Retirement: The Most Critical Decade Before Retirement (Don't Mess This Up)

In the last few weeks I've been trying to come up with a way to make at least some of these notes useful to the "not retired yet" people on the list. For the most part, I've been sending notes that track my retirement progress, and now that I'm retired, I find myself spending more time on post-retirement topics. But I still remember how I felt when I started sending these notes. I had questions. I was looking for guidance, best practices and advice to help get me over the retirement goal line.

One thought I had - ask the retirees on the list a series of questions about how they prepared for retirement, or how they wished they prepared, then share the answers. The challenge with this idea has been coming up with the questions. I've made a list, but I'm not sure they're the right questions? So I continue to churn on that idea.

This video provides some good pre-retirement advice. The presenter focuses on our 50's as the time to focus on retirement planning and execution. At least one commenter pointed out that there's no substitute for saving earlier and letting the magic of compounding work, so maybe when you reach your 50's it's your last chance to get your ship pointed in the right direction. This video steps through things to think about and do in your 50's, but feel free to start earlier.

Full disclosure - this guy pitches his advisor services at the end of the video. Most of them do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGRRIKIp38M

Replies

As always great videos and discussion. Spending estimates in retirement are tricky and I'm still refining that data for us. A simple starting point for anyone in the planning stage is to assume they need to replace their current base Corning salary.

The renowned three legged stool of social security, pension, and investments make up the income. You could use the tools on Empower or just make a simple spreadsheet that assumes an average return. Your simple spreadsheet will miss the Monte Carlo simulated bear market risk but at least it's a start.

If you are significantly short of this simple goal then you can think about working longer or considering a part-time job after you leave Corning to fill in the gap. Reduced spending is possible especially when all the kids are on their own. However there is always some kind of event that requires spending for which our Rosy scenario doesn't account for.

Dual income couples have more work to do in terms of answering do they really need to replace both of their full-time incomes?