People realize they must get their financial house in order to eventually retire in style. Retirement is no longer a vague, far-off goal, and more people want to take concrete steps in the right direction.
Knowledgeable financial advisors can present you with many opportunities for planning and provide an investment strategy that fits with the budget you have, the financial goals you want to reach, and the risk you might want to take, or not take.
Here are some key steps for retirement planning and investing:
- Complete a Fact Finder. Tell your Advisor what you want to achieve with your financial resources. The fact finder doesn’t have to be an exhaustive financial planning exercise, but your Advisor needs to understand your goals and the key facts such as the amount of investment risk you can tolerate. It’s important that you can sleep peacefully at night and not worry every day about how you are invested.
- Plan for long term care. Everyone with a reasonable amount of assets to protect needs a long term care policy, and it’s very advantageous for you to buy it during your 50s and early 60s. Later on, you’re more likely to have health problems which will prevent you from getting a full-featured policy preferred premium rate – or even being insured at all. By buying early, you can nail down a low premium and will save substantially.
- Consolidate your qualified retirement plans. Many people have more than one IRA account – three separate IRAs are fairly typical. First, consolidate multiple IRAs into one IRA. This makes it simpler to manage and properly allocate IRA assets. If you have multiple 401(k) plans from former employers, consider rolling them over into one IRA as a possible strategy.
Once the plans have been consolidated, the required minimum distributions that will be coming out starting at age 70 ½ can be determined – something that’s very important to know and plan for. - Consider using life insurance as a supplemental retirement plan if youÕre financially successful and it fits for you. Despite the plethora of qualified retirement plans available today, successful professionals and small-business owners often want to shelter additional income from current and future taxes. A life policy might meet that need and your Advisor can show you several options.
- Annuities can make sense for long term investing. There are several types of annuities available to match your investment goals and the risk tolerance level that you have. Make sure to ask your Advisor about the options that can be appropriate for your own personal situation and long range plans for retirement investing.
If you would like to speak with an Advisor to help plan for your retirement, or to review the retirement investing strategies you already have, just fill out the following information:
