Did your Sixties sneak up on you? No matter where you are in your financial journey, there are ways to turbo charge your investment strategy to provide for your retirement years. Whether you completely retire to pursue your passions and spend time with Grandkids, or continue to work on a full or part time basis to continue contributing to your nest egg and fund your pastimes and pursuits, you should have a retirement plan in place. You may be an empty nester ready to downsize or relocate, or a successful entrepreneur who just sold their business with money to burn on a vacation home or expensive car, either way it is never too late to draft a retirement plan or improve the one you already have in place.

Just Getting Started In Your Early 60s?

• Working in Your Retirement Years: With longevity increasing for both men and women, it is never too late to create a retirement plan, and the sooner the better if you have nothing already in place. Age limits and thresholds for retirement plans have changed recently and RMDs are delayed, which encourage folks to continue to work if they are able. The longer you keep working and earning a paycheck, the easier it is to start a savings plan and stick to it. More information on the pros and cons, tax risks and Social Security effects of working during retirement age here.
• Stay Debt Free: Debt and loan payments are going to decrease how much you are able to put away for retirement, getting these out of the way as soon as possible will be very important. Come up with a monthly plan to minimize expenses, and pay off high interest debt first. Consider downsizing your home and lifestyle in order to have more funds available to save and invest.
• Ask an Expert for Help: No matter how close you are to retirement, you can still prioritize saving for it. Don’t waste valuable time and assets making mistakes, talk to a financial advisor who can help you calculate your savings goal and create a customized, realistic savings plan and investment strategy. Get educated on the right choice for you, whether stocks, bonds, CDs, or annuities, etc.

Have a Nice Nest Egg but Worried if it Will Last?

• Plan for Longevity: Use a range of financial options to help you grow your wealth while also protecting you from common risks like taxes, market volatility, inflation, and even the risk that you will live longer than expected.
  • Using a mix of Roth and traditional accounts can help you manage your taxes, both as you’re saving for retirement and when you withdraw funds in retirement. Be sure to make allowed catch-up contributions. Look at a Roth Conversion with the help of your TFG Financial Advisors professional to time the conversion so it occurs in the most tax-efficient way possible.
  • Whole Life Insurance can help protect your family and also accumulate cash value that can become an important part of your retirement plan. The cash value is guaranteed to grow and is unaffected by the markets, protecting against market volatility. (Remember that using cash value to supplement retirement income will reduce the death benefit.)
• Review Your Investment Strategy: As you approach retirement, the allocation of your assets may need to change. You may need more diversification, making sure your portfolio isn’t overly weighted in company stock. You may want to re-allocate your portfolio and shift the balance to more conservative assets can help protect against the risk of market downturns. Your TFG Financial Advisors professional can help you balance the need for long-term growth with the need for income generation and stability.
• Be Smart About Social Security: You are allowed to delay taking Social Security benefits up until age 70. By waiting, you can increase your benefit amount up to 8% a year. Just because you’re eligible to collect Social Security doesn’t mean you should. Receiving Social Security before you reach “full retirement age” results in a reduced benefit for life, BUT delaying payments increases your payout permanently.

• Review Tax Liabilities: Make sure that as you take RMDs or other withdrawals from retirement accounts as needed, they are done in the most tax efficient way possible. Time Social Security advantageously, and tax-loss harvesting techniques, use capital losses to offset gains. Explore options to further minimize taxes such as charitable giving, gifting to loved ones, using trusts to minimize estate taxes, 1031 exchanges etc.

Reach Out to Us: Our wealth managers and financial advisors work with you to develop a retirement plan that makes the most of your hard-earned money.  We can help you minimize your tax liability, prepare for cost of living increases, navigate required minimum distributions (RMDs), update your estate plan, protect wealth for future generations and much more. We realize your retirement plan will need to change as your life and priorities change, so we’ll communicate often, and review it with you to adjust your portfolio and investment strategy as needed.