The question we’re answering today is: “what is the ‘secret sauce’ to making sure your money lasts in retirement?”

Start with a Dream

Although there are a lot of different pieces to this, there are three main points to consider. First, start by writing and dreaming. Write down your dream retirement without any regard to how much money you’ve saved. Forget about money for just a minute; write down your dream retirement and be crystal clear on what you want that retirement to look like.

Talk with a Financial Advisor

Second, you will want to sit down with a fiduciary financial advisor and figure out if you can meet those goals based on what you’ve saved and what your guaranteed sources of income are, like Social Security and pension. Figure out if you can meet that dream and what amount of money you’ll need to be coming in each month. The answer is going to be very simply yes or no. Either you can’t spend that much money because you don’t have enough, or you do have enough.

Once you get that answer, then your financial advisor will be able to sit down with you and figure out where to make adjustments in that plan. The key is to get that financial plan built as early as possible. You want it to show how much income you can spend because once you get clear at the beginning of retirement, you won’t have to worry about this going into the future. The plan will just have to be adjusted from time to time.

Be Flexible with Your Planning

That’s really the third piece of the “secret sauce” – be willing to adjust the plan occasionally. You really need to have a financial advisor that is a partner and a team member that’s with you rowing that boat in the same direction and that knows you and your partner really well.

So, that’s the recipe to the “secret sauce.” It’s not that complicated; dream and write, and find out if what you’ve saved can meet those dreams. Use an expert to do this and to partner with, so that when you’re 60 and you design this plan, it’ll take you all the way through 80 or 85 when it might be more difficult to make financial decisions.