Keen On Retirement

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.

I believe that your retirement equation breaks down into three parts: things that you have total control over (such as how much you save and where you put those savings and investments); things you have some control over (how long you work); and things that you have no control over (short-term market returns, government policy).

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.

A popular trend among the new generation of workers is to set a nest egg target, work and save like crazy to hit it, and then plan to quit the 9 to 5 life at around the same age their parents were probably thinking about buying a first home!

Scientists haven’t pinned down a definitive reason for this shift in how we perceive time. But here are three common theories, and how you can adapt these modes of perception to slow down your life and get the most out of your retirement.

Moving from your employer-subsidized health care plan to Medicare or Medicaid can be one of the most complicated, and stressful, transitions for new retirees. Options vary depending on what state you live in. Weighing the cost benefits of affordable but restrictive Advantage plans, versus the freedom of a more expensive Supplement plan, can create budgeting challenges. We covered the basics of navigating Medicare in a very informative podcast earlier this year. Today, I want to give you some good news: once you do settle on a plan that provides for your health care needs, Medicare offers free preventative services that new retirees should jump on: