Thrive! (Not just survive) Retirement: 3 Things to Do

July 13, 2023

You want to be smart with your money but your goal is not to penny-pinch and end life with a bunch of money.

There is a balance: You can be smart with your money and still thrive in retirement. Instead of focusing on the latest news headline, by focusing on these three things you can control you can have greater confidence and peace in retirement.

Thrive! (Not just survive) Retirement: 3 Things to Do

Resources:

Full transcript:

SPEAKERS

Alex Okugawa & Anthony Saffer

Alex Okugawa 0:00
In today’s video, we’re going to discuss three things you should do to thrive in retirement.

Most people fall into one of two camps. Either they pinch a penny and can’t enjoy retirement, or they spend way too much money and they risk running out of money in retirement. The truth is, there’s a balancing act to all of this.

So instead of focusing on the latest news headline, which honestly can be confusing, day to day, focus on these three things which are in your control, and it can give you greater confidence and peace in retirement.

Okay, Anthony, the first step to thriving in retirement is to stick to your investment plan.

Anthony Saffer 0:39
Yeah, if you don’t have an investment plan that you stick to, you’ll always be chasing the trend. And then therefore always be behind. And when you’re diversified, which you should be, you know, it helps to spread the risk, there’s always a couple of things that are going to happen. And it’s important to know this going in. Number one is that something will always do better. And something will always do worse. And the second thing is that asset classes are different investments, they’re going to cycle they all have their day in the sun, so to speak.

Alex Okugawa 1:09
And we see this over multiple decades, right? The markets do cycle and so you’ll typically see people that go oh you know, you should have done this or you should have done that. I coulda Woulda, Shoulda, and the truth is that that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be making investment adjustments, right? You can be making adjustments and enhancements over time, as long as it’s done thoughtfully, and there’s a plan in place. But really, what you want to do is avoid jumping ship, because again, you know, the latest news headline says this, and all you know, if we don’t get into this investment, my retirement is done for come into it with a thoughtful approach. And if you haven’t met us yet, my name is Alex Okugawa and this is Anthony Saffer. We’re certified financial planners here at One Degree Advisors and we help folks make confident retirement decisions.

The second step here is you not only want to have a good investment plan, but you want to make sure that you’re on track.

Anthony Saffer 2:03
So what do we do for that is we write down what those expenses are. So the obvious one might be living expenses. But you may have like travel that you want to engage upon, maybe it’s charitable gifts or giving money to kids, maybe it’s even as something as simple as buying a car, writing these things down and then planning for them even setting projections of how are we going to get there finding out and being able to answer that question, am I going to am I going to run out of money, and then keeping an eye on the progress. When we have these priorities in front of us, there are going to be different external circumstances that come along, we can’t control that part of it. But we can control staying on top of it and working towards it. And I’m really describing here what a financial plan does, this is what we help people with all day long. And that’s what helps give them the confidence and the peace to say, Okay, I’m on track. Or if I do need to make some adjustments, it’s before we veer too far, you know, and that way, we could just make minor adjustments and get right back on track.

Alex Okugawa 3:04
The tracking piece is so important and seeing your progress because we do what do we know about markets is they will cycle and so it’s really helpful to see even in down markets, to be able to look back and say, How far have we come? How much progress have you made, that can really keep you centered on the goal, rather than what’s happened in the last six months, because in the grand scheme of your 20 to 30-year retirement, and that is miniscule. Right?

Alright, let’s go into the third step, which is to focus on trying to save taxes because honestly, taxes are likely going to be one of your biggest expenses in retirement. And it’s just something that not enough people are paying attention to.

Anthony Saffer 3:43
We’ve seen multiple tax reforms just over the last, what five years, if you go back to 2018, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and like a big one was that the standard deduction was substantially increased. And so that sounds like a good thing. And for many people it was, but it really changed tax strategy. And if someone was, for instance, giving money, charitably, you could look at their tax return. And they were giving away this money to their church or to another charity in the community. And they were getting zero tax benefits, or they were getting very little tax benefits. So this changes the tax planning. Oftentimes, what we would strategize with our clients was say, Okay, well, how about if we give as a qualified charitable distribution, which is directly from your IRA, if they’re over the age of 70 1/2 if they’re not taking those required distributions, baby stacking their charitable contributions, meaning you basically give over in two years within one and that helps to supersize your itemized deductions. These simple strategies can take advantage of the change in the tax code. They’re really important to stay on top of.

Alex Okugawa 4:55
Yeah, honestly, this is can just be put simply being a good steward. Have the assets that have been entrusted to you. Right? Are you wisely managing your assets? Are you wisely planning for your assets as well? And this can go beyond just tax planning. I mean, you know, when you have travel coming up, you know, are you finding a good deal on travel when the markets might be down and maybe you don’t need as much income, maybe you just take a little bit less out of your investments, right. None of the things that we’ve said today are earth-shattering and mind-blowing. But the truth is good financial principles can often be boring, and it’s the basics and, you know, sometimes you need to get rerouted back into these basics to have financial success over the long term.

We recently published a guide as well called Five retirement mistakes to avoid folks and grab that in the description below.

Once again, this is Alex Okugawa with One Degree Advisors and if you enjoyed today’s video, please like and subscribe for more it helps us reach more people like you so that we can help them retire with confidence.

You know, retirement is a big deal. And so we recently made a video. How do you know when I’m ready to retire: a three point checklist. Folks can watch that above.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The One Degree Blog

Not signed up yet? Get weekly financial insights right to your inbox.
Subscribers also gain access to our private monthly client memo.

This does not constitute an investment recommendation. Investing involves risk. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Consult your financial advisor for what is appropriate for you. Disclosures: https://onedegreeadvisors.com/solutions/#disclosures