Planning for retirement is a lot like purchasing a new car. You want to lay out your options, do diligent research and feel fully prepared before making that big decision. Joe and Al guide you through the retirement road map by discussing questions you should ask yourself when creating your retirement plan:
1. What is the sticker price – how much will you need to retire?
2. Can you fuel it – where is your retirement income coming from and do you have enough to sustain the lifestyle you imagined for yourself?
3. Have you looked at crash test ratings – what road bumps might you encounter and how can you prevent these from happening?
4. How fast will it accelerate – will inflation take a toll on how long your retirement savings will last?
Important Points:
2:37 “When you’re looking at test driving your retirement, there are a few things you have to do. Right off the bat, what’s the sticker price? Figure out how much you need to save for retirement”
4:38 “When you figure out your lifestyle, I want to show you how to figure out how much that sticker is, in other words how much you need to save”
5:57 “A lot of you go into retirement not necessarily understanding how much you can spend; if you do this simple exercise it’s going to give you a lot more confidence”
6:16 “Let me show you what happens if you can save $1,000 per month at a 7% annual rate of return”
8:44 “Over the past hundred years, the inflation rate has been over 3%, and if you look at the last thirty years, it’s been closer to 3 ½%. Just because the inflation rate has been low recently, it’s not necessarily a good figure to use”
9:41 “I have a 4-year old grandson and I’d like to set up a college fund for him; what would be your recommendation?
10:23 “Each state has their own 529 plan”
12:49 “One thing that will help is if you work longer and delay your Social Security benefits – you don’t have to save as much because you’ll have more monthly benefit”
14:10 “A lot of our clients that have the most flexibility and pay the least tax are people are people that have actually saved more money in tax-free environments or even the taxable retirement accounts”
15:14 “What you want to do is set up ahead of time a cash flow strategy for yourself where you know that rate of return is to maintain your cash flow and then take the least risk possible to maintain that cash flow”
19:19 “[True or false?] It is better to take the single lump sum distribution from my pension and invest the money rather than take the lifetime distribution”
22:51 “You pay yourself first and then you pay your bills”
