The Best Retirement May Be the One You Never Planned
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.
Planning is a Foundation, not a Script
A comprehensive retirement plan should help you prepare for the future and give you the flexibility and confidence to make adjustments when necessary.
Financial advisors use planning tools to explore how changes in market returns, interest rates, taxes, and inflation could affect your retirement. We can also test how your plan might hold up through market declines or a major economic downturn.
Those projections help you prepare for different possibilities. But they cannot predict exactly how your life will unfold or what will matter most to you years from now.
Just think back on your life since you started working. You probably had goals such as buying your first house, getting a promotion, or taking your family on vacation to Europe.
You hit some of those goals right on schedule. Others probably slipped back a year or two. Some you might have missed altogether or changed your mind about.
Life rarely follows a script. A financial plan should help you adjust when your priorities or circumstances change.
Leave Room for the Unexpected
The retirement you imagine at age 55 may look different from the one you enjoy at age 65, 75, 85, and beyond.
Maybe at 55, you planned on playing tennis four days a week at the country club once you retired.
But at 65, you may still enjoy tennis and discover that you also miss solving problems, working with others, or sharing your professional knowledge.
Consulting, mentoring, or even starting your own business could become part of a retirement you originally imagined spending mostly on the court.
What happens if you planned to stay in the family home, but your adult children start families on the other side of the country? You may find that living closer to your grandchildren matters more than staying in the house you expected to keep.
Some of the most meaningful parts of retirement don't show up on spreadsheets and projections. They happen as your family grows, as you discover new interests, or as surprises reshape what you thought was possible.
A retirement that still works financially may no longer fit the life you want. That is a reason to revisit your goals, not a sign that you planned poorly.
Financial Flexibility Creates Life Flexibility
Giving yourself permission to change is only part of the equation. Your financial plan also needs to leave room for those changes.
That flexibility matters before you retire, too. There is nothing wrong with continuing to work because you enjoy it. The question is whether you are working by choice or simply chasing a larger account balance.
Once your plan supports retirement, it is worth considering what additional years of work would add, and what you might give up in travel, family time, or other experiences you are ready to enjoy.
After retirement, focusing only on long-term returns can limit your flexibility if too much of your money is in investments that are difficult to access.
That can make it harder to fund a sudden interest in travel or a desire to earn a new degree.
An unexpected home repair or a serious medical diagnosis can also require access to cash. Without it, you might need to sell investments at a loss or take larger-than-planned withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement accounts. Those withdrawals can increase your taxable income and, depending on your income, could also raise future Medicare premiums.
A plan that leaves room for unexpected expenses can also help you respond to new opportunities. The goal is to balance tomorrow's needs with the life you want to live today.
Keep Choosing Your Retirement
The ultimate luxury in retirement is the power of choice.
Giving yourself permission to embrace new identities at different stages of your life is part of the process. At your next planning meeting, ask yourself: Does the retirement I'm planning for still reflect the life I want to live?
At Keen Wealth Advisors, we can help you understand what has changed, explore your options, and evaluate what those choices could mean for your financial future. The goal is a plan that can evolve with you.
About Bill
Bill Keen is a financial advisor with over 30 years of industry experience. As the founder and CEO of Keen Wealth Advisors, a registered investment advisory firm, he focuses on providing personalized retirement planning designed to help people thrive before and during their retirement years. With a passion for educating others, Bill regularly blogs about retirement planning, hosts the podcast Keen on Retirement, and has contributed to Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, Reuters, Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, Yahoo Finance, and other publications. Based in Overland Park, Kansas, Bill and his team work with clients throughout the greater Kansas City area and across the nation. To learn more, connect with him on LinkedIn or visit www.keenwealthadvisors.com.
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