After working hard and investing your wealth strategically for most of your life, you’ve made it—retirement. Welcome to your Golden Years. Now that you are here, ensure your retirement is comfortable, relaxing, and fulfilling by managing your wealth well. Here are my top 5 tips to ensure you are smart with your finances during these years.
- Consult with a financial advisor. Up until this point, you’ve likely worked with a financial advisor to build and grow your assets as you prepared for retirement. But now your financial advisor can still help you plan how you will use your wealth. We can also give you more specific advice, including how to be smart about taxes, how to continue growing your assets, and more.
- Consider how you will allocate your funds year to year. Even though you have reached retirement, you should keep planning how you will use your wealth year to year, even month to month. Budgets will remain useful so your funds won’t deplete sooner than you anticipated. Of course now is the time when you can take your dream vacation and spend your hard-earned money, but make sure you have a plan.
- Continue a dialogue with family about finances. Hopefully, you’ve already been talking with family—especially your spouse—about managing your wealth. Having these conversations before retirement will help you transition more smoothly. Unfortunately, there are many couples who disagree about lifestyle after retirement. Some want to travel, others may want to downsize the family home—it really varies couple to couple. Talk about your goals and what you want from retirement. It’s wise to be in agreement before making big or indulgent purchases. Chatting with the rest of your family, like children or other beneficiaries, is also useful. They certainly don’t need to dictate how you spend your money, but it is wise for them to know your plans.
- Spend on yourself. You worked hard your entire life and planned for a comfortable retirement. Enjoy it! If you plan to spend money on your family—adult children, grandchildren, your parents, etc.—make sure to budget those expenses. But prioritize spending on yourself. You deserve it.
- Keep planning! The plan you start out with at the beginning of your retirement can, and probably should continue to change as your circumstances change. In fact, there are often different phases in most individual’s retirements. In the beginning, you may be more active, traveling and spending more. Then you may want to settle down, spending more time at home, close to family. During this time, you likely spend less. As we continue to age, medical expenses may increase, which can cause another spike in spending. Keep assessing your budget and wealth, and adjust your plan accordingly. A financial planner can help you with these plans as well.
Retirement is a wonderful time during your life. Following these tips can lead you to manage your wealth wisely. For more information and advice, please visit debrabrede.com.
