Keen On Retirement™

Every day in retirement presents a new set of choices. After all, once you don't need to work, you're in charge! A full day at the golf course? Absolutely. A spontaneous weekend getaway with your spouse? Why not? Grabbing coffee with friends, or sitting at a table solo to enjoy a good book? It's up to you. And if you don't like how today turns out, you can always make different choices tomorrow. However, there are some choices in retirement that don't come with easy do-overs. And the less reversible a decision is, the more important it is to think through all of your options and make the right choice the first time. Let's look at where some key retirement decisions fall on the reversibility spectrum.

The leaves are changing. Sweaters are coming out of closets. Ghosts and monsters are popping up in neighborhood yards. And the Social Security Administration is about to announce the cost-of-living adjustment for 2027. That's why October can be one of the spookiest – and most dangerous – months for seniors. Any time the government makes major announcements about Social Security or Medicare, fraudsters spring into action: texts, phone calls, emails, social media messages, "warning" seniors that they need to "activate" their benefits or make an "emergency" transfer to avoid theft. Another group of scammers, knowing that many seniors are preparing for a lonely holiday season, offer false promises of companionship ... "If you can just send money to help me pay the rent this month." The financial toll of these crimes is heartbreaking. According to the FBI, folks 60 and older reported almost $8 billion in losses to scams in 2025 – a 60% increase from the previous year. On today's show, we discuss how fraudsters try to bypass logic by targeting emotions and review some actionable steps you can take to protect yourself from the latest scams.

What's on your bucket list for retirement? Globe-trotting vacations? Long afternoons on the golf course or in your fishing boat? Relocating to a beachfront condo or a cozy cabin in the woods? That vision can motivate years of saving and planning. But the retirement you enjoy may look different from the one you first imagined. A good financial plan doesn't lock you into one version of retirement. It gives you room to adjust as your life changes. As I've discussed throughout this six-part blog series on The Adaptable Retirement, you don't need to predict exactly what will make you happy in retirement. You need a plan that helps you evaluate and support changing priorities.

In financial planning, we sometimes refer to your working years as the "accumulation years." A large part of your time is spent working and earning so that you can support your family, achieve milestones like buying a house, and secure your financial future. But during those years, you're "accumulating" more than money. You're gaining relationships, hobbies, interests, skills, experiences, memories, and, yes, possessions. By the time you reach retirement, your life is probably as full as it's ever been. Too full, maybe. As you move through the various stages of retirement, your identity is going to change along with your interests and priorities. And part of change is letting go so that you can make room for new people and new experiences that are going to make every step of your journey more fulfilling.

Dolly Parton's songs and movies will live on forever. But when the 80-year-old entertainment icon passed away last month, she also left behind an impressive financial legacy that we all can learn from. In a 2020 interview, Parton made it clear that she had no intention of becoming another celebrity cautionary tale about poor estate planning, saying, “You don’t want to leave that mess to your family for people to have to fight over. You need to take care of that yourself." Parton's $450 million estate is protected by a trust with executors and successor trustees, as well as a team of legal and financial professionals. And while one of the benefits of establishing these kinds of protections around your estate is that many details may remain private, I’m guessing a good portion of Parton’s fortune will continue her extraordinary philanthropic mission. Most of us won't write hit songs and build our own theme parks. But we can follow Parton's example by being proactive about protecting our legacies and giving back what we can to make the world around us a little bit brighter. Another important part of shoring up your own financial plan is making the most of your Social Security benefits. On today’s show, we follow up Matt Wilson’s recent webinar, Maximizing Social Security Benefits, by answering some questions from our audience.

A recurring theme in my series of blogs about The Adaptable Retirement is that your financial plan has to account for a constant that seniors often overlook. Change. As you near the end of your career, I doubt that you have the exact same goals, relationships, and interests that you had when you started working, or when you and your spouse first met. What you do every day has changed. Who you do those things with has changed. How you spend time when you are and aren't working has changed. Your body and health have changed. Your understanding of the world and other people has changed. In many ways, you’re a different person with a different identity. And this continual process of growth and renewal doesn't stop when you stop working.