Whether you’re a Millennial just getting started, a Gen-Xer juggling life’s competing demands, or a Baby Boomer eyeing the finish line, the stakes are high when creating financial security for your future. Joe Anderson, CFP® and Big Al Clopine, CPA guide you through the financial strategies and goals each generation should implement that can mean the difference between a retirement of scarcity or abundance.
Financial Planning at Every Age
- Retirement Savings Goals
- Financial Strategies
- Making Up for Lost Time
Important Points:
- 00:00 – Intro
- 00:47 – Retirement Readiness by Generation
- 01:45 – Financial Planning at Every Age
- 02:30 – Retirement Savings by Age
- 03:19 – Retirement Planning in Your 20’s: Savings Goals and Strategies
- 06:30 – Retirement Readiness Guide – free download
- 07:21 – True/false – As we age, our composition of wealth should shift from human capital to financial capital.
- 08:26 – Asset Allocation by Age
- 10:08 – Retirement Planning in Your 30’s: Savings Goals and Strategies
- 11:29 – Retirement Planning in Your 40’s: Savings Goals and Strategies
- 13:54 – Retirement Readiness Guide – free download
- 14:44 – True/false – Retirement account contribution limits are the same for every age.
- 15:10 – 2024 Retirement Account Contribution Limits & Age 50+ Catch-Up
- 15:38 – Retirement Planning in Your 50’s: Savings Goals and Strategies
- 18:20 – Retirement Planning in Your 60’s: Making Up for Lost Time
- 18:52 – I’m 34 and thinking of taking a loan from my 401(k) to put a downpayment on my first home. How does that work? – Julie, Oceanside, CA
- 20:08 – Are short-term bonds better to have than long-term bonds in retirement? – Tom, Redmond, WA
- 21:25 – Pure Takeaway
- 22:04 – Retirement Readiness Guide – free download
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Transcript:
Joe: As each decade gets closer to retirement, the strategies that you use needs to change. Do you know what they are? Stick around, folks. We’ll figure it out.
Show’s called Your Money, Your Wealth®. Joe Anderson here, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, President, of Pure Financial Advisors and I’m with the big man, Big Al Clopine and he’s sitting right over there. Hello Big Al.
Al: How you doing man?
Joe: I’m doing great. How are you?
Al: I can’t wait for this show.
Joe: All right.
Al: I’m so excited.
Joe: So if you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s as you’re approaching that road map to retirement, you need to switch your strategies. There’s different things that you need to focus on depending on where you’re at in that time frame. That’s today’s financial focus.
Well let’s just kind of break things down here. We got different generations. You got Gen Z and Y. You got Gen X and then you got the boomers. I’m Gen X, Al. You’re a boomer.
Al: I’m a boomer. Yep.
Joe: There’s some Gen Zs out there. Right? But here’s the problem when it comes to overall retirement planning is people’s perception versus reality. So Fidelity, they asked these generations, are you on track? 30% almost across the board. Yep. I’m all good. Essentials on track. 28%, 22%, 27% or not sure. No one really knows, a bit out track, not at all. No one thinks they’re not on track at all, Al.
Al: Everyone’s a little bit overconfident, perhaps.
Joe: I mean, if you look at these two numbers combined, that’s 60%. All right. It’s a high volume of people that think they’re on track, but we know the numbers and we’re going to break it down for you to see if you’re on track. Let’s get to it.
Retirement Savings Goals
Al: All right. Today, financial planning at every age, specifically 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. We’re going to focus on each decade and what you should be thinking about. Let’s start with your savings goals. Let’s see if you’re on track or not. Let’s figure out what the best strategies are for you, financial planning wise, tax wise, and all of the above, right? And then let’s also figure out how to make up for lost time. In other words, if you find you’re a little bit behind on some of the numbers that we’re going to tell you, how do you get caught up? So, Joe, I think this is a really important topic because a lot of people don’t really know if they’re on track, and we’re gonna go over some of the numbers so people at least have an idea.
Joe: Right. I think we wanna just make this super simple as well. It doesn’t have to be complex to start mapping out your overall financial strategy. You’re looking here, just super simple. Let’s just start really high level. So depending on how old you are, you know you want a certain multiplier times your salary. For instance, if you’re 50, you want 6 times your annual salary. If you’re in your 30s, one time is just fine. If you’re really close to retirement at 67, you want 10 times that final salary is a good high level rule of thumb. Of course, there’s all sorts of caveats to this, but at least this gets you kind of in the same zip code or area code.
Al: It gives you an idea. And of course, what happens is your salary changes over time. So typically it starts lower and it goes higher, right? So as you make more, typically, as you- as you progress in your career, that multiple that amount is going to keep going up. So it’s a good rule of thumb.
Like you said, Joe.
Financial Goals & Strategies in Your 20’s
Joe: All right, let’s walk you through a couple things here starting at age 20. So all you 20-year-olds, let’s see if you’re on track. Let’s just assume you’re making $30,000 a year in that first job. Monthly savings is $190. So again, if I’m 30 years old, I want one times that annual salary. So I’m starting from scratch and I need to get to that one time. So how much money do I need to save? $190 a month. So 7% of $30,000, $190 a month. Multiply that over a compounding effect. Boom, you got your $30,000. So we’re on track, Al. We’re on track.
Al: So, so far, so good, Joe. So the first thing you need to think about in addition to saving the $190 for retirement is make sure you have an emergency fund. And when you’re first starting out, just make sure you have something, right? $500, $1000. What you’re going to want to work up to is about 3 months of salary just to cover anything that may happen, right? If you have an unsteady job, a job, sometimes construction jobs are boom and bust. You may want to have Joe, maybe 6 months.
Joe: Yeah. So emergency fund. Look at your debt, your balance sheet. All right. Maybe you want to start paying off some of the debt. You might have some credit cards, student loans, things of that nature. We’ve already talked about saving for retirement, figuring out hey, what is that benchmark? What number do I need to hit at the end of the year? Then you can work the numbers backwards to figure out what that monthly savings is. And then mandatory insurance. Now, I think the biggest insurance that most younger people need is probably disability insurance, right? Or maybe some term life insurance if you are married or if you’re engaged or if you’re getting to start building that family. But the biggest asset for the- this age group is probably their ability to earn that income.
Al: The ability to earn income, of course, make sure you have medical insurance, make sure you have auto insurance. You know, kind of maybe goes without saying. Now, sometimes if we, we tell a 20-year-old to save $190 a month’s like, what? I mean, I can’t even afford my bills. So here’s a way to think about it. Just save something, $10, $20 a month, whatever it may be, and then each month try to save a little bit more or certainly every single time you get a raise or a bonus, put more to it at, you know, get to that point, get to $190, actually get to $200, get to $300. Keep adding to your savings. That’s how retirement savings really multiplies.
Joe: Yeah, or another good rule of thumb is maybe you start real small like Al said, but just maybe increase it every quarter by 1%. So maybe you start at 3% of your income or 5% of your income and the next quarter make it 6%, next quarter make it 7%. You know, those small incremental changes, you don’t really feel that big of effect on your overall paycheck. But it’s starting now. You want to make sure that you’re paying yourself first. You got to take care of your older self. I know you’re, you’ll feel like it’s never going to come, but it’s going to come and it’s going to come very, very quickly. So start saving now. If you would survey your parents or people in their 50s, 60s and 70s, one of their biggest regrets is probably, hey, it’s not, wow, I saved so much money. They’re probably saying, hey man, I probably could have saved a little bit more and I didn’t have to save that much if I would have started in my 20s. Hey, if you want more help with this, you know where to go. YourMoneyYourWealth.com. Click on that special offer this week. It’s our favorite. It’s our Retirement Readiness Guide. YourMoneyYourWealth.com. Click on the special offer. We gotta take a quick break. We’ll be right back.
Andi: Do you know, right now, how likely you are to run out of money in retirement? There’s an easy way to find out, it’s also free. Go to easiretirement.com.
Joe: Hey, welcome back to the show. Show’s called Your Money, Your Wealth®. We’re helping you get through that journey of retirement planning. Go to our website, YourMoneyYourWealth.com. Click on our favorite guide, the Retirement Readiness Guide. Are you ready for retirement? Doesn’t matter what age you’re at because we got strategies for every decade. YourMoneyYourWealth.com, click on that special offer, our Retirement Readiness Guide. Let’s see how you did on that. True/false question.
Al: As we age, our composition of wealth should shift from human capital to financial capital. True or false? Well, I guess we should kind of define human capital is kinda like that lifetime earnings. The income, you know, cumulative. Right. And the actual capital itself, the financial capital are the dollars that you’ve saved. So Joe, typically over time, human capital is higher to start and financial capital is higher towards the back.
Joe: A lot of people at 25 don’t have a lot of cash on hand, but what do they do? They have that human capital to earn an income and to save some of that income, to have that income compound over time. So then at some point, I don’t want to use my human capital anymore to necessarily generate income. I wanna use my human capital to have fun or volunteer or do different things where I’m not relying on a paycheck because I’ve saved dollars that will provide that income for me.
Al: Yeah, so I think a way to think about investing is you can afford to take a little bit more risk when you’re younger versus you’re older. Maybe it’s almost all stocks when you’re in your 20s and 30s. Then maybe in your 40s you start shifting a little bit, maybe a little bit more safety. Right. 50s and 60s, even more. Now, the actual allocation that you end up between stocks and bonds, again, bonds being safer, stocks, being more aggressive, bonds having lesser rate of return, stocks having a higher rate of return, but more volatile, right? The way to think about this is it depends upon your own needs. We’ve seen people, Joe, sometimes that are older and they’re still all stocks because it’s for their kids and grandkids. And sometimes we see people in their 40s with all safety because they’ve got enough money to live.
Joe: Right. Right. So, you get 90% to 100% in stocks here. So you’re going to see your account kind of do this, right? So it’s going to probably trend up over that time period. But you’re going to have some dips, you’re going to have some highs, you’re going to have some lows. And it’s a pretty big roller coaster. And then as you age, right, well now I want a little bit more safety in here. And what that does is just kind of even out that roller coaster ride just a little bit. And then when you hit your 50s and 60s, you probably want a lot more green because this is where you’ll be pulling dollars from. So when the markets are down, well bonds should be fairly stable to help you create that income. So you’re not selling stocks when they’re down. So each allocation has to be representative of what your goals are, what you’re trying to accomplish. As Al said, we’ve seen people that are in their 80s with 100% stock portfolio because it’s for their kids or their grandkids. So mapping out your overall strategy is the first step. And then you can look at how that portfolio should be allocated.
Financial Goals & Strategies in Your 30’s
Let’s go in your 30s. What should we be thinking about or what should you be doing? Alright, beginning savings is at $30,000 because we started at $20,000. You saved here, now you have $30,000. Your salary increased a little bit. Now, we’re making $50,000. So at the end here at 40, I need $150,000. So how do I grow that $30,000 into $150,000? If I receive a 6% growth rate? Well, I need to save $600 a month, right? So that’s 14%. So that’s a little rich. A lot of times people can’t get that much savings. But if you wanna follow the math of what we’re illustrating here, that’s as much to get that 3 times, $150,000. $50,000 of income at the end of your 30s to get you still on track, Al.
Al: Yeah. And as you’ll recall, so the last example, in our 20s, you had to save $190 per month. Now you’re making more money. Now you’ve gotta save more to keep on track like we talked about. Your salary goes up. You got to save more to hit some of these targets, but something to think about in your 30s, maybe you’ve started your emergency fund, Joe, but make sure you continue to get up to that 3 or 6 months of expenses in the emergency fund.
Joe: Yeah, as you age, then things get a little bit more complex too. All right. Well, here, maybe you want to save for your first home or you have a couple of kiddos and you want to save for their college. Now you need some life insurance because you have a family and you now you have a home and you have a mortgage and everything else. So as you age, it gets a little more complex because there’s a lot more plates that you’re kind of spinning here that that paycheck has to fund.
Financial Goals & Strategies in Your 40’s
Al: Well, it does. And a lot of people start to have problems in their late 30s and 40s just because they have kids, they buy a house and there starts to be a lot more expenses and it gets a little bit more tricky. But Joe, let’s go over an example so now you’re 40, now, what do you need to do to get to where you need to be for 50?
Joe: Yeah, so now we have the $150,000. Income went up again, now I’m making $80,000. So, I have to get 6 times, that’s the goal, 6 times that $80,000. Get to $480,000. So, 20% of my income is what I need to be saving to hit my goal.
Al: So, you’re telling me you’ve got to increase the savings. Well, you got to do college funds, right? And by the way, you got kids. They’re teenage kids. They eat a lot, right? Sports. They’re kind of expensive. This is the hard part. This is the tricky part, right? That’s why we’re going to get into the 50s in a minute, right? And we talk about catching up. But when you’re in your 40s, Joe, keep saving. Keep saving. Keep saving to the best that you can.
Joe: So then it’s really assessing your risk. What does that portfolio look like? What target rate of return? You can dial this thing in a little bit more specific to your needs. Then it’s tax planning. The more money that you make, guess what? The more the IRS wants to take from you. So it’s figuring out your allocation from a tax perspective. Is there strategies that you can be thinking about as you’re receiving that paycheck or income or dividends or interest from the overall investment portfolio to make sure that you can save as much money and taxes. Now you’re going to think of an estate plan, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, right?
Beneficiary forms and things like that. You have kids, you have a spouse, so things get a little bit more complex. So you just have to up your game a little bit more when you get a little older.
Al: Well, you do. And when it comes to estate planning, so that’s setting up a trust or a will. Certainly the power of attorneys, financial power of attorneys, health care directives, power of attorneys. Very, very important. No one wants to think about this. But you have to, you’ve got a spouse, right? You’ve got kids, you’ve got- you’ve got beneficiaries. You want to make sure they’re taken care of.
Joe: All right. We got to take another break. Go to YourMoneyYourWealth.com. Click on that special offer this week, folks, our Retirement Readiness Guide. Are you ready for retirement? Figure it out. YourMoneyYourWealth.com. Click on the special offer. When we get back, we’re going to get into our 50s.
Andi: Do you know, right now, how likely you are to run out of money in retirement? There’s an easy way to find out. It’s also free. Go to easiretirement.com.
Financial Goals & Strategies in Your 50’s
Joe: All right. Welcome back to the show. Folks, the show is called Your Money, Your Wealth®. We’re helping you out your overall financial planning journey. If you’re 20s, if you’re 30s, 40s, or 50s. Some different steps you want to make sure different milestones that you want to hit as well. Before we get into the 50s, let’s see how you did on your true/false question.
Al: Retirement account contribution limits are the same for every age. True or false? Well, that is false. We just talked about when you’re in your 40s, a lot of times you get a little bit behind. You got the kids, you got college funds, you got a home payment, all kinds of things come up, right? Sometimes in your 50s, you got to catch up a little bit. So hence, the IRS gave us some catch up provisions. IRA, $7000 is the amount you can make per person. But if you’re 50 and older, you can add another $1000. So that’s $8000. 401(k), $23,000 currently. But if you’re over 50, you can add another $7500. $30,500 would be the amount you can save annually in that 401(k).
Joe: This is a lot of times people’s peak earning years. And so they might have a little bit more discretionary income. So they give us some catch up, to put it in the plan. Let’s talk about what the savings should look like here. So we’ve accumulated that $480,000. Things are looking good. I’m 50 years old. Now I’m making $130,000 a year. All right. $130,000. What do I need? 8 times. So when you’re in your 50s, you need 8 times that annual salary. So now I’m going to try to make it to that $1,0000,000. I got to double my money here over that 10 year period. What do I need to do? Well, you need to save $1100. Not too bad because the larger the base here, that 6% compounding, you can see money grow on money a little bit faster. And so the savings rate goes down a little bit. To still accomplish my goal.
Al: Yeah, that’s an interesting example because in reality in many cases, people end up less in their 40s because of all the other responsibilities. They have to save a little bit more in their 50s to catch up. Whichever category you’re in doesn’t really matter, the point is you’re trying to get to that goal into your 60s where you have enough capital and enough investments to be able to retire.
Joe: What strategy should you do, Al?
Al: Well, I think one way to do this, particularly if you’re a little bit behind, is you’re generally, as you’re getting older, usually you’re making a little bit more, usually you’re a little bit more valuable to the company. You may get more raises, you may get more bonuses. Pay very close attention to them. As you’re getting raises, make sure that you allocate some of that raise into your savings, right? So, you know, you didn’t have it before, so now you keep some of it, but more goes into savings. Bonuses, same way. Maybe keep half your bonus and you save the other half or whatever makes sense for you. And that way, Joe, you can start catching up when you’re behind.
Joe: Yeah, saving bonuses and raises. We talked about tax planning. Here’s what happens a lot of times is that all right, I’m just saving money. I gotta save 10%, 20%, 12% of my overall income. I’m putting everything into the overall 401(k).
And then that’s compounding. Nice. I hit this good dollar figure. But guess what? Now everything’s in a pre-tax account. It’s like, man, I should have been a little bit more tax savvy. So does it make sense to start moving the dollars around from a tax perspective to have more control over your taxes in retirement? If you believe tax rates are going up in the future, I highly suggest you think about moving money from a pre-tax account into a Roth account. You do pay the taxes on that conversion, but if you think you’re going to be in the same tax bracket or maybe a higher tax bracket, or start doing some calculations to give you a little bit more flexibility and freedom in retirement as you start drawing the income,
I think this makes sense for a lot of people. And then we just talked about the catch-up contributions.
Making Up for Lost Time in Your 60’s
Al: And that’s really important for people in their 50s and sometimes when they’re 60s. So Joe, sometimes you get into your 60s and well, I’m still behind, right? So now I gotta start getting a little bit more serious here. Save more, spend less. It’s kind of obvious, but it becomes important. Right? You may need to keep working longer. You may need to work part time in retirement. You may need to delay Social Security so that it’s a higher dollar amount. There’s all kinds of stuff you can do to make your situation better.
Joe: Alright, let’s switch gears here. Let’s start answering some of our viewers’ questions. This is from Julie in Oceanside. “I’m 34 and thinking of taking a loan from my 401(k) to put a down payment on my first home. How does that work?” Julie, great question. You’re in California. I know it’s very tempting. California prices are very high. We would tell you not to do it. There’s better ways to try to figure out how to get a down payment. So please don’t do it. That’s for your retirement but if you simply must here’s how it works. You can take a loan out of your 401(k) for up to $50,000 or half of your 401(k) balance, whichever is lower. That’s number one. If you pull money out of your 401(k), you got to pay tax and you got to pay penalty. It’s interesting that you can, with IRAs you can take $10,000 out of an IRA. You still pay tax, but no penalty. You do not have that same rule, Joe, for a 401(k).
Joe: Yeah, I don’t know, Al. I think I disagree. If you want to buy your first home, she’s in her 20s or 30s. She’s got some money saved up and you want to take a loan. Basically, you could take a loan tax-free and you’re just paying yourself back with interest. So, if that’s the only way that you can get capital, I’d much rather have her take a loan out than maybe a distribution to pay taxes and penalties.
Al: All right, this is from Tom. “Are short term bonds better to have than long term in retirement?” Long term bonds are more subject to interest rate risk in terms of going up and down, but they pay a little bit more generally.
Joe: I think in today’s interest rate environment, people are looking for yield. And so if you have a short term bond, you’re going to take very little risk, but you’re going to get very little yield. And so I think as people approach retirement, they’re looking for income. And a good way to do that is through a coupon, through a bond. And if you hold that bond to maturity, as long as there’s not a default, you will receive your coupon payment and you’ll receive 100% of the bond back. But I agree, there’s a lot more risk in long term bonds. A lot of things can happen. So you wanna be careful, but if you want yield, longer term bonds are going to give you more income than short-term bonds. So if you want to have a safer portfolio, you want a ladder bond portfolio that would give you the income that you need, that could be an option. I don’t know if there’s better or worse. I think they’re just different and it really depends on your overall situation.
Al: Yeah, and I’ll say one more thing. In terms of longer term bonds, I would be more inclined to purchase a longer term bond when interest rates are higher than lower. So just think about that.
Joe: All right. Financial planning at every age. You gotta have a savings goal. You got to figure out how much money that you want to save per month per year to get to certain targets. Financial strategies. What are the strategies that you want to utilize each and every year to make sure that you’re on track. And that you’re covering your bases in regards to risk management, insurance, cash, buying a home, different goals. Then making up for lost time. There’s a lot of different levers that you can pull. Life gets in the way all the time. So you just want to be consistent in your overall strategy, write it down, review it, update it, and then just keep kind of plugging away. Go to our website, YourMoneyYourWealth.com. Click on that special offer this week. It’s our Retirement Readiness Guide. Are you ready for retirement? Well, we can get you ready. YourMoneyYourWealth.com, click on the special offer. That’s our gift to you. And that’s it for us. For Big Al Clopine, I’m Joe Anderson, and we’ll see you next time, Folks.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES:
• Investment Advisory and Financial Planning Services are offered through Pure Financial Advisors, LLC. A Registered Investment Advisor.
• Pure Financial Advisors, LLC. does not offer tax or legal advice. Consult with a tax advisor or attorney regarding specific situations.
• Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance.
• Investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values.
• All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.
• Intended for educational purposes only and are not intended as individualized advice or a guarantee that you will achieve a desired result. Before implementing any strategies discussed you should consult your tax and financial advisors.
CFP® – The CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification is by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. To attain the right to use the CFP® designation, an individual must satisfactorily fulfill education, experience, and ethics requirements as well as pass a comprehensive exam. Thirty hours of continuing education is required every two years to maintain the designation.
AIF® – Accredited Investment Fiduciary designation is administered by the Center for Fiduciary Studies fi360. To receive the AIF Designation, an individual must meet prerequisite criteria, complete a training program, and pass a comprehensive examination. Six hours of continuing education is required annually to maintain the designation.
CPA – Certified Public Accountant is a license set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and administered by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy. Eligibility to sit for the Uniform CPA Exam is determined by individual State Boards of Accountancy. Typically, the requirement is a U.S. bachelor’s degree which includes a minimum number of qualifying credit hours in accounting and business administration with an additional one-year study. All CPA candidates must pass the Uniform CPA Examination to qualify for a CPA certificate and license (i.e., permit to practice) to practice public accounting. CPAs are required to take continuing education courses to renew their license, and most states require CPAs to complete an ethics course during every renewal period.
