Are you concerned that you could outlive your income in retirement?

If you worry about having a secure, guaranteed, income for the future, you’ll be relieved to know there are things you can do today to plan for your retirement.

Many Americans have turned to investments in annuities to secure their savings and generate an income stream they can count on for the rest of their lives.

If you live in the Palm Beach/Treasure Coast area and would like a free, no obligation, consultation with a local, established financial planner, call David Doumar today at (561) 575-1200 or use our CONTACT FORM to request more information.

It’s not too late, but there is no time to spare!

Retirement Planning Guide

Identify Your Goals
Take Inventory
Review Your Financial Situation
Select a Strategy
Implement the Plan
Monitor Your Progress

Retirement: you spend your entire working life saving and planning for it. Whether you’re 24 or 60, one thing is certain – retirement is getting closer with each passing day.

What Do I Need To Prepare For My Retirement?

Many people assume that their company pension plan and social security are going to be enough to maintain their lifestyle through their retirement years. Most of those people will be bitterly disappointed. Let’s look at some startling facts:

Social security currently pays the average 65-year-old about $700 a month.
The largest population bubble in history, the baby boom generation, will start to retire in 10 to 15 years, further diluting social security’s ability to keep up with the additional demands.
The good news is we are living longer. The bad news is we will have to pay for those additional years of life in retirement.
It is estimated that you will need approximately 75% of your pre-retirement income to retire comfortably.

Looking Forward

Robert F. Bennett wrote, “Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, then you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself.”

Controlling your choices and conducting some simple planning now can enable you to reach your goal of a comfortable retirement.

Retirement planning is in many ways an inventory-taking process in which you must examine your current status, project your future need and calculate how much you must save to meet those needs. Following these few simple steps can help you in this planning process.

Identify your goals
Take inventory
Review your financial situation
Select a strategy
Implement the plan
Monitor your progress

Identify Your Goals

When establishing your goals, it is important to be realistic and optimistic. Don’t simply target your needs and ignore your wants. Certainly we all have basic needs for which we must plan – food, shelter, clothing and medical. But beyond the basic needs is our wish list. Rather than a simple home, we may wish for a home on a lake or golf course. Recreation and travel expenses tend to increase in retirement, while clothing expenses tend to decrease. Medical expenses tend to increase during retirement years also; however, government assistance for many of those needs is available.

Be specific when establishing your goals. After you have set your goals, go back to review your list. Have you included items that are unrealistic? Were certain items ignored as being frivolous in nature?

Remember, your goals should be realistic, yet optimistic. Retirement planning is a process, one that is fluid and changeable as circumstances dictate.

Take Inventory

Planning for your retirement is like planning a trip – you must know where you are now before you can determine the best route to reach your destination.

The process of gathering information relative to your current financial situation is one of the most important steps in planning for your retirement. Identify all current assets, both liquid and non-liquid, as well as all current and future real and contingent liabilities. College expenses as well as anticipated major purchases such as automobiles and home repairs should be considered.

The end result of this process should be a realistic net-worth statement that will give you a foundation that will serve as a basis for your future financial value projections.

Review Your Financial Situation

Now that you have established your goals and gathered all information relative to your net worth, you must analyze the information to determine if your goals are reasonably attainable.

Use relatively conservative accrual and future income and savings rate assumptions. This may also be an opportune time to establish a family budget to identify any extraordinary or excessive spending. Likewise, it may be necessary to generate additional income opportunities such as part-time employment, scholarship or grant programs for college, etc.

Once you have thoroughly analyzed your financial position, you are ready to move on to the next step of selecting a strategy to attain your goal.

Select a Strategy

This step of your retirement planning process identifies what mechanisms are available to help ensure your funds are most efficiently used to meet your financial goals.

There are several ways to save for retirement. Payroll deduction savings plans or automatic transfers are ideal ways to set aside funds before they are incorporated into your spending. These methods provide a systematic and consistent way to set money aside for your retirement, often before taxes. Take full advantage of employer matching or savings plans, as well as pretax medical spending accounts.

If you find you are unable to save enough to meet your goals, you may need to invest more aggressively than you had originally considered, or you may need to readjust your goals, or both.

A sound financial retirement plan must satisfy a number of competing goals. First, you must be sure to set aside enough funds to meet emergency or liquid contingencies. Once that fund is in place, you must simultaneously save for your other goals – college expenses, retirement, housing needs, vacations, etc. – all the while making sure your investments are properly allocated to maximize your return within acceptable risk tolerances.

Implement the Plan

In order for a plan to be successful, it must be implemented. All too often, people will fail in planning for their retirement because of a lack of resolve to implement their plan.

After carefully selecting your strategy, write out your action plan as to how your strategy will be implemented in order to achieve your goals. Your action plan should identify specific goals, when an action is to take place and who is responsible for completing the action.

Monitor Your Progress

To ensure your action plan is actually going to enable you to meet your stated goals, it is necessary to monitor your progress. Not only is it important to monitor your progress, it is also important to constantly reevaluate your goals and objectives. Documentation of these regular review sessions will help you to stay abreast of past progress.

Doumar Insurance & Financial Services personnel are available to assist you in this retirement-planning process. We can help you identify realistic goals, review investment selections, assist in asset allocation and calculate cash value projections.

If these types of services are not available in your current retirement plan, talk to your employer about contacting us for a free retirement plan review or e-mail Doumar Insurance & Financial Services for assistance.