Warning!!! The following statements may cause you to feel inadequately prepared for the rest of your life. Read on if you are the type of person to face your demons head-on. For those with rose tinted glasses, just smile and move on with your day.
Some of you are in it. Some of you aren’t even close. And for others who are close, you might not be prepared. I’m talking about your retirement accounts and the plan you have in place to save, invest, and spend throughout your retirement. Yes, I’m talking about those IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, 457s, and Defined Benefit Pension Plans.
This aforementioned alphabet soup of numbers and acronyms is one of the most important aspects you work and plan for your entire life. Yet some people still treat “retirement savings and investing” as a hobby or optional ‘thing to do.’
Many people have a retirement plan in place with their employer. While contributing to this 401(K) plan is very important, who is educating you on your investment options or contribution levels? When people bring their quarterly statements into my office for me to “take a look at,” it is common for that person to have no idea what they are invested in, or even how those investments were picked. When I ask how much they are contributing, some people don’t even know. Finally, when I ask who is advising them on their $100k, $200k, or $500k retirement portfolio, they say “nobody.” Wow!!
If you are saving 15% of your earned income, will it be enough to retire on? Do you think $1,000,000 would be enough to sustain ‘your’ desired lifestyle throughout retirement? How about $2,200,000? These questions are currently being asked on TD Ameritrade’s commercials on Television. They show a whole bunch of people providing questionable answers in regards to what they think their “number” is…that number being the amount they need to save in order to have a fulfilling lifestyle in retirement.
Did you know that I do this for my clients? Did you know that if you are serious about finding out what “your number” is, we can take a few minutes to get a very close estimate (it will never be exact) that you and your family can begin to plan for? Once completed, you’ll know whether you are on target, way behind, or somewhere in between. And the sooner we address this, the greater the opportunity you give yourself to accomplish it—thanks to the power of compounding interest!
For those ready to make 2014 the year to address retirement reality (because we all want to retire someday), I invite you to come to my office for a Retirement Savings crash course. I have access to a multitude of investments and managers to build customized investment portfolios suitable to the risk tolerance and diversification needs of my clients. I look forward to this ‘very important’ meeting and bringing clarity to the obscure ideology of retirement planning.