You know how much you need for a comfortable retirement…now what?

Just the other day I was having a conversation with a potential client, let’s call him Johnny.

Johnny and his wife wanted to retire and were wanting to know whether they had enough money.

Enough to pay for fun times early in retirement which involved some overseas travel.

While making sure they had enough money to last as long as possible.

All quite normal when it comes to planning one’s retirement…

Johnny was clear that they were middle of the road investors and the amount of money they needed coming in each year to pay for their lifestyle.

The fascinating thing was Johnny had been searching the internet for some time in search of the illusive answer.

Yet, everytime he looked the answer was different. Causing massive confusion and anxiety for them. He thought it was a simple equation…

Answer a few questions and BANG, you have your answer and ride off into the sunset…

Now we could have given him an answer to that question, but that would have been malpractice.

As the saying goes, prescription without proper diagnosis is malpractice.

You see when it comes to planning a comfortable and secure retirement, knowing your enough number is only the tip of the iceberg.

While that illusive number is what most people are looking for. We find after completing a full analysis of peoples financial arrangements.

There’s a lot more below the water line that needs to be addressed and considered to avoid nightmare retirement.

Can Johnny and his wife retire and commence their fun times in retirement?

The simple answer is they can retire and start to enjoy the fun times in retirement…

If they are willing to do what’s required to support the decision to give up work and commence their retirement lifestyle.

The key decision is to retire…

The next decision is what do Johnny and his wife need to do to make it work?

It’s all possible but they must be willing to make changes and decisions based on their actions.

It may or may not be what they wanted or dreamt off…

A framework to help make confident financial decisions…

Having enough money for your retirement is top on most people’s lists. Particularly if you’re within 7 years of retirement.

It’s cause for massive anxiety…

The BIG question that needs to be answered first is “Will you have enough money for a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of your life?“.

Whatever that lifestyle may be…

It’s a complex question that may produce a range of scenarios.

You need a framework to be able to confidently walk through these financial decisions in a methodical manner.

The framework we use to help our clients make these important and life changing decisions is called “The Financial Freedom Roadmap”.

Refined and built on over 20 years of experience advising pre-retirees on how to live a great retirement lifestyle. While navigating the complex transition from work into a retirement lifestyle.

Whatever decision you are trying to make, whether it’s full retirement or semi-retirement. You need a robust framework to help guide your decision making process.

Helping Johnny and his wife make confident decisions…

The first step is to clearly lay out what their retirement lifestyle would look like. The things they want to be doing in retirement.

Retirement is made up of different phases: go-go years, slow-go years and the no-go years.

Your go-go years are when you’re going to be most active. Spending the most. The years you’re going to be travelling the most. Participating in activities such as sports and hobbies.

The slow-go years are when you’re starting to feel the pinch. You’re not up to travelling as much and life starts to slow to a more leisurely mode.

And then you get to a point where your health is not what it used to be. This period of life is more about comfort and security.

Mapping out the journey you want to take in retirement is the first step to understanding whether you’re going to have enough money to see you through. Even if it’s a guestimate.

For most, you’ll spend more in your active stage of retirement when you’re doing things.

Therefore a standard calculator will not help you.

You need to understand what your spending timeline will look like…even if it’s a good guestimate.

Mapping your income to your spending timeline…

The next step for Johnny and his wife is mapping out their spending and income sources to support their ideal retirement lifestyle.

For Johnny and his wife this would be a combination of taking income from their super and investments in the initial stages of retirement.

At a glance and using rules of thumb, it’s lineball…

Based on their level of assets, it’s likely they’d be able to access Centrelink pensions at some stage. That would need to be taken into account as well.

This all important step has one main important goal…

To determine if the plan is feasible.

Do you know how feasible your retirement income plan is?

Until you know how your plan might pan out, it’s extremely difficult to make confident financial decisions. Let alone whether you are in a position to retire or not.

So for Johnny and his wife it looks feasible…

Making your retirement plan resilient…

While on the surface you may think the job is done. Think again…

The next step is working through to make your retirement plan resilient.

Easier said than done…

Mapping out how you are going to pay for your retirement income is critical to securing your monthly income in retirement.

You want to make sure it’s protected in times of investment market turmoil. In other words you’re not at the mercy of investment markets when you need to pay your monthly income.

How can you de-risk your plan?

What are the actions you can take to minimise as many risks and financial blind spots you have?

How do you build in margins of safety?

Only then can you start to build out your investment strategy to support the retirement lifestyle you’ve planned for.

Then you’ll want to test your retirement plan against different scenarios. Working longer, semi-retirement, spending more, spending less and market shocks to name a few.

Testing your feasible plan will allow you to flesh out opportunities and risks to make your plan more resilient.

Most people fail with…

Your retirement plan and journey are things that can be figured out.

As you approach retirement anxiety kicks in…

Where most fall down is having a pathway to figure it all out.

But once you have a feasible plan. It’s going to give you a pathway of how you’re going to pay for your retirement lifestyle.

Not only that, but give you more confidence that you have some sense of control and flexibility for all the unknowns.

Avoid a Nightmare retirement…

You’ve worked hard all your life. Squirreling every dollar away so you can enjoy a comfortable retirement lifestyle.

But it’s not without anxiety and stress…

What you do right now can decide whether you’ll live a comfortable, stress-free retirement lifestyle for years. Or whether you’ll end up being anxious all the time when you should be enjoying the best years of your life.

You’ve earned a peaceful retirement…

Book your Retirement Clarity Call by clicking here or on the calendar below and take action towards a stress-free and comfortable retirement.

Glenn Doherty – CFP – Financial Planner | Retirement Planning Made Simple for aspiring grey nomads and avid travellers within 7 years of retirement 

We work with people in Adelaide and around Australia via virtual meetings!

Uncategorized