Getting ready for retirement requires us to enter the planning mode, to accumulate more money than we thought we’d need and to adjust in a lot of different ways.
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Dan Smith
Financial advisors often beat around every bush in the forest to make one strong point: You need more money. They’ll throw a lot of numbers at you:
A 3-percent 401(k) isn’t enough, even if it is accompanied by an employer match.
Social Security falls far short.
The old rule that says you need 70 percent of your working income doesn’t work in early retirement. You’ll need 100 percent of that.
If you retire with $1 million, you can live on $40,000 a year for about 30 years.
Own your home and be debt free.
Don’t listen to TV financial preachers or read the popular financial press. Hire a planner (this is planners talking, remember).
Bill and Jan Perdue (he 63, she 58) were doing a lot of the right things all along and planned to have a comfy retirement at 65. Then the other shoe fell. Bill’s position at Aetna Insurance was downsized, virtually forcing an early retirement. He looked for work for three years and couldn’t find any.
He and Jan moved to Roanoke, bought a smaller house (going from 3,000 square feet to 1,500). “Some of our friends who are wealthy talked about us and ‘tiny house’ living,” says Jan. They began taking care of his parents. “We had a retirement plan,” says Bill. “When you lose your job, that accelerates the plan.”
Jan sold her small insurance business and they set the money aside. They rolled 401(k)s into IRAs and considered taking Social Security early (they didn’t).
“We need more money now than we will when we’re 80,” says Jan. They managed to swing the “debt free” paradigm and that made a huge difference. Health insurance has been a $6,000 deductible through the Affordable Care Act, which may not have much life left.
“We were living in a bigger, more expensive house in Arlington,” says Jan. “We found this smaller house and it needed renovation,” which they have done primarily by themselves (kitchen, first floor, porch, landscaping, painting). They had some expertise, but “YouTube has videos for everything,” says Jan, chuckling, “and our neighbor is a structural engineer.”
They have three children and six grands. The house is a good size for having family as guests.
“We’ve done a good job planning,” says Bill, “but you need to plan as early as you can. When you’re younger, you have more time to recover if something goes wrong.”
But when retirees look to work again, that guidance is not so easy to find.
“In our society, there is a lot of guidance for the young,” says Deb Squire of Directions/Career Life Transitions. She has “coached [job hunters] through five recessions. There’s a whole new norm.” Some people “are pretty lost,” she says. “It is challenging for people with a profession to experience change.” Because there “is little security in the job market,” says Squire, “you always need to be prepared for what’s next.” And that includes the time in retirement.
Roanoker Tom Nasta, Investment Advisor Representative at Personal Financial Planning Inc., says, “Fewer people are eligible for pension plans now, so they have to rely more on retirement savings to supplement their living expenses. People are living longer and are more active in retirement. I think many people don’t think retirement can be a gradual process instead of an ‘all at once’ event.”
An Employee Benefit Research Institute survey reveals that 60 percent of people working believe they will be ready for retirement. Retirees are even more confident, but 30 percent are stressed. In fact, just one in 10 has a formal retirement plan and may well be forced to work longer than they want to.
Linda Ballentine, CEO of Roanoke-based Crowning Touch Senior Moving, is on the front line of the adjustment retirees make: helping them downsize. Her company moves people and helps sell the household items they choose not to keep.
“When you downsize,” she says, “there’s an in-your-face reality check. You realize you either can’t take care of it all or you simply can’t afford it” any longer.
Retirees “sacrificed to own their collected treasures for 45 years, but now the whole formal lifestyle is passe. Still, by the time you’re 70, you should be honest with yourself about what you want to do and where you want to live.” The difficult moment often comes, she says, when retirees realize “nobody wants your stuff.”
Anne and Andy Hudick of Fee Only Financial Planning in Roanoke wonder “how many people get their hands on their 401(k) and spend it?” They see too many, says Anne. “Our rule of thumb, says Andy (who has written the book “Thirty-Five Great Ideas: Timeless Advice for Financial Success”) is to live on a third of your salary, spend a third for tax and put away a third for retirement.”
She urges that the house be paid off, “clean up and consolidate” all your accounts. He adds that “it helps to see the big picture.” He sees his advisory position as “making sense of the mess. That’s the fun part.”
Says Tom Nasta: “I think most people understand when they’re not prepared to retire. Most people are aware (and concerned) of the cost of additional health care in retirement and are looking for a way to prepare for that. Most people do contribute systematically to their retirement saving and are focusing more on reducing/eliminating debt prior to retirement.”
Bottom line: Enter retirement debt-free.