Don't Go Broke in Retirement

09/16/20 • 24 min

According to industry research, only half of retirees save enough money to maintain their current level of spending for more than five years. Trying to figure out if their income from Social Security and retirement savings will last potentially 30 years or more is one of the biggest sources of stress among those in their 60s and 70s. According to Steve Vernon, author of Don’t Go Broke at Retirement, retirees need to find a middle ground between carelessly spending away their nest eggs and allowing their fears about running out of money keep them from enjoying life. There are two strategies you can use to help ensure that you won’t spend your way into poverty. First, try to delay taking Social Security benefits until age 70 if possible, even if you need to take a part-time job to earn extra income. The longer you wait, the higher the monthly benefits you’ll receive. Second, look for ways to reduce your spending. While going out to eat less often and cutting your cable and cell phone bills can help, the most significant, long-lasting savings come from eliminating major expenses. Getting rid of a vehicle you no longer need or moving into a townhouse or to a state with a lower cost of living can significantly reduce the thousands of dollars per year you spend on repairs, loans, insurance and taxes. Since these decisions can be very complex, consider seeking the advice of an unbiased, fee-only financial planner who can recommend strategies to keep you financially and emotionally secure during your golden years.

Previous Episode

How to downsize your home and reduce financial stress

If you’re thinking about moving to a smaller home, you may want to begin this process by figuring out what you need to keep and what you can get rid of. In this episode, David Ekerdt, a sociology professor at Kansas University and author of Downsizing: Confronting our Possessions in Later Life, reveals that many older people find this process to be a major source of tension and emotional duress, especially if they have a short timeframe for getting rid of things. Often their children and grandchildren aren’t interested in taking their china, silverware or furniture. Or no wants to buy the collectibles and artwork they thought would bring in a small fortune. Or the charities they’d like to donate things to are overly picky. A process that they thought would be done quickly can sometimes takes months. To lessen this stress, parents should invite their children to either “claim” or take items they want long before they plan to move to a different location. The earlier they shed the things they no longer need, the less they’ll have to deal with later on.

Next Episode

A better way to manage your 401k

401(k) plans are by far the largest source of income and capital for most retirees. That’s why it’s important to make sure you’re making the most of your plan’s potential by finding ways to reduce costs and make smarter investment choices. Edward Gottfried of Betterment suggests that the easiest way to lower costs is to move your money from mutual funds that charge you 1% or more in annual investment management fees into index funds with fees ranging from 0.05% to 0.25%. Online tools like Blooom can analyze all of your plan’s funds and suggest less-expensive alternatives. It’s also important to make sure that your asset allocation—your current mix of stock funds, bond funds and cash--reflects your investment goals, timeframe and risk tolerance. As you approach retirement, you may want to reduce your allocation to stocks to protect against potential losses in your portfolio should the market plummet when you need to start making withdrawals. However, it’s important to keep some exposure to stocks because they’re more likely to keep your portfolio growing faster during retirement than if you only invest in bonds and cash.

When you retire, or move to a different company, you need to decide what to do with the assets in your former employer’s 401(k) plan. If you’re switching jobs, it only makes sense to transfer assets from your old plan if your new company’s plan offers better investment options and lower costs. But for most people, moving 401(k) plan assets into a brokerage Rollover IRA makes the most sense. A Rollover IRA gives you access to thousands of different mutual funds and ETFs and most offer online retirement planning tools to help you determine an appropriate asset allocation model and select investment options. If you don’t want to make your own investment decisions, consider rolling over your 401(k) assets into an IRA professionally managed by a fee-only fiduciary investment adviser.