Podcast Episode 254: Overcoming the Hesitation to Retire

Today’s Wisdom:

You’ve saved enough money and you aren’t passionate about the job you have but you aren’t ready to pull the trigger on retirement. What’s holding you back? Today we answer that question from a listener along with two more on investing and saving.

What You’ll Learn:

It’s time to open the mailbag again on the podcast and cover a few different financial topics that people asked us about recently.

To help us navigate these questions today, we’re joined by Eric Hogarth, CFP® to help explain the thought process we use to address each of these items and what general guidance we would provide without knowing the full details for each scenario.

So the first one we want to address today came in from a couple who think they’re probably in good enough shape to retire but haven’t yet and want to know how we help someone that’s indecisive. The first question we’d ask is do you want to retire? That’s the initial thing that you need to come to terms with.

If that answer is yes, then what factors are holding you back from doing that if you feel like you have enough money saved? We’d look at health insurance costs, income planning, what you want to do in retirement, and the other key areas that often keep people from stepping away from work.

In this case, it seems like this couple is in a good position to retire but some uncertainty still lingers so the discussion would likely need to shift to their plans for retirement and how they want to spend their time. Having something to retire to is as important as anything else when you’re deciding when to make the transition.

Another question that came in this week is a result of the market losses we’ve been seeing quite a bit recently. This person is eligible for a 401(k) rollover for a portion of their money and wants to consider it to help slow those losses. To properly answer this question, we’d have to really dig into a variety of factors before providing guidance, but the biggest thing to remember is that balance is key. Just because you move your money to an IRA doesn’t mean your investments will be properly diversified, but it is usually a benefit when you have that additional flexibility within a rollover.

Today our final question comes from a man that wants to make sure his mother isn’t losing money to inflation because she has a large amount sitting in the bank. This is a conversation we’ve had a lot recently and it begins with knowing how much you need to have saved to be comfortable. If she’s going to be worried about losing money should it get invested, then maybe it’s not the best move for her to make.

But the other key question is does she need to generate growth with that money or is she okay in retirement with the money she already has? There’s no need to introduce risk if a retiree is already in a solid position so that’s the other big thing we’d want to discuss.

The best way to make sure you’re ready for retirement is to work with a financial advisor. As always, we encourage you to take advantage of our Money Map review process to get that process started.

0:20 – Mailbag question on whether you should retire or not

2:24 – Does clarifying finances free up the emotional side?

3:26 – Mailbag question on 401(k) rollover

6:23 – Mailbag question on saving and inflation