Today’s Hack:
If you’re heading out on a road trip this summer, there’s a long list of things you’ll want to remember when planning for your vacation. In retirement planning, some of those exact same items also need to be addressed. Let’s look at some of the items that should appear on both your road trip checklist and your retirement planning checklist.
2:30 Decide where you’re going
- One of the biggest mistakes people make when planning retirement is just jumping in without any considerations.
- Understand what does retirement look like and what do you want to accomplish?
- How do you plan a trip if you don’t know where you’re going?
3:16 Determine your route
- You have to map out how you are getting to where you are going.
- Where will you get your income to fit your needs?
- Which accounts will you pull from first?
- What happens with the taxes and how can you minimize them?
4:08 Decide what you’re going to listen to
- For a road trip, you might create a playlist or figure out what tunes you want to hear along the way.
- Likewise, with retirement, there is so much information available, and you need to figure out what kind of information you’ll want to rely on.
- Everyone’s view of retirement planning is a little different, so you need to decide if you’ll listen to an advisor or the internet or a friend.
5:12 Use cruise control when possible
- On the road, it’s nice to use cruise control whenever you can.
- In your financial life, it’s also nice to have some things on cruise control with a steady stream of income to plan on.
- You don’t want to wonder every month where your income will come from in retirement, but you also want flexibility if you need it.
8:01 Vera: Down market
- Vera from Plymouth says it seems like we are about to head into a down market soon. What strategies are best for someone in their 60s vs. someone in their 30s?
- What worked while you were saving for retirement is not the same thing as what will work into retirement.
- Money that will be needed in a shorter time frame is put into a bucket that is less volatile. It’s a balance, of course, because you still need growth to keep up with inflation, which is for long-term planning.