This blog post is in partnership with Protective Life Insurance Company. Protective Life has been helping people secure their financial futures for over 100 years. For more on retirement planning, visit their Learning Center.
Penn and I are not experts with money. Quite honestly, we suck at it. We’re also not great at planning for the future. So it should be no surprise that when we asked each other about retirement and how much we should be saving – we were not on the same page. We had two separate sets of expectations about how long we should keep working and how much money we wanted to have. It’s not that we don’t communicate. Retirement is just a topic that’s not at the top of our list and we realized how important it was to start the conversation.
No Magic Number
When planning for retirement, there are a lot of things to take into account. Every family has different needs, so there is no magic number of where you should be. (I know I wish there was a magic number too.) One of the reasons there isn’t a magic number is because the number can move. You need to constantly refine what you are setting aside year over year. In a recent podcast segment, we sat down with Greg Patterson (he is a financial advisor to financial advisors who also helped us with Saving For College) and reviewed the following steps to get the ball rolling:
Have an honest conversation. Plan a date to discuss your retirement expectations. Decide what age you both want to be when you retire, and what you want retirement to look like. Will you take time to travel? Will you take up a favorite hobby full-time? It’s important to understand what your golden years will look like so you know how much money you need to set aside and for how long.
Take inventory of your assets. Assess how much you have in a retirement account, bank account, and other assets to know where you are now. It’s important not to use the value of your home in this assessment unless you plan to sell your house as part of your retirement. You may want to engage a financial advisor to help.
Review your plan every year. Needs and plans change over time, so it’s important to review your plan every year and adjust it as necessary. Maybe you’ve started a new business, or decide you want to spend time abroad. By reviewing your plan every year, you can make sure your retirement goals happen.
In our podcast segment, Greg reviews these steps and other considerations you should have when it comes to retirement planning. We are learning so much through these financial segments, and we hope you are too. Listen by clicking any of the links below.
