Keen On Retirement

My team at Keen Wealth has seen retirement play out just about any way you can imagine. We've celebrated with folks as they've clocked out for the last time. We've seen photos of dream vacations, new homes, and new grandbabies. And we've used our comprehensive planning process to help folks adjust to some major challenges, recalibrate the best path forward, and keep progressing toward long-term goals. Unfortunately, we've also seen folks fall short of their retirement goals, often because they tried to "go it alone" at the start of their retirement transitions. If 2024 is going to be the year that you finally retire, talk to your loved ones and your advisor about how you can steer clear of these seven preventable retirement errors and set up your Golden Years for success.

According to a recent Charles Schwab survey, U.S. workers believe they'll need around $2 million to retire. Using the old 4% Rule for some back-of-the-napkin math, those retirees are expecting to withdraw about $80,000 their first year in retirement, with future withdrawals going up or down from there based on how much annual savings and investment returns replenish their assets. We also know in most cases there will be other income sources like social security or pension income. So, is $80,000 per year from your investment portfolio, give or take, enough to live on in retirement? That's a much more complicated question to answer than some folks realize. So many factors that affect retirement planning are in a state of constant flux – most of all, your life. A financial plan that's built around static numbers might not be able to adjust how and when you need it to. Let's talk about some of the variables that factor into Keen Wealth's comprehensive planning process and try to arrive at a more thorough analysis of a $2 million nest egg goal.

How do you adjust your financial plan to cope with inflation, higher interest rates, and an up-and-down economy? Our most popular blogs and podcasts of 2023 all touched on that question in some way, especially from the perspective of retirees living on a fixed income. Our discussions also eventually arrived at a similar conclusion: you need to have a plan! Comprehensive financial planning puts tools at your disposal that can keep you on track for a successful retirement, no matter what’s happening in the outside world. And working with an experienced advisor, like my team at Keen Wealth, could potentially eliminate so much of the worry and uncertainty from figuring out what moves are going to keep your short-term needs and your long-term goals in sync.

Retirees often have a bucket list of places they want to visit, experiences they want to try, and far-flung friends and family they want to spend time with. But while crossing off bucket list items can be some of the most meaningful moments of retirement, you're probably not going to spend most of your retirement touring Paris or hiking the Grand Canyon. What you do day in and day out for those other 40-45 weeks of the year will probably have a bigger impact on how you feel about your retirement and yourself. Being intentional with your time can become a powerful habit that makes your daily life in retirement more meaningful. Try incorporating some of these retirement rituals into your new schedule and you might start to appreciate just how rich every day can be.

Retirees have earned every minute of R&R that they want to enjoy. But your favorite lounge chair probably isn't going to fulfill you all by itself for the years, if not decades, of senior living you have in front of you. The happiest retirees we work with at Keen Wealth find that sweet spot between taking it easy and being proactive about how they use their time. Try using some combination of these five ideas to experience more from life in your own retirement.

One of the reasons my team at Keen Wealth puts so much care into personalizing our comprehensive planning process is that there's no one path to a successful retirement. Yes, we often incorporate some tried-and-true strategies and tools, like diversification, downside volatility protection, and Monte Carlo simulations. But as we discuss on today's show, even professional financial advisors have to sort through a wide array of options to help folks find their optimal plan. When you're managing your finances on your own, those options can be overwhelming and, in some cases, a little dangerous for your money. After discussing four listener questions, I'd also like to share some exciting personal news and thank my alma mater, the University of Central Missouri.