Robert and Diane
Age 57 and 55
VP, Engineering in Cybersecurity, and Research Scientist at a Pharmaceutical firm
Robert and Diane expect to retire during the next five years, and because retirement is about finding the right balance between timing and lifestyle, they’ve started the financial planning process.
Robert and Diane love their jobs and make good money, so they don’t want to retire quite yet, but they do want to have a plan in place so that when they’re ready to take the next step, they are on solid financial ground.
While they plan to work for another few years, they also know that retirement can sometimes arrive suddenly when it comes to corporate mergers and reorganizations. So they want to be prepared for whatever comes their way.
That’s why they’ve identified several concerns that they’d like to address with a financial plan:
Understanding their financial picture based upon their target retirement date, and what moving that date a year or two in either direction means from a financial standpoint.
Including a travel budget that is front-loaded during the earlier, more active years of retirement.
Determining what a change in their living situation might mean for them since they’re interested in potentially downsizing and moving to a waterfront property.
Making sure they have a contingency plan in place to cover increased medical costs that might arise during the later years of retirement
Robert and Diane knew they needed a financial plan that would take into account all the aspects of their financial life so they could get a true picture of what retirement would look like.
And because a successful retirement plan means retiring only once, they recognized the need to work with a skilled financial advisor rather than relying upon prior experience as they had for other big financial decisions in the past.
By taking into consideration all of their financial assets, including investment accounts, pensions, savings, real estate holdings, and both current and future living expenses, the bigger picture came together for them.
Through the financial planning process, Robert and Diane were able to:
Identify the cost of retirement based upon their current living expenses and changes that they expected to occur in the future.
Implement an investment strategy that will produce an income stream they can live off of, that has been tailored to their personal needs.
Have a plan for all phases of retirement, including early retirement when taxable investment accounts and private medical coverage will be a primary focus, and later on once they have full access to all of their retirement account assets and Medicare coverage.
Because Robert and Diane felt confident that they understood the full scope of their financial picture, they could work with their advisor to modify their financial plan if their situation changed.
They also came to realize that retirement planning wasn’t about achieving what you want to do during retirement, but also having something to look forward to during the last several years of their career.