Behaviors That Could Be Hurting Your Retirement

So I’m talking to you individuals out there that are maybe nearing retirement or even maybe further off than maybe 10 plus years out there or very early on in retirement. There are three things out there that I see often that potentially could be impacting in a negative way your retirement. The first one, not planning or procrastinating to having a retirement plan. Whether you’ve still got 10, 20 years left of working or early in retirement, having that retirement plan is vital. And I’m not just talking about a group of investments and diversification and all that. I’m talking about an income plan, investment plan, tax plan, estate plan, long-term care, healthcare, all these sort of things. What is that plan of yours? And once again, whether you have 20 years left, having that plan so you have something to work towards. You know, Zig Ziglar once said, if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it everytime, right? So having that plan that you can zero in on and know what you’re working towards. The other thing that’s out there is being too optimistic about your budget. So you know oftentimes I think people either don’t have a budget or they think you know what? I don’t spend that much on groceries or gas or vacation or extras, sort of thing. As we get into retirement planning, you know we have to figure out what income you need, right? And oftentimes that’s going to come from a budget. What do you need to live on and be able to do the things that you want to do? And as you’re planning for that retirement, making sure that you’re mapping out these things that you’ve dreamed of doing. You know vacations. Maybe it’s a second home. Maybe it’s the hobbies. You have extra time to golf or go fishing or something like that. So making sure all these things are in there. But be realistic about that and what you think you’re going to spend. Don’t think that in retirement you’re just going to cut everything and want to do nothing. Now you have this time to be able to do stuff and enjoy things. And the third this is that when we’re thinking about that is, I call it not thinking like a retired person, okay? When you’re retired, it’s like 20-30 years of unemployment. We need to generate income over that time so that way we have a paycheck coming in consistently. So thinking like a retired person is where are these paychecks going to be coming from? Maybe you have pension. Maybe there’s Social Security out there. Maybe you have this secret retirement savings, 401K, something of the likes, that you’re able to do that. But start thinking that way of generating the income. Your income becomes your lifestyle in retirement just like you know in your working years. You’ve got to have more coming in than going out, right? So if you’d like to talk to these or maybe you’re struggling with something else with your retirement planning. Give us a call on the screen. We’d love to talk to you and have a free, no obligations visit here at Centennial Wealth Advisory at any of our four locations here in northern Michigan.