By Nicholas Hamner
Investment Advisor Representative
[email protected]
Knowing how you’ll spend your days in retirement is a critical piece in putting your retirement plan together. That’s why we talk so much about it, that’s why we have you fill out a bucket list, and that’s why we want to know your interests and hobbies. We want to put together as accurate and comprehensive a plan as possible for you. But we also know one phrase no one ever wants to hear when discussing their plans. And it’s not “no”.
The phrase no one wants to hear or consider when laying out their retirement plans? “What if…”
When most folks describe their plans, the plans are intentional and point-to-point. “I’m going to retire at this age… we’re going to go here, here, and here… we’re going to take the grandkids to this place and stay in the park… then we’ll work on the house and do this, this, and this…” They don’t want a retirement plan, they want an itinerary.
But what if…
What if your boss, or a family member’s medical need, decides you are done with work years before you planned to retire?
What if your own health or your spouse’s health takes a dive and you can’t work or travel?
What if the neighborhood changes and you’re forced to move rather than fix up your forever home?
None of those “what ifs” are part of anyone’s dream retirement. And, unaccounted for or ignored, each of those “what ifs” can throw a major wrench in your retirement and damage your quality of life.
Retirement planning is more than taking your dreams and making a schedule. Comprehensive retirement planning is considering all the issues that can pop up along the way and making sure there is a solution or a plan for them. It doesn’t mean giving up on your dreams. It doesn’t mean you have to proactively take a bunch of preventative actions right from the start. It means you’ll already know well ahead of time what you’ll do if a problem arises.
Years ago, when my wife and I were getting ready to be parents, we took a childbirth class. It was far from the sitcom “practice Lamaze breathing” class I thought it would be. They gave us a stack of cards with things like “natural childbirth” on one side and “C-section” on the other. We had to lay out what we thought would be our preferred “perfect” childbirth. Then the nurse leading the class had us each flip a card—something happened in our perfect childbirth that we didn’t want. How would we cope? Then she had us flip another card, and then another.
Nobody wants to think about the “what ifs,” but knowing that you have a solution for them ahead of time makes them easier to handle if and when they happen.