Questions You’re Not Asking About Your Retirement Plan!

Questions You’re Not Asking About Your Retirement Plan!

Time and time again I see it.  I see it in search results on Google.  I see it in client meetings.

We are starting with the wrong questions.

We’re going to show you the questions most start with and the ones you should be asking first so you can plan a retirement your 90-year old self would be proud of.

Doom & Gloom Newsletter

In a recent client meeting, we were discussing a conversation they had had with a friend of theirs.

Their friends had recently sold a business and had a lump sum of money to invest.  Although they had sold the business they were still a number of years away from giving up work completely.

My client being pro investing was trying to convince him to invest his money.

However, he was not getting very far.  You see his friend subscribes to this doom and gloom investment newsletter.

His views were being influenced by what this newsletter was saying.   The newsletter was suggesting we are in for some bad times when it comes to investment markets.

I’ve seen this newsletter and over many years I don’t think it’s ever said anything positive about investing.

It’s no different than going to a clairvoyant, they don’t know what is going to happen.

Or they must have a crystal ball that no else has.  If they did know what was going to happen why are they selling a newsletter about doom & gloom?

You know what, I really felt for this guy.  I see this time and time again,  the financial pornography channels preying on negative emotions.

Let’s settle this for once and for all.  It’s designed to take your MONEY!  It’s the sole purpose they publish this rubbish.

No one knows what the future is going to hold.

I could see a number of things going on here.

Firstly he was giving into confirmation bias.   Where you are attracted to ideas or opinions that support your own thoughts.

Secondly, the financial services industry tends to start with tactical questions.  These create transactions that generate profits.

None of this his fault.  It’s just the messages being presented to him.

 

What Are The Most Common Questions?

The questions that most start with are tactical questions.

Why do we call them tactical?

In the majority of cases, it leads to a transaction.  It’s generally the last thing we look at for our clients because once the road ahead is clear, tactical decisions become very clear.

So, what are some of these questions?  I’m sure you have heard of them or even asked them yourself.

#1 How Much Do I Need?

#2 How Should I Invest My Money?

#3 Will I Have Enough?

#4 Am I Saving Enough?

#5 Which Super Fund Would I Use?

#6 Should I start a Self Managed Super Fund?

These are what I consider to be tools in the toolbox.  They are the tools to get the job done but not where you should be starting when thinking about planning out your retirement.

When was the last time you booked a flight before you booked your holiday?  Consider the flight being your tool to get to your destination.  Hope you can see where we are going here.

Nor is it your parent’s retirement, it’s your retirement.  What worked in the past is not going to work for the modern retirement.

We are living longer, healthier for longer and going to need more for longer.

You need to more dynamic in your decision making when it comes to your retirement plan to enable you to live a life your 90-year old self will be proud of.

Biggest Concern Of Pre-Retirees

There have been a lot of studies around the main concerns pre-retirees have.

The top concerns from pre-retirees around retirement planning are not having enough, fear of not being able to maintain their lifestyle in retirement and health.

These concerns are shared most commonly among baby boomers and I see them consistently when sitting in front of my clients.

But here’s the thing, in all the research it also points to inaction.  There is little action when it comes to addressing these fears.

If people are so worried about not having enough and concerned about maintaining their lifestyle in retirement, what actions are people taking to address these concerns?

There is a disconnect between the biggest concerns and addressing the concerns.

While I understand life happens, and I’ve seen this have an impact on many, there is more we could be doing.

If we are going to be intentional in creating this retirement our 94-year old self would be proud of, it begins with asking better questions.

While tactical questions are where most people start and are important to get the job done.  If you ask the right questions about what you are trying to accomplish with your retirement and the answers to the tactical questions become quite easy.

Design First

About 9yrs ago we built our own house.  Once the house was built, I wanted to build a BBQ area.

I didn’t have the skills but thought I’d give it a go anyway.

Did I go out and buy all the supplies to build it first?  Heck no.

I say down and started to draw it out on paper, changing the design a number of times until I was happy with the design.

I then worked out exactly what I needed to organise to get the job done, aka tactics.

Once I knew exactly what I wanted, the tactics side of it was quite easy.

The same goes for designing your own retirement.   Once you are crystal clear about what that is the tactics, what you need to be doing to accomplish it, is pretty clear.

The problem with most of us we live in the immediate future, we live in the now.  The media is constantly selling to us, selling us tactics to our now problems and we tend to forget or leave the future to later.

What Does A Real Retirement Plan Contain?

A quick recap…

If you have read some of our previous posts, this will look familiar.

We believe a solid Retirement Plan should cover three areas, your needs, your wants, and wishes.

Why do we break it down?

It gives our clients critical levers they can pull when their life changes, and believe me it will.  We need to be nimble.  The strategies we implement allow our clients to control their own destiny.

If you think of your Retirement Plan like a great bowl of pasta.

The pasta on its own is nothing that exciting but still plays it’s part.  This is the basics, what’s required to meet the costs of your day to day lifestyle.

Obviously, pasta is pretty boring on its own so you add in the sauce.  The sauce makes it taste a little bit better.  This is what we call the wants.  These are things like regular holidays, the things that just make your retirement feel a little bit better.

Then comes the spices, the spices make the pasta shine, it’s takes it to the next level.

These are what we call wishes.  The experiences that are special.  They are experiences you would love to do but if you can’t, its no big deal.

Think special celebrations, paying for the grandkids education, leaving a legacy or helping out the kids.

If you want to go into this further click to the links below.

Are You Experiencing The Not So Thrifty 50’s?

Making Room for the EXTRA’s in Retirement

Planning for your Wishes in Retirement

What Are The Questions You Should Be Asking About Your Retirement Plan?

#1 What Would My 90-Year Old Self Want Me To Do?

You might ask why we are using age 90?

There’s a 50% chance that one person in the couple will live into their 90’s.  So, it’s always a great way to help make a decision easier by framing as though you have traveled the road.

What I find is that when we start the planning process for clients who are doing this for the first time or face a fork in the road, questions come up.

I don’t know what I want my Retirement to look like.  Quite common by the way.

Our society rarely allows us the bandwidth to think much further than the immediate future so for some, this can be a difficult question to answer.

We all seem to be living in the immediate important mode, where there is little time to think.  We are only looking at the tactics, that’s what’s being advertised to us day in day out.

They can include:-

Use our super fund as we have XX return 5yrs in a row.

You need to set up a Self Managed Super Fund.

Use our super fund as we have the lowest fees.

They are all tactics but don’t offer any real value unless you define what your future is going to look like.

It’s really easy to let the moment define your future.

So, if you are struggling to work out what your retirement will look like, start defining with the help of the below questions.

What Would My 90-Year Old Self Want Me To Do?

It allows you to look more widely and put everything into perspective.

You could ask yourself if I look back would I be happy with what I did?  Would I be happy working longer? Would I be happy with the life I lived?

Are you going to regret working so hard and not spending more time just experiencing life?

Imagine you are sitting there in your rocking chair at the right old age of 90 looking back on your life.  What would you be telling yourself?

#2 Do I Still Want This?

We find walking the journey side by side with our clients that life changes.  Clients priorities change.

What may have been important at the start may not be so important now.  They may have changed their view on the direction they were heading.

When it comes to retirement planning for our clients, we are constantly reassessing the assumptions of their plans.  Making adjustments and re-assessments as clients walk the retirement journey.

We are constantly asking, is still what you want?

The answers to these questions will more than likely impact the tactics that are employed.

This is why we say to clients, their retirement plan will constantly evolve and iterate as their life changes.

#3 How does this help me towards my goal?

All actions you implement will move you in a certain direction.  It will either move you closer towards the goal you are working towards or move you away from it.

So, it’s important with every action you take, particularly when it comes to planning out your life in retirement is how does this help me towards my goal?

You only have so much in the way of financial resources, but often we find the actions taken are not in alignment with what clients are wanting to achieve.

Quite often when looking at the tactics, some clients may have their financial resources all over the place.  We find through our process that we implement for clients, they are stuck in the tactics mode.

Their resources are not moving them in the right direction.  Easier said than done sometimes.

#4 What’s The Next Step To Move Me Closer To That Goal?

This is where the rubber really hits the road.

When planning for our clients’ future life whether that be pre-retirement mode or planning for retirement we like to plan one and three years out.

What do you want things to look like one year from now?

What do you want things to look like three years from now?

What this does is create a list of action items that need to happen, the tactics.  It could be 10-15 things that need to happen.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming.  However, if you break it down into little steps or short sprints, you’ll actually do the work and make great progress.

Ask yourself, what’s the one small step I can take to move the dial closer to where I want to be?

Work on that one.  Once that’s done, move onto the next one.

Hope that’s put some framework on how to approach your retirement plan by asking the right questions to help you move closer towards your Rocking Retirement…

Have You Booked Your ROCK RETIREMENT CALL?

Struggling to work out where to start or whether you are on TRACK to Live your DREAM Retirement?

Book your  Rock Retirement Call now!

What will you achieve on this call?

We won’t be selling you anything, there won’t be time for this.  Given the investment of time in these calls we’ve had to limit them, so if you find all the times are taken, you’ll have to wait until next month.

You’ll achieve 3 things from your call:

#1 We’ll help you define the lifestyle you are working towards, even if it’s only a guestimate, it’s something you can start working on.  We’ll help you define the cost of it.

#2 You’ll receive a short report, detailing all the important that will put you in a position where you have more control over the direction you’re heading in.

Your short report will contain:-

  • A detailed listing of your dream retirement lifestyle
  • You’ll know what your Dream retirement will cost
  • You’ll have the information to know whether you are on track to have enough
  • We’ll provide some options you can consider to improve on your current position

#3 Two Bonuses

  • Because we know life is busy, we want to make sure you get practical information you can use.  Firstly we’ll give you access to our interactive risk profile tool.  It’s something new we have introduced for clients.  Rather than answer questions that most use in the industry, this interactive tool is backed by science.  You are given six scenarios and you choose the level of upside and downside you are willing to accept.  What you get is an answer to the real risk you are comfortable taking with your investments.  Never be in doubt.
  • Want to know you are going to have enough.  We’ll also stress test your retirement plan for you.  We’ll run it against different market cycles.  You’ll know how you’ll fare against a base case scenario, pessimistic and optimistic scenario’s.  You’ll have the information to make an informed decision about the amount of risk you need to take to get the job done.

You’ll have 80% of the information to better your retirement plan and make the most of the only life you have.

CLICK HERE to book now>>  These calls are limited.

Know someone that would gain benefit from the information, feel free to forward on.

Glenn

Make it a great Life!

Challenging the Status Quo!

Glenn Doherty – CFP – Founder & Financial Organiser at Jigsaw Private Wealth

Website: jigsawprivatewealth.com.au

Email: gdoherty@jigsawprivatewealth.com.au

Mob: 0401 253 729

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Advice Disclaimer: Any reference in this publication to the provision of advice refers to advice of a generic nature, and should not be taken as product or investment recommendations. Before any action is taken based on the information provided, independent financial advice from a licensed financial adviser should be sought. Financial Freedom Project Pty Ltd ATF GA & DC Doherty Family Trust Trading as Jigsaw Private Wealth is a Corporate Authorised Representative of Exelsuper Advice Pty Ltd. The information contained in this publication is of a factual nature only and is not intended to constitute financial product advice. Information is current as at date of publication. This is an online information blog. It does not imply an offering of securities.

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