Joel talks about the two different groups of people and how they approach planning their retirement.

Main Questions Asked:

• Let’s talk about getting your retirement into the fast lane.
• How should we address inflation, taxes, and the cost of healthcare? What about our essential expenses? What is the importance of preparing a budget before retirement?
• How do you plan for surprise expenses?
• How should we maximize our social security benefits?

Key Lessons Learned:

Retirement

• It’s easy to procrastinate on putting on the finishing touches to your retirement plan, especially if you’re confident in your approach.
• If you put a plan together 3-5 years ago, you have to keep checking to make sure your plan still makes sense.
• Start planning right now.
• Online planning retirement tools are not very effective, having a financial planner that specializes in retirement help review your plan will get you better results.
• Inflation is essentially the loss of your purchasing power, higher taxes, and the potential of long-term health care costs need to be accounted for in your retirement plan.
• The missing piece in many retirement plans is how you’ll generate income in retirement, especially in an environment with low interest rates.
• You need to look at your social security as an asset. There is no right time for everyone to take their social security benefits.

Expenses

• For those who a larger net worth, you may be able to rely on dividends from a stock portfolio.
• For most people, you will need a blend of income from stocks and other sources.
• Social Security and pension incomes may not cover all your expenses, buying bonds, annuities, or real estate may be the right option to cover the shortfall.
• Prepare a budget before you enter retirement, save first and then spend the rest ie. Save 15% of your annual income and don’t worry about the rest.
• If you have your needs taken care of in the future feel free to spend the rest.
• Health care is the most common unexpected expense but there are plenty of others, create a contingency account that is meant specifically for unexpected expenses.
• Good retirement planning includes withdrawing from the right accounts in the right order.

Links To Resources Mentioned

Money Map Retirement Review 1-800-705-1232

Thank You For Listening