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7 Tips for Shoring Up Your Retirement Savings

If your target retirement age is less than 10 years away, it may be tempting to glide into your post-work life and hope for the best. However, without proper retirement planning, you may find yourself making a bumpy landing.

Here are seven steps to ensure that you’ll be financially prepared for retirement.

Consider Your Plans

As the reality of your post-work life draws closer, it can be helpful to envision what your days will look like. Will you be traveling around the world? Downsizing your house? Taking up a pricey new hobby? Will you volunteer or work part-time? All of these decisions will play into your retirement budget.

Most importantly, ask yourself if you have the money to pay for your retirement dreams. If you don’t, there’s still time to save. First, go over your current budget and look for items that can be cut. Do you need Netflix and Hulu? Could you cut out coffee runs and eating out? Any money you save can be invested in your retirement savings.

If your dreams outsize your financial reality, it may be time to reconsider what retirement will look like. Steps such as moving into a more affordable home or working a 10-hour-a-week job could positively impact your retirement budget. A downsized retirement budget, however, doesn’t mean a downsized retirement. Spending more time with grandchildren can be more rewarding than an expensive vacation to Europe.

Get a Handle on What You Have

This step can be intimidating, especially if you haven’t been on top of retirement savings. However, you need to face the truth to best prepare for the future. You need to know how much you’ve saved and how much you’ll likely receive in Social Security and pension payments so that you can calculate a reasonable retirement budget. If your retirement savings are in several different accounts, consolidating them could provide a better idea of how much savings you have.

A financial planner can help sort through your financial situation and build a strategy for retirement savings to maximize the time you have left to save. With an accurate assessment of what you’ve saved, you also can make decisions on whether you need to work more to increase income or cut back on spending to boost your savings.

Pack Your Retirement Savings Accounts

This is the time to increase your contributions to your retirement account to the maximum allowable, including making catch-up contributions permitted under IRS rules (the agency gives contributors age 50 and older extra time each year to contribute). Also, check with your employer about whether the company matches employees’ retirement account contributions.

Get a Plan

It’s easy to put off retirement savings and justifying spending what could be potential contributions to other items. However, it’s never too late to map out a retirement plan—even if retirement is just a few years away. A financial professional can help you maximize your savings, create a strategy, and chose the most advantageous options for claiming your employee pension or Social Security when the time comes.

Pay Down Debt

Retirement budgeting will be much easier with less debt, and it’s wise to pay off as many loans and outstanding balances as possible while you’re employed. That can mean making extra mortgage payments, paying off credit cards quickly, and limiting new debt. One wise move is to pay cash for larger purchases to avoid additional credit card spending. The overall benefit? Less of your retirement income will go toward debt interest payments.

Choose your location

Your retirement budget will largely depend on where you choose to live. Downsizing to a smaller house in a more affordable area could drop your mortgage payment. On the flip side, you’ll also need to consider your budget if you move to a more expensive house or location to be near grandchildren, which can increase your retirement budget.

Factor in Medical Costs

While it’s impossible to predict the state of our personal health at retirement age, it’s wise to consider how to cover potential increased medical costs without decimating your retirement savings. One option is to maximize your contributions to your health savings account now—if you don’t spend the money, it will grow tax free and be available to spend in your retirement.

Another option is to buy long-term care insurance, which will pay for home health aides and, if needed, assisted living facilities, which aren’t covered by Medicare. The earlier you buy the insurance, the lower the premiums will be. If you wait to buy, you’ll risk rejection from insurers if you are in poor health.

Finally, you can protect your retirement savings by investing in additional health insurance. When you turn 65, Medicare will pay for most of your routine health bills, but you’ll need supplemental coverage to fund non-routine medical issues.

The post 7 Tips for Shoring Up Your Retirement Savings appeared first on GoldStone Financial Group.


Investment Advisory Services offered through Goldstone Financial Group, LLC (GFG), an SEC Registered Investment Advisor, 18W140 Butterfield Rd., 16th Floor, Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181. Tel. 630-620-9300. Website: www.goldstonefinancialgroup.com

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