Keen On Retirement™

Most people think that retirement begins the day that everything stops: the early morning alarm, the commute, the meetings, the deadlines, and, of course, the paycheck. But in my experience, a successful retirement begins 24 months before your last day on the job. Your final two working years are arguably the most critical period of your financial life. They determine your tax flexibility for the next decade, your confidence in your income stream, and your ability to adapt when life doesn't go according to plan. While no one can predict the future, with comprehensive financial planning, you can build a robust margin for error that will act as a safety net throughout your retirement. When you're landing a plane, you don’t just cut the engines at 30,000 feet and hope for the best. You begin a gradual, calculated descent towards the airport environment and ultimately the runway. Retirement is no different. The smoother and more intentional the glideslope, the safer the landing.

For a retiree with a multimillion-dollar portfolio, minor fluctuations in the markets might move your net worth up or down tens of thousands of dollars during a typical day, week, or month. After a year or two, these fluctuations will likely look like small blips on an upward, wealth-building trajectory. But what if you earmarked that same five-figure sum for a different ROI: a return on your health? Here is why incorporating personal training into your comprehensive financial plan during the early stages of retirement could be one of the best investments you ever make.

This is it! The year you've spent decades working for, saving for, investing for, and planning for. Many people enter their first year of retirement focused on preventing things that could go wrong. But with a little forethought and a positive attitude, a lot can go right this year as well. Here are five keys to thriving financially, physically, and emotionally during your first year of retirement.

One of the joys – and challenges – of every holiday season is the hustle and bustle. All that planning, shopping, baking, wrapping, mailing, travelling, and celebrating fills our calendars with unique things to do, all centered around spending time with our loved ones and showing each other how much we care. But once the leftovers are gone and the wrapping paper is recycled, there's a quiet that settles over many of us. You might still be enjoying some time off work. The rest of your regular routine is probably still on pause. Your grown kids may have headed back to college, or back home with their own families. And any pending plans, meetings, projects, or decisions have been bumped to “after the first of the year." In this quiet week between the end of the year and the beginning of a new one, you might find yourself alone a little bit more than usual, enjoying a walk through your neighborhood or a cup of coffee near the fireplace. And that's when some of life's biggest questions often come to the surface, especially if you're nearing retirement.

If you want proof that money alone doesn't buy happiness, just compare these two data points: By any measure, the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world -- if not THE wealthiest. And, at the same time, year after year, our collective happiness continues to decline. So, if having more money doesn’t create more happiness ... then what the heck are we all doing? Why are we up at the crack of dawn for our morning commute? What are all those long hours at the office for? Why are we topping off accounts longer than we have to if the ROI isn't making us feel better about our lives and our prospects for the future? A recent poll from YouGov for MarketWatch approached the relationship between money and happiness from a slightly different perspective. I was struck by how the findings align with a core belief we have here at Keen Wealth: financial happiness isn't about accumulating more money. It's about aligning the money you have with your values, your purpose, and a sense of freedom.

Sometimes we have to let go in order to move forward, add on, and grow. That's certainly one of the challenges of retirement. From bucket list travel to grandbabies, most seniors have a lot to look forward to during the Golden Years. But to make the most of this precious time, you also have to leave behind the career that no longer determines your schedule, habits that no longer serve your wellbeing, and even some relationships that might be holding you back. I've noticed that many of the seniors I've worked with over the years don't truly embrace retirement until they let go of these five things: