The all wise Yoda pronounced ”Fear is the path to the dark side.” Avoiding planning because you feel you didn’t save enough, won’t fix the shortage, but there may still be a path to improve your options. Come to the light and learn more about how to address your retirement fears and enjoy your retirement years.
Maybe you lost your assets in the great recession of 2008, or maybe inflation is leaving you with little to put away. While phrases like retirement planning strategy can be intimidating, the truth is very straightforward. Achieving your goal is all about balancing liquidity, safety and growth. We can help you gain clearer perspective on where you stand. Making a balanced plan begins with understanding your goals, your needs and your current situation. Only when you know where you want to end up and where you are, can you navigate a course to reach your target.

Identify Your Retirement Goals
Every estate plan activity means first looking at what you want to do or give and then seeking ways to do that. If your dream of retirement involves a beach, a beverage and not much more, your current plan should be enough to cover the basic necessities plus your slice of beach. Yet there is inevitably a need for just-in-case savings. It could be for car repairs or medical care. Whatever might happen, you will want sufficient savings to cover these expenses, or enough liquid investments that you can turn into cash.
Others can’t wait to retire to pursue their hobbies and activities. Whether it’s a short getaway weekend or investing in equipment for your new glider plane hobby, you’ll need to set aside a few extra dollars from your current income to spend more later.
If you’re the type of person who wants to donate the rest of their life to a charity like habitat for humanity plus a substantial sum, you’ll need to plan it. If you have 30 grandchildren, each of whom you want to set up, do the math. It will take more investing to make sure those funds are there when your heirs need them. This step is about identifying what your goals are. What is important to you and for your future.
Prioritize
Because we can’t always do everything we want, figure out what is most important to you. What is worth sacrificing to achieve and which goals aren’t worth as much to you? While priorities are likely to change over time, it is still critical to look at what you most want to achieve when you retire, to afford it. It may be a lifestyle, travel, or health expenses. Alternatively, it could be that hobby or charity you never had time to invest while you were working. You may be able to do all of it, but look at what is most important to you today..
Quantify Your Needs
How much money do I need for retirement?
This looks like an easy question, but there’s a catch. You don’t know the tax rate when you will begin drawing your RMDs. That means you don’t really know what you will have access to when you begin making those mandatory draws. Not knowing that rate is like having a mortgage with an unknown interest rate that is due upon paying the note’s principal. It might be a great rate, but it is more likely to rise and you don’t know how much.
Inflation too, affects your retirement dollars. Social Security has cost of living raises, with exceptions, but investments don’t work that way. Will your money be likely to last as long as you live? Maybe you have already made allowances for unknown tax and inflation rates. In fact, you may be feeling pretty confident about now, so let’s look at the next step.
Map Your Plan
This is the step that trips us most facing retirement planning. But you know what you want to accomplish and roughly how much money you will spend in your golden years. Mapping your plan involves understanding what your current investments will cover versus what you need and planning how to cover the rest.
That is where Foss Financial Services can help you. We regularly work with clients to identify their goals, priorities and situations. We understand people are unique and their plan should be too, with different products that best suit each situation. Contact us here for a free no obligation consultation about how to map your own retirement solutions without fear.