The Retirement Red Zone
If you are within 10 years of when you want to retire, you are in what we call the retirement red zone and it is time to buckle down and gear up. I'm Wayne Wagner, and this is Market Vision.
Getting Serious About Investing Risk Tolerance
Number one, it is time to get serious about your risk tolerance. You have been investing for some time now, and you watched the crash in 2000, you watched the crash in 2008, and you watched the crash in 2020.
With less than 10 years left before retirement, you know you can't afford something like that to occur or it is going to move the goalpost for you. It's time to get serious about diversification and your risk tolerance within your portfolio.
Building Assets Outside of Retirement Accounts
Number two, it is time for you to build assets outside your retirement account. The single biggest mistake we see people make is thinking that building up enough money in your retirement account will set you up properly for retirement.
What it assures you is this: That you're going to be pulling more money out and paying higher and higher taxes during retirement. Why? Because all of that money gets taxed at the same rate you pay today.
Building assets outside your retirement account gives you diversification in how your assets are going to be treated for tax purposes during retirement, and it gives you options to manage your tax liability during your retirement years.
Crushing Debt and Building Your Budget
Number three, it is time to crush debt and get your budget worked out. Let's face it. While we're raising our kids, getting them through college and getting them married off, we can often lose track of quite how much debt is sitting out there.
Or more complex, we lose track of how it's structured and how we're budgeting for it in the long term. We can get into a habit of just spending what comes in the door because there are so many tyranny of the urgent moments going on.
Now, it's time to get serious about paying down debt and managing your budget so that we have a reasonable estimate of what you need from a cashflow perspective moving into retirement. The less debt you're carrying, the easier it is to accurately predict how far your money will go.
If you're within that retirement red zone, give us a call. Let's sit down and talk through where you are with regard to your plans, so that you can establish the life, lifestyle, and legacy you want during your retirement years.