Five things to do NOW for a financially independent future
Many families are concerned they may not have enough money to retire and live the life they want to live, so we created our Roadmap to Retirement to walk them through a process to gain peace of mind. To request a complimentary report showing what your income in retirement looks like given your current savings patterns, contact us and we’ll be glad to help you.
Here are five things to keep in mind when thinking about your retirement. These are all part of the process we walk our clients through when working towards their financial goals.
Match your investments with your time horizon - Some investments are appropriate for a 30 year time horizon and some are appropriate for a 3 year time horizon. Using your money to start a coffee shop with the idea of selling that business in a few months to purchase a car is probably not the wisest move. Likewise, leaving money you have earmarked for retirement 30 years away in a savings account may not be the best course of action. Do the work of matching the appropriate investments with when you need to use the money.
Automate your saving - Making automatic contributions to your 401(k) or retirement plan is a powerful tool. Investing automatically on a regular basis takes the emotion out of making the savings decision and makes saving a priority. When you wait until the end of the year to make your contribution decision it’s easy to spend a bit more on the family vacation or patio furniture in July, eating into your potential savings. Make the decision to save ahead of time and set the mechanism to make it happen. Your future self will thank you!
Social security - know the best way and time to start it. - The rules for taking social security got a big overhaul at the end of 2015. Options went away and there is less flexibility in how to maximize your benefits, but there are still decisions to be made. Visit SocialSecurity-Answers to book a complimentary consultation or to easily ask questions.
Reduce and defer taxes - “I love paying taxes,” said no one ever. While as inevitable as death, there are still many ways for those in and saving for retirement to minimize their taxes and increase the amount of savings they have working for them. If you need some ideas on how to do this, we can help!
Plan the work and work the plan - When we put a man on the moon it didn’t occur by happenstance. We didn’t launch a shuttle and then kind of wander around in space, eyeballing the path to the moon and hope we had enough fuel to get back. The moon landing was a precise plan with continuous feedback and adjustments to achieve the goal. It’s not rocket science, but your retirement planning should follow a similar strategy. Figure out where you want to go. What kinds of things do you want to do? What kind of impact do you want to have during the last chapters of your life? How important is family and being financially independence from your children to you (and them!)? How much income would you like in retirement? After setting some goals, work backwards and figuring out where that money is coming from each year and what kind of investments you need now to have that money available when you need it. What kind of savings do you need today and next year to make your goals happen? Can automate those savings now?
We would like to help you in your journey to a financially independent retirement by sending you a complimentary report showing what your income in retirement looks like given your current savings patterns. Please use the form below and we will be happy to meet or talk with you about how you can achieve your financially independent future.