Those final years leading up to retirement can be an incredibly exciting time but they can also stir up a little nervous energy. Have you done everything you need to? What should you be thinking about right now? In our latest podcast, we talked with Eric Hogarth, CFP® about the five years before retirement and what you need to do during that time.

This question gets asked all the time, particularly by people who have done a good job saving but haven’t necessarily put a plan together. They’ve just been stuffing money into a bucket with the hope that the bucket gets full enough over time and they can eventually retire.

So let’s talk about the steps you need to be taking if you’re in a similar position. First question that needs to be answered is whether you want to retire. Before you even have the conversation about being ready, you need to first determine whether you want to be done right now. Most people would say yes, but some people want to keep working in some capacity or at least figure out how they want to spend their time before they walk away from work.

After that is the question of whether you can retire. This is a broad-reaching question but one where we will run through a checklist of items like can you afford to quit, can you afford to stay retired, expenses, income, and much more. This is the planning process and getting a grasp on these things will help you determine whether you can retire when you want to.

We like to tell people, “Yes, you can retire,” but we also have to be honest. Two common reasons people aren’t ready when they didn’t save enough and they want to travel significantly in retirement and need more to do that. Different people want different things and that will help us determine how much you need to have saved to live your preferred lifestyle.  

Getting ahead of these things by planning in advance can help ensure you’re ready to retire when the time comes. Be disciplined and focused in the years leading up to retirement and it can have a long-lasting impact.

Here’s some of what we discuss in this episode:

• The small steps we take with a client who is preparing for that retirement day.

• Walking yourself through how much you plan to spend in retirement.

• Where’s the best place for you to live if your health care goes up?

• The common reasons we have to tell people they aren’t quite ready to retire.