Keen On Retirement™

No, we can’t look back at 2017 and tell you definitively how the market is going to behave in 2018. But we can look for potential “rhymes,” the lessons of the past year and the trends that may echo into the next. In particular, I think there are four important takeaways from 2017 that you should keep in mind when discussing your 2018 financial plans with your fiduciary advisor:

As you’re working your way through the holiday bustle and thinking ahead to 2018, use these five tips to set solid resolutions that won’t melt away before the end of January.

We’re big on planning ahead at Keen Wealth. So over your holiday break, take a moment to go through my end of 2017 checklist. Tie up any loose ends, get some meetings on your calendar, and you’ll be ready to hit the ground running in 2018.

Many newly retired couples find themselves spending more of their days together than they have in decades. With the kids out of the house and the old workday routines gone, retired couples need to find new ways to fill their time and fulfill themselves emotionally. Like most important issues that arise in a relationship, solving for a successful transition into retirement depends on quality communication. With that in mind, here are some questions you and your spouse can ask each other to open up a dialogue that will help you ease into your golden years:

My clients at Keen Wealth are typically smart and prudent people who have been very good at what they do in their careers. In particular, the engineering community that we serve, consists of many of these accomplished professionals that have walked through our doors looking to delegate the task of managing their hard-earned money – capital that will hopefully carry them through their retirement. In my experience, the most successful of those folks are the ones that acknowledge that “they know what they don’t know,” and seek help.

Well, recently I came across an excellent article on this subject from the good folks at Age Wave, a company that studies how an aging population affects society. Their research and analyses have been very valuable to advisors like myself as we help the large “baby boomer” generation ease out of the workforce and into retirement. This study breaks down how to prepare emotionally for retirement into five stages: Imagination, Anticipation, Liberation, Reorientation, and Reconciliation. I highly recommend reading the entire article, but today I thought I’d give a brief overview of these five stages and how they relate to your retirement plan.