Top 3 Things To Consider as You Plan Your Retirement

Thinking about retiring can be overwhelming and can make seniors feel anxious, especially if they have just started to plan their retirement. To avoid becoming completely overwhelmed and stressed out, seniors should talk to a financial planner and research to find out what to ask and think about before talking to their advisor. If you are a senior thinking about retiring, this post will give you some of those things to start thinking about.

How to Plan Your Retirement Successfully

Planning your retirement successfully starts with looking into a variety of different topics. Here are the top 3 things that you, or any other senior looking to retire soon, should think about upon meeting with a financial planner. 

1. Think About Any Debt You’re in

This is one of the major things that you should think about as you plan your retirement. If you are in a lot of debt, or any debt that you are struggling to pay back, you may want to postpone retirement until some of that debt is taken care of, or make the effort to pay back the debt now.

If you don’t take care of your debt before you retire, your retirement years will be filled with stress and anxiety as you struggle to pay your bills and are forced to live extremely frugally. Likewise, if you don’t pay off the debt now or at least start to, it’s likely that you never will and your debt will continue to acquire interest. 

Talk to your financial advisor about the kind of debt you’re in and see what he or she suggests; this will be worth your while down the road.

2. What is Your Retirement Income?

Make sure to look at what sources of income you will have during your retirement years. Are you relying on social security, investments, or a pension? Are your investments thriving and do you have a plan if something were to happen to them? Make sure to plan for the unexpected, such as a crash in the market or emergency medical bills. Often seniors don’t think enough into where their retirement income will come from if something were to happen to their main source of income.

Ask your financial advisor what your best option is when it comes to income after retirement. Your financial advisor should have multiple options and backup plans for you that will allow you to retire comfortably.

3. Decide on Your Living Situation

It’s important that you think about your current and future living arrangements as you plan your retirement. You need to think about if you plan to stay in the home that you are in now, and if/when you will relocate to a senior living facility. If you live at home now and plan to move to a nursing home or retirement community in the future, do some research now to make sure that you will be able to afford to do this later on. Additionally, if you are sure you want to relocate to a senior community, consider doing it now if you can; this will make your life easier later on. 

Likewise, if you plan to stay at home for the remainder of your life, consider what you will do if you or your significant other gets sick. Will you want to relocate then? Or will you feel more comfortable using an in-home senior care service? 

Retire With Ease

As you think about retirement, there are a lot of things to consider to ensure that you have a comfortable retirement. Not only do you need to pick an appropriate time to retire, but you also need to make sure all of your finances are in order so that you can retire with ease, knowing that you have enough money to sustain yourself. Keep these things in mind as you plan and make sure to bring these issues up to your financial advisor. 

About the Author

Kelsey Simpson enjoys writing about things that can help others. She lives in South Jersey and is the proud companion to two German Shepherds and spends her free time volunteering in dog shelters.