“Turn! Turn! Turn!” written by Peter Seeger and made famous by The Byrds was released in 1965. If listening to this song on the AM station was part of your early memories, then you are probably thinking about downsizing or soon will be. Downsizing is a time to break things down and a time to cast things away. Hopefully there will be some laughter and dancing and not too much to mourn, but probably some tears are inevitable.
Earned income stops for everyone at some point, and people then need to navigate the transition from saving for retirement to spending from their investment portfolio. From a financial planning standpoint, we generally encourage clients to be debt-free in retirement so that when their earned income stops, so do their debt payments. Exceptions may be made for situations with reasonable levels of debt at extremely low interest rates or for loans with short remaining terms.
With the SECURE Act 2.0 delaying Required Minimum Distributions to age 73, and higher marginal brackets a likely reality in the near future, annual income tax planning has become even more important.
Nothing guarantees there will be sufficient money to cover all costs in retirement. But there are some common mistakes to steer clear of as you grow older.
According to the Federal Reserve, 35-year-olds have an average student loan debt of $42,600. The increase in college costs and the rising importance of a post-secondary education for improving income are a big part of this. Many surveys conducted in recent years have discovered that Millennials share a resistance to debt, no doubt influenced by coming of age during the dot-com crash of 2001 and housing crisis of 2008. Given this, it’s no wonder we often see that younger people want to pay off debt before they save for retirement.
Social Security is a critically important part of your overall financial and retirement plan that will be around for generations to come. The decision to claim or delay benefits should be carefully considered.
Like many people, I’m coming out of the pandemic much more aware about how fragile life is and how important it is to stay on top of one’s health. Similar to investments, we don’t always know what’s on the horizon, but what we can do is focus on the things we can control.
In addition to preparing yourself mentally for retirement, you should also make tactical changes to your portfolio and overall financial plan as you approach your targeted retirement date.
Throughout the pandemic, we saw a surge of Americans entering retirement—or at least seriously thinking about it. Perhaps you’re one of them. After the past extraordinary few years, you may be wondering whether life is too short to spend much more of yours working 9 to 5.
Secure Act 2.0 – What’s In It For Me?
At the end of December Congress passed a bill (signed by President Biden) authorizing roughly $1.7 trillion in new Federal spending.