none of the headaches of ownership, you definitely don’t want to find that out after you drop six figures or sign up for a 30-year mortgage for that beloved 2nd house. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $325 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, and I started this podcast because I love helping people just like you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision. 

In case you missed last week, I just rebranded the One Minute Retirement Tip Podcast to the new name - retirement quick tips. Nothing has changed. Same content that you love (otherwise you wouldn’t be here, right? Just a new look and a new name. 

The theme this week on the podcast is: 5 Ways To Ruin Your Retirement 

As is often the case with the podcast, an article I read becomes the inspiration for the theme of the podcast. That’s what happened this week. I read an article about ways you can fail in retirement, and I started to think about ways I’ve seen the best laid plans fail for clients and people I know. 

It’s an interesting exercise to think about...how might your retirement plans fail?..

So this week on the podcast, I’ll talk about common ways your retirement can fail and safeguards you can put in place to protect you. I’ll focus on things you can control, like saying no to your adult children, rather than things you can’t control - like runaway inflation. 

My hope is that you’ll think about retirement risks in a new and different way - not just based on how the economy or the stock market is doing but how your actions and the things within your control can lead you to success or failure over a 20-30 year retirement. 

That’s it for today. Come on back tomorrow, where I’ll talk about how that vacation home that you’ve been dreaming of could be the cause of a retirement demise. 

Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

Happy Halloween! I hope you’re enjoying the holiday. It’s my 4 year old’s favorite holiday, and he’s been obsessed with Halloween since he was 2 years old. Last year, I completely spaced and ended up buying him 2 costumes, so he will be Lightning McQueen this year, and fingers crossed that the costume still fits! 

This week, I took a pause on new content so I could work out the kinks with the podcast name change. Hopefully if you’re hearing this that means that I didn’t blow anything up and the changes have gone into effect. 

Tomorrow, come on back, because we’re starting a brand new theme: 

Thank you so much for listening this week! If this podcast is valuable for you (and hopefully it is otherwise you wouldn’t be listening), please share the show with a friend or co-worker who is getting close to retirement. Just go to your favorite podcasting app, hit the share icon, then text or email the show link to a friend and say, “I love this podcast and thought you might enjoy a listen.”

Thanks for sharing the love and spreading the word. My name is Ashley Micciche and I hope you have a blessed Sunday.

----------

>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

The theme this week on the podcast is that I’m doing a name change! The One Minute Retirement Tip podcast is changing to the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

Nothing about the content or the cadence of the weekly themes and episodes will change. I’m simply updating the name to more accurately and honestly reflect what the content is about. I’m also refreshing the branding with a new cover image as well.

I quickly found after I launched the podcast that I really couldn’t cover bite-sized content on retirement in 1-2 minutes a day, but rather each episode is more like 3-4 minutes each day. So to more accurately reflect what the content is, I finally pulled the trigger on the name change, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for over 2 years now. 

So this week, I’ll be taking a pause on new content while I work out the kinks of the name change and get everything updated. It’s a bit of a nerve-wracking process on the back end to make sure everything transfers over and I don’t blow anything up! 

I ask for your prayers and well-wishes that it goes smoothly! I would really appreciate it! 

By the end of this week, everything should be updated, so I’ll be back with a new episode Sunday, which is Halloween, to preview next week’s theme! 

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the soon-to-be Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

The theme this week on the podcast is that I’m doing a name change! The One Minute Retirement Tip podcast is changing to the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

Nothing about the content or the cadence of the weekly themes and episodes will change. I’m simply updating the name to more accurately and honestly reflect what the content is about. I’m also refreshing the branding with a new cover image as well.

I quickly found after I launched the podcast that I really couldn’t cover bite-sized content on retirement in 1-2 minutes a day, but rather each episode is more like 3-4 minutes each day. So to more accurately reflect what the content is, I finally pulled the trigger on the name change, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for over 2 years now. 

So this week, I’ll be taking a pause on new content while I work out the kinks of the name change and get everything updated. It’s a bit of a nerve-wracking process on the back end to make sure everything transfers over and I don’t blow anything up! 

I ask for your prayers and well-wishes that it goes smoothly! I would really appreciate it! 

By the end of this week, everything should be updated, so I’ll be back with a new episode Sunday, which is Halloween, to preview next week’s theme! 

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the soon-to-be Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

Welcome to a new week here on the One Minute Retirement Tip Podcast. I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $325 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, and I started this podcast because I love helping people just like you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision. 

The theme this week on the One Minute Retirement Tip podcast is: A name change is coming! 

Yes, it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time...change the name of the podcast. The story behind the original name is that I wanted to do a short-form podcast about retirement that was built for the Amazon Alexa platform. At the time I started this podcast, there were no other daily podcasts on Alexa about retirement. There are quite a few podcasts on retirement, but this is the only one (to my knowledge) that is providing daily, short tips on retirement.

A lot of retirement topics are nuanced and complex, so my idea was to take a topic, create a weekly theme around it, then cover it in bite-sized bits each day. And that’s exactly what I’ve done from the beginning. 

However, in my naivete I thought I could cover it in about a minute each day...2 minutes tops. But what I’ve found is that 3-4 minutes is about right, and sometimes I can go as long as 5 or 6 minutes. 

While I try to keep them as short and to the point as possible, it’s definitely not a 1 minute retirement tip. And it’s been bugging me for a very long time, because I feel that the title is a bit misleading.

So with that in mind, I decided to change the name of the podcast to: Retirement Quick Tips with Ashley.

Nothing about the content or the cadence of the weekly themes and episodes will change. I’m simply updating the name to more accurately and honestly reflect what the content is about. I’m also refreshing the branding with a new cover image as well.

So I hope you like the name change, and rest assured that if you like the podcast and enjoy listening each day, that nothing else is changing. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

It’s Sunday, which means...it’s recap time here on the One Minute Retirement Tip podcast.  

This week the theme was: Do these 3 things right for a happy retirement. 

In case you missed any episodes, here’s what I covered in each episode this week: 

• The 3 pillars of happiness in retirement - money, health, and relationships
• Then I talked about how they’re all essential ingredients in the happienss recipe and how you can’t expect to be happy, even if just one of those ingredients is missing
• In talking about what does make you happy, it’s important to talk about what doesn’t make you happy - namely spending more time with your kids, and buying fun toys like a car in retirement. We covered that yesterday on the podcast. 

If you want to read the article that was the inspiration for this week’s podcast or the more extensive University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study with the research findings on happiness in retirement, I’ll link to both in the show notes of this episode. 

• Article: https://www.fa-mag.com/news/for-happiness-in-retirement--forget-about-your-kids-and-the-fancy-car--advisors-say-64230.html?section=3&page=2
• Study: https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/about

Here’s the bottom line: Money, health, and relationships all take hard work and an investment of your time, energy, and resources. But when you’re talking about bringing lasting meaning and fulfillment to your retirement years, it’s well worth the effort and best to start right now. 

So I challenge you this week to start making an investment in one of those areas? What’s lacking the most in your life right now in the categories of money, health, or relationships. Maybe you need to sign up for that group at your church that meets once a week, or maybe you just need to start flossing more or add an extra $100 a month to your 401k. 

Whatever it is, do something this week that will set you up for a fulfilled and meaningful retirement. 

Tomorrow, come on back, because we’re starting a brand new theme: Something I’ve been wanting to do for over a year now, and that is re-branding the podcast. I’m just changing the name...that’s it. All of the content and format is staying the same, but I picked the name of the podcast before it ever launched and I’ve never liked the name...so I’m excited to reveal the new name and branding of the show in next week’s episodes.

Thank you so much for listening this week! If this podcast is valuable for you (and hopefully it is otherwise you wouldn’t be listening), please share the show with a friend or co-worker who is getting close to retirement. Just go to your favorite podcasting app, hit the share icon, then text or email the show link to a friend and say, “I love this podcast and thought you might enjoy a listen.”

Thanks for sharing the love and spreading the word. My name is Ashley Micciche and I hope you have a blessed Sunday.

----------

>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance