How Will You Pay for Retirement?

For Mark Roberts’ Use”: How do you picture your retirement? Do you see yourself relaxing on a beach somewhere, a tropical drink in hand, listening to the waves crash on the shore? Or are you more the homebody type, preferring to hang out at home enjoying the company of family and friends? Maybe the most exciting thing about retiring is the idea of also retiring your alarm clock!

Whatever your retirement dream happens to be, we hope you get there. But of course, reality will intrude upon your dreams once in a while. Reality means that these things cost money, which is why you’re working so hard to prepare yourself for the next stage of your life.

But just how prepared are you? The people behind the website, GoBankingRates, were curious about that. So they conducted a survey to discover how people are planning to pay for retirement, and the results might surprise you.

26 percent will have income from a 401(k) or IRA
13 percent hope to live on their Social Security benefits
9 percent are relying upon investment income
8 percent are accumulating personal savings, such as CDs or savings accounts
5 percent are counting on their spouse or another family member
… and 39 percent answered, “I don’t know”

Yikes! It’s frightening enough that nearly 4 out of 10 people have no idea how they will pay for their retirements. But even among those who have formulated somewhat of a plan, the plan really isn’t the best. It’s never a good idea to rely solely upon Social Security to cover all of your living expenses in retirement. And of course, counting on your spouse or family can be risky business for many reasons.

That actually leaves a minority of us who are adequately preparing for retirement. The main thing we want you to remember is that establishing more than one form of retirement income is a very good idea. Even if you expect to draw a decent-sized Social Security check, you need your own savings or investment income. If your employer provides a pension, great, but stash your own money in an IRA or some other retirement income vehicle too.

If you’re confused about the many different retirement planning opportunities available to you, give us a call. We can help you sort through your options, and select the ones that best suit your financial needs and abilities.

About the Author: Mark Roberts

In addition to managing clients’ money and giving investment and diversification advice, Mark offers something that “the other guys” don’t - a unique approach to Retirement Tax Strategies and distribution. Time and time again, Mark meets with new clients who tell him they have a great relationship with their financial advisor but have never been offered information on this kind of approach to securing their financial futures. Mark has taken this feedback to heart and works tirelessly to ensure that his strategies focus on taxes and distribution. Mark started selling insurance for a major insurance company right out of high school to help put himself through college. After graduating with a degree in finance, he dove into estate planning on the financial side to set himself apart from other financial advisors. However, as changes were made to estate tax laws over time, Mark shifted his focus to income tax strategies. Mark’s philosophy is “the blue prints are more important than the wall paper or carpet.” The wall paper and carpet represent products like investments and insurance policies, whereas the blue prints represent the strategies. Once strategies that truly fit the client’s needs are put in place, our focus can shift to providing you with the right products. According to Mark, “It doesn’t matter what carpet we use if the walls are not in the right place.” Our approach to money management is designed to generate the largest alpha (quality) with the lowest standard deviation and beta (risk). By doing this, we help provide clients with the highest return on the lowest risk. Generating income for our retirees is also very important. Because withdrawing money from your portfolio hurts the account rather than helping it, our goal is to design income strategies to harm the portfolio the least making the money last longer.

How Will You Pay for Retirement?

How Will You Pay for Retirement?

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About the Author: Mark Roberts