Does your financial plan cover the three phases of retirement? Once you have retired, it’s quite different from your career years. Now is the time to live off the fruits of your work and enjoy life on your own terms. You don’t want to leave your retirement lifestyle up to guesswork or chance. Your plan should make you confident that you will be able to retire well and then stay retired.
All of that said, retirement is a moving target, and it comes with distinct phases. These phases of retirement are:
The go-go years
The slow-go years
The no-go years
The go-go years are when retirees are in good health and able to do what they enjoy. That can be travel or physical activities such as pickleball or golf. The slow-go years are when retirees can still pursue those activities, but their level of involvement slows down a bit. Finally, the no-go years are when retirees have aged and their health has changed. They tend to need more long-term care support and other healthcare supports at this stage.
It’s hard to estimate how long each phase of retirement might last. That will depend on a retiree’s personal health, family history, history of taking care of himself or herself, and more. In this article, we will go over these three phases of retirement, what they might look like for how you spend your money and time, and things to keep in mind as you plan ahead.
Financially speaking, are you on track for retirement? Can you do more to reach your goals? These questions matter, and certain retirement rules of thumb can help you see where you are. But first, what is a retirement rule of thumb, and how does it work?
Quick sum-up. A rule of thumb is a general principle to help you make money decisions. For example, the Rule of 100 is a guideline for balancing risk in your asset holdings. We will discuss it more later, but you take your age and subtract it from 100 for an idea of what percentage of your portfolio might be in growth-oriented assets, such as stocks.
Building on that concept, a retirement rule of thumb is a quick way for assessing your progress in retirement planning. In this article, we will go over six retirement rules of thumb that you can use in different ways, including:
How inflation can affect your income in retirement
How much retirement money you might need
Again, these retirement rules of thumb are meant only as a starting point, like on a map. Your financial destination is your own, and a custom-tailored plan will help you get there.
Do you have a retirement plan set for your financial future? How often should you review your retirement plan in case you might need to adjust anything? Life changes or other things outside of our control can take our financial journey in a new direction. Your retirement plan should let you be able to pivot and change course as such things happen.
It’s good to have routine reviews of all aspects of your retirement plan so that you stay on point. Life is dynamic, and those unexpected events can otherwise have a big impact on your financial well-being. If your retirement plan is still on track, that is good news. If it isn’t, your financial professional can help you make corrections that steer you back in the right direction.
Since retirement planning is a moving target, we will go over a few things to keep in mind for your retirement plan review meetings in this article. That will include how often to review your plan, how to evaluate your plan, and when re-evaluation might be a good idea. Whether you are starting to plan for retirement in mid-career or you want to make sure that your current plan is on the right path, this guide will help you evaluate your financial progress.
After decades of work, you want to enjoy retirement on your own terms. It’s a big deal with a lot at stake. But a quality retirement doesn’t just come together. You need effective financial strategies set for protecting your retirement financial security. Discover 10 Retirement Protection Strategies for Your Golden Years to safeguard your financial outlook and ensure a comfortable, stress-free retirement.
Retirement is an exciting milestone after years of work. It’s a new chapter where we can relax, spend time with family and friends, travel, support personal causes, pursue opportunity, or else define our post-career life as we would like. Indeed, many retirees are taking their golden years by the horns and enjoying it on their own terms like no generation has before.
Of course, the path to a secure retirement has challenges. Part of that is navigating the “retirement risk zone,” or the 5-10 years leading up to retirement and in early retirement itself. This period has a big influence on your retirement money, so the strategies that you put in place (or don’t) could make a difference.
Given that, it’s natural for questions to come to mind. What should you look out for in the retirement risk zone? What sort of options do you have to protect your financial future during this time? Why is the retirement risk zone such a crucial point for your retirement outlook?
In this article, we will go over more about the retirement risk zone, its unique financial risks, and some ways to help you navigate this uncertain phase of life.
Once you reach your 50s, retirement is around the corner, but you probably have many life priorities at this point. Family, work, and other responsibilities take up a lot of attention. Planning for retirement may be the last thing on your mind.
Nonetheless, it’s still important to pause and reflect on what will matter to you in this next life chapter, even if you expect that your retirement will be 10 or more years from now. Seeing where you are financially and whether you can take more steps toward your retirement goals will give you more time to get everything in place. Of course, one of those goals will be ensuring that you have enough income to last for all of your golden years.
In your 50s, there is also the risk of “sequence of returns,” or having investment losses in the years just before or in early retirement. No one can predict what the markets will do, and the unfortunate timing of investment losses is what makes this a real hazard. Even small losses can have a heavy hand on your retirement income and what sort of lifestyle that you might be able to sustain.
So, how should you plan for retirement in your 50s? In this article, we will go over some high-level steps to follow, explore your options, and set a plan so that you can have lasting financial security once you are retired.
After working for many years, people want to have the best chance that they can get in enjoying a secure retirement lifestyle and staying retired. That brings up a crucial question in retirement planning. What financial strategies are most likely to get retirees to that point?
In a study conducted by Ernst & Young, researchers looked at a variety of financial strategies to see which ones would perform best. It brought up an intriguing result: financial strategies with permanent life insurance and deferred income annuities beat out investment-only strategies, providing retirees with enhanced benefits.
EY researchers looked at five different strategies using Monte Carlo analysis. The study findings claimed that taking income from annuities and permanent life insurance in retirement could indeed create better results for retirees.
In this article, we will dive into the EV study, its findings, and explore the reasons behind why these insurance-based strategies may help retirees beat the odds.
Retirement is a big life milestone, as it’s when people depart the workplace and start on a new chapter of personal fulfillment and exploration. However, life doesn’t just hit the pause button once you have retired. A number of post-retirement risks and challenges require careful planning and attention.
From outliving your income to a rising cost of living, here are a few things to keep mind in mind for post-retirement risks that you may come across. In this article, we will go over those risks and explore strategies to effectively manage them.
“Can I retire yet?” It’s a question that many people ask. The answer is deeply personal, quite different for everyone, and depends on many factors. Some drivers include how you will replace the income that you were earning from your career, what you have done to feel as ready as possible for retirement, and how you will handle the new life changes.
In many respects, retirement is the “next chapter in life,” but it can also be a period of uncertainty. As you near the bend, how should you approach that question of “when can I retire?” How can you be sure about when the right time to retire is for you?
It will ultimately hinge on your personal goals, but here are a few things to keep in mind as you think about this question.
You can use some simple formulas to calculate how much a given investment might grow over time, such as the Rule of 72. This rule can show you how long it will take for your money to double at a certain rate of return, but it also assumes the growth isn’t taxed.
What about estimating how long it will take for an investment to grow but when the growth is taxable? This is where simple calculations such as the Rule of 108 can come in handy. The Rule of 108 is similar to the Rule of 72 insofar as it lets you see how quickly your taxable investment might double in value. It also assumes a federal income tax rate of 32% that applies to the growth annually.
In this article, we will go more over the Rule of 108, how to use it to get an idea of how it long it would take for your taxable money to grow, some pros and cons, and how you can get the most out of it.
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