You buy your dream house in a great neighborhood. You work hard; you raise kids you’re proud of. You get them through college and start thinking about retirement. You know you should have been thinking about it sooner, but there was so much else to do with that paycheck. You figure you’ll put in more hours, maybe volunteer for some extra projects. Heck, you’ve got ten, fifteen years to build up that retirement fund.
One morning you wake up in a cold sweat with a strange pain running down your arm. The next thing you know, you’re on a gurney being carried out of your dream home, past the arborvitae you planted thirty years ago. Luckily, you wake up and realize it was just a bad dream.
If thinking of this scenario puts you into a cold sweat for real, here are a few suggestions to think about if you’re fifty and behind in your retirement savings.
First, invest in the best medical and disability plans you can afford. In “middle age”, protecting your earning potential is crucial to your retirement — you don’t want to face the double whammy of expensive medical bills in addition to lost wages.
Think about how to create extra streams of income. You’ve gained a lot of experience over the years; share it by writing a book, giving lectures, or teaching night courses at a local college.
Analyze your spending: Do you need to continue the same lifestyle you had when you were building your career and giving your children every advantage. The money you’ve been spending on memberships, dinners out, and the latest fashion might now be better used to bolster your savings. And back to the kids for a moment; perhaps it’s time they start paying their own phone bill and car insurance.
At One Financial Services, we get to know our clients, their stories, their dreams, and their goals. We help develop a strategy customized for your unique situation no matter how far ahead or behind you may be in planning your retirement. One Financial Services helps to turn dreams into reality.